CaseID: #07582768 - Repository rescan - meaning of "skipped" items and appearance of old backups

[HrvojeR]

I'm pretty new and without experience with VBR.
Yesterday I upgrade my community edition from 12.1 to 12.3.
After successful upgrade I noticed that my main SMB backup repository is in state "unavailable". I applied rescan and I noticed that there was some "skipped" items. I didn't understand it but I was happy because my repo looked healthy (no mark "unavailable any more and I can browse it through Files).

But when I went to "Home -> Backups" and expand jobs I saw some old backups (from 2024) which certainly no longer exist. I verified this (that they are not existent) by looking at the files in my Files -> File Shares repository. Only last backup exists in repository, exactly as my backup job defines.

I deleted "phantom" old backups. While deleting there were some successful deletions and some deletions with warning, but without explanation.
After that I try repository rescan again. I had "skipped" items again and old backups appeared again.

I deleted old backups again but I am pretty sure that they will appear again if I rescan my repository.

Why is this happening and what can I do to make VBR forget my old backups forever?

[david.domask]

Hi HrvojeR, welcome to the forums.

Thank you for the details and for sharing the case number, and sorry to hear about the troubles.

The "Skipped" part during rescan means that a backup was detected, but not processed (added to Veeam/updated in Veeam), and typically a review of the logs is required to understand why, but it's not necessarily indicative of an issue.

Just to confirm, we're talking about image level backups (VMs or physical machines) or backups of File Shares/Object Storage? If it's image level, do you perhaps have left-over VBM files on the repository that do not have corresponding backup files? (VBK/VIB?) The rescan operation looks for VBM files, which are the metadata for the backups, and imports that into Veeam.

As it's Community (Free) edition, support is offered on a "best-effort" basis, so if you do have a license with an active Support contract, please do apply it to your installation and upload logs to the case for Support to review and to change it to a paid support case.

[HrvojeR]

Hi David, thank you very much for really quick response.

Yes, we are talking about image level backups (VMs). Also, when it happened (multiple "phantom" backups visible at Home -> Backups after repo rescan) I went to Files -> File Shares -> "my share" -> and checked the contents of every folder containing backup. Every folder have a single VBM file. If I right click on it and choose Open, after supplying required credentials I am getting expected one/single/last backup as I defined in backup job. Also I have single VBK file inside each folder.

Example of my VBM check:


As you can see, it shows one backup (no old backups). After repo rescan in Home -> Backups - every backup job, I had like ten backups with 1 restore points dated in 2024 (when you expand job). I can confirm that those backups existed but they but no longer exist thanks to the intended definition of retention (1 restore point only).

[HrvojeR]

I did some research and found https://www.veeam.com/kb4230, which showed very similar symptoms. I wrote David in private message with my research and it was agreed this could be the cause, which indeed it was!