Unable to make a back-up

Hi @theycallmesuus I’m sorry to hear backups are not working on one of your sites, and we’re more than happy to help. What we need is a copy of the backup log file for further review. If you go to Total Upkeep > Tools > Logs, you’ll find the backup logs. I created a video here that walks you through this too – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHkBe07ma_k – the video is less than 2 minutes long

Hi @bwmarkle

Here’s a copy of the log file:

[2020-09-29 11:59:16 UTC] PHP Version: 7.2.33
[2020-09-29 11:59:16 UTC] WordPress Version: 5.4.2
[2020-09-29 11:59:16 UTC] Total Upkeep version: 1.14.5
[2020-09-29 11:59:16 UTC] Backup process initialized.
[2020-09-29 11:59:17 UTC] Last error: Array
(
[type] => 8
[message] => Undefined variable: output
[file] => /var/www/vhosts/91/334766/webspace/httpdocs/foreverfans.nl/wp-content/plugins/boldgrid-backup/admin/class-boldgrid-backup-admin-cli.php
[line] => 240
)

[2020-09-29 11:59:17 UTC] ——————————————————————————–
[2020-09-29 11:59:17 UTC] Starting dump of database…
[2020-09-29 11:59:17 UTC] Memory usage – limit / current / peak memory usage: 1024M / 82715392 (78,88 MB) / 83399400 (80 MB)
[2020-09-29 11:59:17 UTC] Database info: Array
(
[wp_actionscheduler_actions] => 2
[wp_actionscheduler_claims] => 0
[wp_actionscheduler_groups] => 2
[wp_actionscheduler_logs] => 6
[wp_commentmeta] => 0
[wp_comments] => 0
[wp_links] => 0
[wp_options] => 414
[wp_postmeta] => 230
[wp_posts] => 77
[wp_revslider_css] => 109
[wp_revslider_css_bkp] => 47
[wp_revslider_layer_animations] => 0
[wp_revslider_layer_animations_bkp] => 0
[wp_revslider_navigations] => 6
[wp_revslider_navigations_bkp] => 0
[wp_revslider_sliders] => 1
[wp_revslider_sliders_bkp] => 0
[wp_revslider_slides] => 1
[wp_revslider_slides_bkp] => 0
[wp_revslider_static_slides] => 1
[wp_revslider_static_slides_bkp] => 0
[wp_term_relationships] => 4
[wp_term_taxonomy] => 41
[wp_termmeta] => 6
[wp_terms] => 41
[wp_usermeta] => 128
[wp_users] => 3
[wp_wc_admin_note_actions] => 14
[wp_wc_admin_notes] => 12
[wp_wc_category_lookup] => 1
[wp_wc_customer_lookup] => 0
[wp_wc_download_log] => 0
[wp_wc_order_coupon_lookup] => 0
[wp_wc_order_product_lookup] => 0
[wp_wc_order_stats] => 0
[wp_wc_order_tax_lookup] => 0
[wp_wc_product_meta_lookup] => 0
[wp_wc_reserved_stock] => 0
[wp_wc_tax_rate_classes] => 4
[wp_wc_webhooks] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_api_keys] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_attribute_taxonomies] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_downloadable_product_permissions] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_log] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_order_itemmeta] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_order_items] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_payment_tokenmeta] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_payment_tokens] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_sessions] => 1
[wp_woocommerce_shipping_zone_locations] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_shipping_zone_methods] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_shipping_zones] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_tax_rate_locations] => 0
[wp_woocommerce_tax_rates] => 0
)

