Terminal Server - Offline backup not triggered on drive connect

[csm3prt]

I've recently installed BESR 8.5 on a Server 2003 Terminal Server and disabled VProTray as described in document  293226. This appears to prevent the VProTray service from running - it does not simply hide the icon.

Offline backup is active and If the USB drive is connected while the backup takes place, the Offline copy is created OK. But if the backup is completed without the Offline USB drive connected, subsequent reconnection of the drive does not trigger a copy.

Is this because VProTray is disabled, in which case is there a solution?

Maybe something else...?

[criley]

Sorry - just found this post (I have just replied to your other post that was tagged onto another thread).

Have you re-enabled VProTray to see if this changes anything?

If you are not currently using 8.5.5 you should update via LiveUpdate (reboot is required) and then try it again to see if this helps.

[csm3prt]

Thanks for the response Chris.

We are already on the latest version - just ran LIveUpdate to be certain

>>Have you re-enabled VProTray to see if this changes anything?

Unfortunately that's awkward in a WindowsTerminal Server.   VProTray starts an instance of its service for each logging-on user and causes system lockouts when a user logs off. (This is a 24x7  live server with 50-ish users). If necessary, we could schedule a weekend maintenance session.

But I wonder what VProTray actually does?

Surely more than a tray icon with context menu. I see there is another document that describes how to hide the icon but leave the process running - though I expect this is still not workable with Windows TS.

If we can't fix this it's not the end of the World, but it would make backup management easier.

//

[criley]

Have you checked in Help--About to confirm that you are on 8.5.5?

Has the offsite copy every worked when disconnecting/reconnecting the external disk?

[csm3prt]

Yes, I had checked.  Help About > 8.5.5.33937

>>Has the offsite copy every worked when disconnecting/reconnecting the external disk?

No, this is a new installation, 10 days ago. The 'detect reconnect' has never worked and we've tried everything we can think of. Apart from that, everything else is fine, including the Offline copy when the drive is already connected at the time of backup.

//

[criley]

I'm going to disable VProTray on my server and see if this causes my offsite copy to fail. I'll post back with the results.

[criley]

OK, I tested this with VProTray disabled and, as I suspected, the offsite copy still worked when I reconnected my external disk.

So, it would appear to be a problem within your environment. What disk are you using for the offsite copy? Do you have any other removable disks that you could test with?

[csm3prt]

Thanks very much for that. Please could you confirm that you stopped the VProTray service?

Assuming that's the case, you've eliminated VProTray and that's helpful.

The removable drive is a Seagate 'FreeAgent' 1TB USB. I'll investigate further and try some different configurations. Will let you know the outcome.

Regards
Paul T.

[criley]

Any updates on this?

[csm3prt]

Was out of the office last week. Will be testing this week.

[csm3prt]

Just spent several hours testing different configurations with/without VproTray and with the option "[X] Prompt to start a copy when an external Offsite Copy drive is attached" checked and unchecked. Also to different offline-copy-drive shares  on the network. Also a fresh install on a separate server, starting with VProTray enabled.

Whatever we try, attaching the offline drive does not start the copy. We left it sat fo about 30 minutes and assume it would normally start within this time.
As soon as we run a backup with the offlining drive attached, all of the queued offline backups are copied correctly.

A couple of points come to mind...

- How long does it usually take BESR to detect that the offline copy drive has been connected? Does BESR poll the drive share periodically, to check the connection?

- What is the purpose of 'Prompt me to start a copy when an external Offsite Copy drive is attached"  and what is the effect of checking or unchecking the option, with regard to a) Offline Drive connected at time of backup and b) Offline drive disconnected at time of backup.
We have found this confusing and expanations in the manual are vague. VProTray seems to prompt regardless of the setting.

Beginning to wonder if we missed something fundamental, but what...?

[criley]

I think you have probably reached the point where you need to open up a case with Tech Support so that we can look at this in more detail.

Just one thing though - when you reconnect the USB drive, does BESR detect this? You should see that BESR will show 'scanning disks' in the bottom left corner of the GUI shortly after reconnecting the drive.

[csm3prt]

OK - thanks for that. We'll just a couple more ideas and check the USB detection.