Backup Copy Full Incomplete - Case #02444065

[gmitchum]

I have been taking a closer look at the repositories and find that there are a few Backup Copy VMs in a monolithic target file that indicate that the Full is incomplete. The incrementals are all "OK". The only thing that comes to mind is to delete the VM from "Disk (Copy)" and force a new full. I am not looking forward to this because a couple of these VM are very large. Dragging the one VM across the net would be VERY painful. Other that sending out a USB and creating a new Seed file, is there any way to correct this issue?

[foggy]

Incomplete doesn't mean corrupt, so prior to deleting anything I recommend investigating the reasons with the help of your support engineer. One of the typical reasons for getting incomplete backup is too short copy interval that doesn't allow the job to complete data transfer. During subsequent job run the job copies missing data blocks (as well as the new ones, required to build the new restore point), so finally you get valid backup that spans several backup files.

[gmitchum]

It appears that you indicate that if the first run was not completed, subsequent runs will complete the VM.
I have been in contact with US Support. They explain it as follows...

12/26/2017 Incremental OK
12/25/2017 Incremental OK
12/24/2017 Incremental OK
12/23/2017 Incremental Incomplete
12/22/2017 Full Incomplete

The Backup Copy began on the 22nd. It was not until the 24th when all the data was transferred and the complete VM was recoverable.

Is this a correct understanding?

[foggy]

Yes, on 24th the job was able to finally complete transfer of all the required blocks and you should be able to restore from this restore point.

[DaStivi]

Hi, i'm experiencing similiar issues... with a few very big VMs in special...
"full" retention backup copy job runs of this vm all failed and only increment restore points are available! the incomplete full restore points are all "longterm retention" points, but what happens now if the increments gets cleanedup/deleted? will these get merged in the latest full, and will this than be complete and available??

strict backup/restore policies requieres certain weekly, monthly and yearly restorepoints but all these points are useless for now!!!
my case number on this issue: Case # 02447162

[DaStivi]

Yes, on 24th the job was able to finally complete transfer of all the required blocks and you should be able to restore from this restore point.

btw. we're able to restore from the 24th now... but the incremental and the full are basically lost...
and what i don't know is how the GFS-Cleanup/retention is now gooing, because the full and incremental inbetween are dependen, or atleast, the incomplete incremental and the "full"-incremental are maybe cleaned up earlier then the full should be, and so these "full" restorepoint is unusable then without the corresponding incrementals...

ps.: support told me there is bugfix available for some sort of copyjob issue that could cause such a issue, and also 9.5u3 should fix this sort of issue!

[veremin]

will these get merged in the latest full, and will this than be complete and available??

Correct, once the retention takes place those blocks will be incorporated in the oldest restore point (full one). Thanks

[DaStivi]

Even if there is no complete oldest full?? All full are incomplete!

[veremin]

At the time of simple retention the increment (next to the oldest .vbk) will get merged into the incomplete full backup. The GFS retention point will be created when this (already complete full backup) will reach a certain day. In other words, GFS restore points will be constructed from complete full backups. Thanks.

[DaStivi]

This is what I thought it would be... Got different opinions that the gfs/backup copy recomplete the incomplete fulls theoretically sometimes...
looks like in my particular case this is where I hit the bug because I've incomplete fulls without any increments in between anymore!

Will try the hot fix... Only question is how to rebuild at least some old gfs fulls as theoretically the last month is still available in daily 35 primary backup retention points???!

[veremin]

You cannot re-create previous GFS restore points. The only option you have is to wait till the oldest restore point reaches a day specified in GFS retention scheme. Thanks.

[ferrus]

I'm not sure if this is the same issue - but I've seen another instance of it issue in the forum.

One of our Backup Copies stretches over 24 hours, when it does a Full GFS RP.
Up until 9.5 U2, the Backup Copy would stop during the next Backup window - and get marked 'Incomplete'.
During the next Backup Copy window - Veeam would complete the last Full Backup Copy - before moving on to the subsequent Incremental Backup Copy.
So the Full Backup Copy RP, would always be marked 'Complete' eventually, even if this took a couple of days.