[2020-09-29 11:59:17 UTC] Dump of database complete! $status = 1
[2020-09-29 11:59:17 UTC] Memory usage – limit / current / peak memory usage: 1024M / 82706584 (78,88 MB) / 87326368 (83 MB)
[2020-09-29 11:59:17 UTC] ——————————————————————————–
[2020-09-29 11:59:21 UTC] Database dump file added to file list: /var/www/vhosts/91/334766/webspace/httpdocs/foreverfans.nl/boldgrid_backup/db348137_hnwp651655.20200929-115917.sql / 2125520 (2,03 MB)
[2020-09-29 11:59:21 UTC] Starting archiving of files. Chosen compressor: php_zip
[2020-09-29 11:59:21 UTC] Memory usage – limit / current / peak memory usage: 1024M / 102192728 (97,46 MB) / 106796264 (102 MB)
[2020-09-29 11:59:40 UTC] Total files / size archived: 28112 / 1077923653 (1,00 GB)
[2020-09-29 11:59:41 UTC] Starting to close the zip file.
[2020-09-29 11:59:41 UTC] Memory usage – limit / current / peak memory usage: 1024M / 102405072 (97,66 MB) / 106796264 (102 MB)

Hi @theycallmesuus,

[2020-09-29 11:59:41 UTC] Starting to close the zip file.
[2020-09-29 11:59:41 UTC] Memory usage – limit / current / peak memory usage: 1024M / 102405072 (97,66 MB) / 106796264 (102 MB)

The last lines of the log show that the backup file was being written, and then no other logs after that. This usually means that something on your server killed the backup process.

—

[2020-09-29 11:59:21 UTC] Starting archiving of files. Chosen compressor: php_zip

I can see that you’re using php_zip as your compressor. Are you on a Linux server? If so, can you please try using System Zip instead? Here’s a video showing you how to do that – it starts 90 seconds into the video (which I’ve linked you to) https://youtu.be/yVeTQX7SKqQ?t=90

—

I use the Upkeep Total backup plugin at several WordPress websites, but on one of my sites i can’t make a backup.

Are all your sites on the same server? Or are you using different servers?

If the system zip doesn’t help, I recommend contacting your hosting provider and asking them the following:

Hi. I host my WordPress website with you. I am using Total Upkeep to backup my website, however the backup is failing halfway through – and it is not generating any errors. That last failure occurred around 2020-09-29 11:59:41 UTC. I was hoping you could help me with the following questions: (1) Are you able to tell if there were any processes killed on my account during that time? The backup plugin, Total Upkeep, listens and logs when processes are killed, except the kill -9, which it cannot. (2) Are there any timeouts on the server that would cause scripts to be killed? For example, some servers have an fcgid IO Timeout that doesn’t allow processes to go past 2 minutes. Thanks for your help!

Thanks,
– Brad

Hi Brad,

Thank you for your quick response!

I tried to switch to System Zip but i didn’t see this option in the dropdown menu.

I host my other sites at another server. I contacted the hosting company and they suggested to upload a .user.ini file with the following rule:
max_execution_time =”900″

I tried this, but when i try to make a back-up it still gets stuck at ‘saving archive to disk’. The hosting company told me to download the log files and send these to you. You can view them at the following link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EeggwXVGzCCMHLh49_vn8jhUdrmJLlHo?usp=sharing

Thanks @theycallmesuus – I just requested access

Hi @bwmarkle, i gave you access to the files ??

Hi @theycallmesuus,

From what I can tell by the logs, you manually triggered the backup and left the page open for quite a while looking at the “in progress bar” to see if it would finish.

These are access logs, but I don’t think they’re going to tell us if your server actually killed the php process that was doing the backup.

Is your web host able to help out with the questions I posted above? If you call / email your hosting company for example and ask them the questions above, generally the first person you speak won’t be able to answer them, but one of their system admins will.

—

Again, the main problem is that the site is rather large and your server doesn’t appear to let the backup process finish (we’ve seen this quite a bit). For testing purposes, are you able to run a “Sanity Check” backup and provide us with the logs? I created a video for doing this, you can watch it here – https://youtu.be/fvC2oadm-8g – It’s basically running a backup of only *.txt files to ensure the backup completes.

Thanks,
– Brad

Hi @theycallmesuus – I just wanted to touch base and ask how everything’s going with the backup? Any update by chance?

Since we haven’t heard back after a week, I’m going to go ahead and mark this issue as resolved. Please let us know if you’re still having trouble @theycallmesuus – we’ll be happy to help.