Force reverse incremental after failed active full

[pwinterbourne]

Case ID: 00488111

Hi,

We kicked off an active full backup and it failed due to storage space. We started it on the Friday with the intention that it would run over the weekend but it ran out of space on the Saturday (it is quite a big backup about 3TB)

So here we are on Monday and now I want to go back to doing a reverse incremental but somewhere in Veeam it thinks thjat the next abackup should be an active ful backup.

Does anyone know how to force Veeam back to do a reverse incremental?

I am presuming its a flag somewhere in the vbm file...

thanks

Paul

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Paul,

What is the backup mode you were using previously? Was it also a reversed incremental backup? In order to continue running reversed incremental backup after the failed full backup, you should map your backup job to a previous VBK file.

Hope it helps!

[pwinterbourne]

thanks Vitaly,

I am not sure how to map the backup!

I will give it a crack and see what happens...

[Vitaliy S.]

Here is an instruction on how to do that - http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/70/v ... ge_vm.html

[pwinterbourne]

Hi Vitaly,

I mapped the backup again by editing the job and then clicking on the storage section and clicking map backup. It only let me choose the actual backup and when I ran the backup again it was still attempting the active full. In answer to your other question, yes it is a reverse incremental I was using previously.

When the job runs it creates a second VBK file so I am assuming that it is doing an active full rather than a reverse incremental.

Am I not mapping the back up correctly or something? Its just like there is a flag somewhere in the metadata for the backup job that is set to do an active full and needs clearing

thanks,

Paul

[Vitaliy S.]

Paul,

In this case can you please try to follow this procedure:

1. Click on the backup and select "remove from backup" option
2. Then delete the corrupted/not complete VBK file (active full) from the disk
3. Rescan your repository
4. Use mapping option to map the backup

I believe this should force your backup job to use the previous, healthy full backup (VBK file).

Let me know if that helps!

[Emortalz]

Hi Vitaly,

I did the above but it still creates a full vbk.

Is there another way?

[Vitaliy S.]

Can you please tell us what backup mode you're using, forward or reversed incremental?

[Emortalz]

forward

[Vitaliy S.]

In order to force using reversed incremental mode, you should have a valid last restore point and it should be a full backup. If there is no full backup (VBK file) available, then I'm afraid that active full will still have to be performed. Did your backup job fail due to lack of free space on the backup repository?

[Emortalz]

Its a normal forward incremental with one valid vbk and one vib in the chain.
Last friday i set it to do a full, the job is 3TB and took 3 days to complete a full. I forgot to untick do a full on Friday, and so when i saw it do a full yesterday i cancelled the job, unticked do full on Friday and tried forcing it to do an incremental vib instead with no luck.
I want it to do a vib as there is not enough space on the drive to do another 3TB vbk

[Vitaliy S.]

Ok, thanks for clarifications. The reason why your backup job does not do incremental run is that it still "sees" the full backup file which is incomplete. If you don't have enough space for another full, you can either offload earlier backup restore points or ask our support team to assist you with adjusting metadata file by removing references to that incomplete restore point (might be tricky).

[jp34]

Veeam support [ID# 01675991] asked me to remove the failed vbk file and re-recreate a new job with mapping. Job still starts with full backup...
When you talk about metadata, it's database or vbm file metadata ?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi JP,

It's both, VBM and configuration database. When you removed this file manually, most likely orphaned records are still present in VBM file which should be clearly seen when doing a repository rescan procedure.

Thanks!

[jp34]

Exact and Veeam support gives me a powershell script to re-create vbm file from vbk/vrb files after removing latest failed vbk file