9.5 U2 broke this, and left us with incomplete Full GFS restore points. We were provided with a patch to resolve this, which it did straight away.
That patch appears to be in 9.5 U3, from reading the Resolved Issues in the release notes.

[DaStivi]

This is the bug what I referred above...
Did all incomplete restore points got finally completed after applying the hot fix on your side??

[ferrus]

Not the historical ones - because the Increments had already been deleted, and data lost.
But from that point onwards - the backups worked correctly (as they had done up to 9.5 u2), immediately after the patch.

I think the described behaviour - of subsequent incremental backups merging into the full, didn't apply with the >24hour backup window bug.
In our case, it was obvious it wasn't working, because the full GFS restore points prior to u2 were 9TB, and following the u2 upgarde they dropped to 4 or 5TB and remained in the 'Incomplete' state.

[ferrus]

Note the 'Backup Size' difference in the top pane, between the first three Full RPs (marked Incomplete) in the bottom pane, and the following three Fulls (marked OK).
The first three were after u2, the others following the post-u2 patch.

[DaStivi]

thats a bummer, as my yearly retention is incomplete right now...
and i also don't understand this.. because it should still be possible right now to recomplete this at least the yearly retention as this backup-restore-informations are still available in primary backup...
i will see what veeam support is telling on this!

[fchalon]

Hi,

i'm facing some problems to delete incomplete file(s) from my backup chain.
I see in the documentation these steps for delete some files:
- In the inventory pane, click Disk under Backups.
- In the working area, select the backup and click Properties on the ribbon or right-click the backup and select Properties.
- In the Backup Properties window, right-click the missing restore point and select Remove from disk.

My problem is that right click doesn't display. I can't forget or remove any file from this menu.
I tried to stop and disable the job but no right click menu.
Can someone tell me if i forgot a thing?

ps: i'm french, sorry for my poor english..

have a nice day

[wishr]

Hi Fabien,

Do your restore points have a red cross on them, as mentioned in the documentation? If not, you should follow this procedure.

Thanks

[fchalon]

Hi,

thank you for your answer.
No red cross, but in restore points area, une status column i have incomplete string.
i'll check your links, thank you

[fchalon]

wow... remove from disk ?
it looks like scary... i just want to delete a restore point, and not delete all my backups, is that ok if i click on remove from disk?

[wishr]

Thank you for the comments. Delete from disk will remove the entire backup, I suppose it is not what you require. Could you please post a screenshot for our better understanding?

Thanks

[fchalon]

sure:
https://i.screenshot.net/v1gkxay

i have no right click here to forget or delete some restore points and i don't understand why.

Thank you

[fchalon]

my purpose is to clean incomplete restore points, and in the same time, free some space, because my disk is full and i need space, and to work again the number of retention points of my backup and backup copy

[wishr]

You cannot delete "incomplete" restore points since they are a part of the backup chain and contain some data. They should be deleted by your retention policy. I've merged your thread with an existing one - please take a look.

Thank you.

[fchalon]

thank you for your reponse but retention policy seems to not be applied in my case.
For example, i have a job who was configured to keep 20 restauration point.
I had to modify this config to 15 restoration point (for disk size reason) and rescan my repositorie, but i have always 20 files in my job folder (1 vbk and 19 vib for an incremental job without active full and no synthetic).
That's why i was looking for the right click

[wishr]

Hi Fabien,

The retention policy is only applied after a successful job run.

Thanks

[fchalon]

ok, but i launch this job (i didn't say that but i modify the number of retention last week, so the job turned several times since modification)

Thank you

[wishr]

What was the status of the job? It should succeed to apply the retention.

[fchalon]

The result was success but with some warnings about disk space

[wishr]

What was the exact warning message?