Monday 8 February 2010

Backup history

Something that was left out of the help: Bonkey records all the details of previous backups (and backup attempts) for each backup group. Open the backup group and double click on any of the entries in the history table for the following information:

  • a list of the files included in the backup
  • the size of the backup and of each folder and file within it
  • whether they were transferred or skipped
  • whether the transfer was successful
  • detailed error messages if a transfer was unsuccessful

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm having a problem and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm backing up to a group that has a schedule set to 60 weeks Any Time. I clicked the Run Now button to do a complete backup, using encryption and compression. This part works perfectly.

All the files were backed up into the S3 target because I can see the files when I use Amazon's S3fm. The problem is that Bonkey's location tree only shows me a handful of the 621 files that were backed up. I've tried refreshing the target and rebooting my computer to no avail. What did I do wrong? During the backup I did a refresh of the S3 location to see if things were being backed up. Did that mess up bonkey?

Thank you for any help or insight into why the location tree is only showing a handful of the files that were backed up.

bonkey said...

Refreshing the S3 tree should do the job. Can you figure out which files aren't being shown in Bonkey? Having some filenames would help. Email thebackupmonkey at gmail with details and I'll try and help out.

Anonymous said...

Hi Bonkey,

Thank you for your prompt reply and your hard work. I'm the anonymous commenter above.

To save you time, I ran some tests to see what conditions are causing the problem with files/folders not showing up in the bonkey tree when they are in S3.

I noticed one file caused an S3 error in the log and that seemed to be where bonkey stops showing the files/folders. Seems to be that once bonkey encounters a bad S3 file or S3 gives bonkey an error reading a file it causes bonkey to stop showing the rest of the tree.

I'll do better testing this weekend and write down all errors found in the log and report back.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
ALP

bonkey said...

Great, look forward to the full report! It's very helpful to get this kind of feedback.

Humdrum Hero said...

Hi. I'm liking Bonkey. One thing I would like to see in the Backup History is how long the backup actually took. I just find that I'm often curious about that.

Also, I have a relatively similar problem to the one that the Anonymous commenter here has. I have backed up quite a few files using Bonkey, but on the S3 tree in Bonkey, none of the files show up; it appears empty. Yet, I know the files are in fact on my S3 account because when I use S3 Fox I can see all the files. I have tried refreshing the S3 account (in Bonkey) numerous times and it doesn't work.

But for automatic backups, this is great! I can live with the kinks.

bonkey said...

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. There's obviously a bug there, I'll try and work it out shortly. Any information you can give about what type of files don't show up would be helpful.

Humdrum Hero said...

It seems to be really random as far as what files are showing up on Bonkey's S3 tree. I have four backup groups currently. The files from only one of those backup groups shows up on the S3 tree. They are .doc and .pdf, mostly, but there are some pictures too. I tried deleting those files and backing them up again, hoping that might somehow refreshing things, but it didn't. It's just sort of strange, but Bonkey is working quite flawlessly with auto-syncing... and so long as I use S3 Fox, I can see what is actually on my account.
Thanks, I really like this program.

bonkey said...

Hmmm, that's a little strange. I haven't been able to reproduce it, and I have no inkling of what could cause it.

Do the files that aren't showing up have anything in common in respect of their names (eg all have spaces in them, all have dashes in them) or locations (eg at least 4 folders deep)? If you can identify something like that, I'll have a much better chance of reproducing the problem.

Thanks!

Unknown said...

I wasn't quite sure where to comment so I thought I'd try here. Forgive me if I'm in the wrong place. I had set up bonkey on my mac and created a backup group to backup to an ftp location. This worked perfectly on my machine. I then went to set up bonkey the same way on a friend's mac pro with scheduled backups to that very same ftp server. The problem is now, no matter what I've tried on my friend's machine, every time I try to run backup, it freezes while trying to connect to the ftp server. The entire bonkey program freezes and I am forced to force quit.

bonkey said...

That's really strange, Ryan. I can only suggest removing Bonkey and reinstalling it. I'm presently reworking the FTP code - if you ping me at thebackupmonkey at gmail, I can send you a link to a new version that you can try out.

Humdrum Hero said...

Okay, sorry it took me a while to get back to you about this.

I don't know if this info will help, but here it is: In Bonkey, on the S3 tree, all that shows up are the files that I have set to sync daily. And even within that folder, there is one folder, entitled "work" that does not show up.

The other files and folders that are set to sync at week and month increments do not show up on the tree.

None of the files are very deep, all coming from under the "my documents" folder.

I am thinking about uninstalling and reinstalling to see if this will fix it. What do you think?

bonkey said...

Thanks for the details. I'm on the road at the moment, so I won't be able to take a look at this until later next week. I'll get back to you if I can work out a solution.

Anonymous said...

what is the actual version number of bonkey? why is it not mentioned in the about windows? a great tool by the way.. best regards

bonkey said...

You know, I've really lost track. 3.2 or so I would guess. Monkeys aren't renowned for version management. Let's say 3.2, and I'll try and track it better from now on.

helicon9 said...

Hi,
Sorry I'm not sure where to post but I have a weird problem with Bonkey.
I have a backed up a large number of files, and my backup is set to do Modfied files only and to synchronise.
It all works fine except 1 folder of MP3's that Bonkey backs up, then it deletes the files at the end of the backup when it synchronises.
The files are still on the source.

I'm on Windows XP and am backing up from a network hard drive to a local dive.
I tried switching off synchronisation so it would put the files there (which of course worked), but as soon as I check synchronise again it deletes the same folder of MP3's!
Thanks for any help you can give me on this.
James

bonkey said...

That's a little odd. Is the folder deleted, or the files? What's the name of the folder? If you turn synchronise off, are the filenames (and folder name) of the backup copies identical to those of the original? You can email me at thebackupmonkey at gmail if you like.

Unknown said...

Hello,

Iam using Mac OS X 10.6.3 and would try Bonkey for Mac.

The Service couldnt be installed, because an Java Error. See http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/3004/bonkey.png

Any ideas?

bonkey said...

Two suggestions: either an old version of Java, which you should update (this seems unlikely on OS X 10.6 though); or for some reason the install script is pointing to the wrong location. For the latter, check the plist file in ~/Library/LaunchAgents and make sure the path to Bonkey is correct.

Rich said...

I was trying to backup files from one network share to another on with bonkey installed on a Server 2003 machine. It was not able to read the network share source, unless I was logged in to the server running Bonkey. It runs fun if I am logged in to the server with Bonkey. Any ideas on this?

bonkey said...

Hi Rich - no ideas I'm afraid. Windows networks and ACLs are fearsome and foreign lands.