Peculiar failures in cron driven backup

Follow-up: I scheduled another one-off backup through the server cron daemon today. It completed successfully, and all files were uploaded to Google Drive.

I would still like some information on why the earlier backup did not successfully upload all files, since if it happened once, it could happen again.

The backup retention limit is still not being obeyed. I especially need to know how to fix this.

Thanks…

JGB

The backup retention limit is still not being obeyed. I especially need to know how to fix this.

As I read the log, it is. Can you post a screenshot of your ‘existing backups’ tab, *after* a backup completes, together with a link to the log file for the just-completed backup, please, so that I can double check?

David

David:

Thanks for looking into this. I waited until this morning’s scheduled backup completed. If I read the log correctly, the sequence of events today was:

1) The backup zips were created.
2) The first few uploads to Google Drive were successful.
3) Then, a number of upload attempts failed.
4) The backup program proceeded to delete older backup sets.
5) A second attempt was made to upload the files that failed earlier; this attempt was successful.

There are now 9 backup sets listed. This is just one more than the retention limit of 8. So this is an improvement, at least.

Can we tell why the retention limit isn’t being met? And can we tell why the uploads to Google Drive failed the first time?

Log file: https://pastebin.com/Wg2GRUxh

Screenshot of current backups list: https://imgur.com/a/rLhex

Thanks!

JGB

David:

UpdraftPlus completed another backup (triggered by the system cron job) last Sunday morning. Overall it seemed to go well.

However…

The log file does show one error while uploading one of the backup files:

16663.798 (8) ERROR: Google Drive upload error (Google_Service_Exception): Error calling PUT https://www.googleapis.com/upload/drive/v2/files?uploadType=resumable&upload_id=AEnB2Ups9g4IMnr6Mihx9Y7AQWourvMpSGV66z2jLfwMHe5XWMDwQeuYz_a9T7uzQr-e86llEF4CBhBLMvAigv3fex9zGXQdFA: (503) (line: 110, file: /home/enjoypro/public_html/wp-content/plugins/updraftplus/includes/Google/Http/REST.php)

Full log file: https://pastebin.com/A6L0y2bW

An interesting development is that Google Drive lists duplicate files for uploads9 through uploads11.

Screenshot of Google Drive listing: https://i.imgur.com/xhxdac1.png

There are still nine backups listed in the UpdraftPlus dashboard, one more than the retention limit of 8.

Screenshot of UpdraftPlus dashboard listing: https://i.imgur.com/ubR6iYN.png

So, questions:

1) Do we now have any idea why the retention limit is not being met?

2) Should I just manually delete the oldest backup (using the UpdraftPlus dashboard), and wait to see if there are just 8 backups after the next scheduled backup completes?

3) Should I be concerned about the duplicate uploads from last Sunday? Should I worry that one or both of each duplicate pair might be corrupt?

Thanks again…

JGB

Hi,

Apologies for the delay.

1) There are 9 backup sets in total because two of them are partial backups. The database and file backups are counted separately for the purpose of pruning. As such, you have 8 ‘database’ backups (including the Jan 31st backup), and 8 ‘file’ backups (including the Jan 30th)

2) To re-synchronise the two backup types, delete any backups that do not contain all sections of the site.

3) The Google error is occurring because the server is triggering two backup processes simultaneously late in the backup, but the extra process is not being terminated. As such, it is likely that one or both of the doubled backup files are corrupted.

The duplication issue usually indicated that the server is currently overloaded. I would recommend changing the time of day that the backup is taken, and see if the issue persists.