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File backups taking extremely long on one computer

E_Dressel
Level 3

I already have had a support case and that did not resolve the problem, I wasn't the person talking with the support person so I don't really know what happened, but the problem is not fixed. Anyway, here's what I just did, and I do not understand at all why the results are what they are:

-Made a completely new folder with random files and folders to be backup up, total size ~166MB.

-On my computer (A), I manually (windows copy and paste) copied this folder onto the backup location (NAS with lots of spare room) and it completed in less than a minute.

-Still on A, I made a new backup to backup just that folder to the NAS and after taking a while to actually start backing up (a minute or two) it completed in less than a minute.

-On the problem computer (B) I used the exact same folder and copied it manually to the NAS and it completed in less than a minute.

-On B I created a backup just to backup that folder to the NAS and when I start.... it does nothing. I've been waiting 20 minutes and it says it's at 5% and that it's "Creating a file backup" or something similar.

 

Now, for all the above tests, the last results are already confusing. However, during all them I was running a little network meter to see how much bandwidth they used. On A, the results were exactly as expected, about 170MB uploaded during the backup. On B, even though the progress is not increasing, it constantly uploading ~0.5MB per second and downloading ~0.25MB per second. I find this very odd and am at a loss as of why this is traffic is being used and what it's being used for.

Some specs and more info: both computers running Windows 7 64bit Premium (both at least quad core with plenty of RAM and space), NAS is a D-Link DNS 323 with a 2TB hard drive, both backups were directed to completely empty folder on the NAS, on B simply loading the Symantec system recovery window takes around ten minutes, lastly, I'm beginning to really dislike Symantec products.

Any ideas on why this is happening? If I need to provide any more information, or if you want me to try testing something a different way just say the word.

9 REPLIES 9

E_Dressel
Level 3

I found out was eating up the traffic with nothing happening. I had closed all other programs, except the Symantec window itself. I have no idea why it needs to use so much just sitting there. And that still doesn't explain why these backups takes so long.

My hypothesis is that the database where symantec keeps track of all the files is either way too full or full of errors some how.

E_Dressel
Level 3

I am almost completely sure this is some sort of internal database error. The backup completed on the slow computer (it actually went fast, only a little more than a minute) after taking about an hour to actually start moving files.

I then decided to test a little more so I deleted the backup files manually from the NAS. Then I ran the backup again, after waiting for an hour or so for it scan its convoluted database it said it had completed the backup and that nothing was done because all the files were the same. At our business we've been manually deleting files for quite a while (we've had a lot of trouble with our backup solution working seamlessly) and I'm guessing all those are stuck in the symantec database.

If there was a way to purge all current file/folder backups and start from scratch, that would probably solve this problem.

Markus_Koestler
Moderator
Moderator
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Aa far as I remember you just need to delete all *.fbf files, these are the backup files.

E_Dressel
Level 3

This doesn't seem to be the case, unless Symantec is scanning files .fbf files that aren't in the directory it's supposed to be backing up to.

I just deleted all the file backups for the slow and computer and tried running simple 2gb file backup and it quickly got to 5% and then just hung there half an hour without progressing at all. There was no network traffic either. It just said "Scanning" which I can't see taking half an hour just for 2gbs.

Markus_Koestler
Moderator
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The fbf files contain the already backuped files, sorry if i got you wrong.

Markus_Koestler
Moderator
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Have you sorted out the issue yet ?

E_Dressel
Level 3

No we are still having the same problem.

I don't think I was quite clear in my last post as to what I did. I said I deleted all the file backups, but by that I meant I manually deleted every *.fbf file in the directory that was being backed up to (not the file backup items inside of symantics gui that get run to backup files).

So, I just did a little more testing on my functional computer (the one where backup work fine) and these results should make the issue on the computer with problems clearer provided anyone knows how symantec software works internally:

I deleted an entire directory that included all *.fbf files (that was two weeks ago) for a file backup. Today I tried running the file backup that was assigned to backup up to that deleted directory. It told me that directory did not exist and gave me an option to create the folder which I did (I was going through the settings of the backup). When I actually started the backup it sat there scanning for two minutes or so, and then jumped to 100% and told me that none of the files had changed. I know none of the files have changed, but it didn't even check to see if the backup  *.fbf files were still intact. It thinks it has an entire set of backup files that it doesn't.

The computer with slow/nonexistant backups was initially setup to do a ton more backups than the small little tests I'm doing now. I think its symantec backup software has a horribly convulted database with lots of references to .fbf files that no longer exist. All I want to do is find a way to purge all of that, and start fresh. Just the deleting the.fbf files is not doing anything to help and for all I know it could be making the problem worse.

Markus_Koestler
Moderator
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Hm, have a look at %allusersprofile%\Application Data\Symantec\Symantec System Recovery\History\FileFolder.ffh.

gilbert08
Level 5
Partner Accredited

Is you media server has other application installed?