Retention policy not applying after full backup

[TheRealTy]

Hi,

I created a daily backup job set as "Incremental" with 45 days retention. I mistakenly did not set setup synthetic or active full backups, so its grown to have 90+ increments.
So the chain was.
12/06-2019 - 22/06/2019 daily incremental
23/06/2019 Full
24/06/2019- 21/06/2019 daily incremental

So on the 21st I changed the job to have active full backups and I ran a manual active full backup, this just added to it and did not remove and of the history.
Ont he 22nd I changed my retention to 1 day and ran another active full backup, this removed the active full backup from the 21st but my 90 days increments are still there.

What do i have to do to get rid of all the increments (preferably keeping the last 45 days)

Thanks

[HannesK]

Hello,
to be honest, even after 3x reading I still do not know for 100% what you have configured now and in the past. I guess the last line should be 21 / 09 / 2019 as your question is from 22th September?

If you set incremental with no other fulls you will get 45 restore points (the mode is called Forward Incremental Forever). It does not grow to 90 if you configure 45 (a bug is very unlikely as this issue would pop up in the forums very often).

Today there is no "days" option. It's always restore points and the number of restore points depends on your schedule (I guess you have backup configured every 24h).

If you create an additional active / synthetic full: backups cannot be deleted as 45 restore points need to be guaranteed (incrementals cannot exist without full). Please see animations for all modes https://www.veeam.com/kb1799

Ont he 22nd I changed my retention to 1 day and ran another active full backup, this removed the active full backup from the 21st but my 90 days increments are still there.

I guess September. That looks strange for me. I expect at least the old full backup from 23 / 06 / 2019 is also still there. As we have 23rd now and you still have 1 restore points configured... are the old backups still not deleted? Then please open a support case and post the case number here for reference.

In general: I always recommend to use the "simulate" button of http://rps.dewin.me/ before changing backup modes.

What do i have to do to get rid of all the increments (preferably keeping the last 45 days)

Please keep in mind that there is no "post-merge". So you always keep the increments + the full until retention is applied.


Best regards,
Hannes

[TheRealTy]

Sorry, I am not sure what part i hard to understand after reading it 3x.. All the actions are listed in order, with correct dates. The last date is the 22nd (yes of September). I understand there are no "days" option, Increment and day can be used interchangeably considering i specified in my post it it was daily incremental.

Ill log a support ticket then..

[veremin]

Ont he 22nd I changed my retention to 1 day and ran another active full backup, this removed the active full backup from the 21st but my 90 days increments are still there.

This should have removed all restore points, but the last one. Since it didn't happen, something obviously is going wrong (obsolete restore point not present in configuration db or something). So, keep working with support team on fixing it. Thanks!