Norton 360

[frustrated71]

The norton security suite back up software does not back up all files. FYI I spent a lot of time on the phone with technical support and they were unable to help me and actually told me this was not a bug....holy cow!

Here's the situation. I specified a specific folder using the back up option in Norton security suite (see attached screen shot includeFolder.png). I did not specify any file types since the text on that screen says file types are ignored. So it should back up all tyes of files and not skip any. Notice nothing selected on the main screen in terms of other directories, file types, etc (see attached screen shot main.png). Then using the preview feature it told me it would back up 11,777 files in that folder. However that folder contains 12,341 files - as windows properties tells me:

My windows folder properties says:
size:         43.2 GB
size on disk: 43.3 GB
Contains:     12,341 files, 317 folders

Norton backup preview says:
11,777 files
43.1 GB

So the back up software is missing 564 files during the back up. This is a very, very bad bug since all your customers will be missing files when they try to restore during a disaster recovery.

I have case number on this issue - but they were not able to help me.

Can anyone help me on this?

Is there a way to open a bug on this so they can fix it?

[Edit: Removed the case ID to conform with Participation Guidelines and Terms of Service]

[dickevans Super RootKit Eradicator]

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frustrated71 wrote:

The norton security suite back up software does not back up all files. FYI I spent a lot of time on the phone with technical support and they were unable to help me and actually told me this was not a bug....holy cow!

Here's the situation. I specified a specific folder using the back up option in Norton security suite (see attached screen shot includeFolder.png). I did not specify any file types since the text on that screen says file types are ignored. So it should back up all tyes of files and not skip any. Notice nothing selected on the main screen in terms of other directories, file types, etc (see attached screen shot main.png). Then using the preview feature it told me it would back up 11,777 files in that folder. However that folder contains 12,341 files - as windows properties tells me:

My windows folder properties says:
size:         43.2 GB
size on disk: 43.3 GB
Contains:     12,341 files, 317 folders

Norton backup preview says:
11,777 files
43.1 GB

So the back up software is missing 564 files during the back up. This is a very, very bad bug since all your customers will be missing files when they try to restore during a disaster recovery.

I have case number on this issue - but they were not able to help me.

Can anyone help me on this?

Is there a way to open a bug on this so they can fix it?

[Edit: Removed the case ID to conform with Participation Guidelines and Terms of Service]

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Welcome,

Am I understanding you correctly that you are trying to backup all of the files in that partitioin? Is that partition/folder the only one on that drive? If it is, wouodn't a better way to do it be to back up the disk/partition? If not then maybe I don't fully understand the problem/situation.

The file and folder backup option is not the most efficient way to use the backup feature.

Thanks

[SendOfJive Norton Fighter]

Hi frustrated71,

What are you trying to backup?  The Norton Security Suite is designed to do backups of your personal data, such as photos and documents.  It is not a system recovery tool.  There is generally no reason to backup the Windows folder, other than as part of a disk image for system restoration.  I am not sure about the file count being wrong.  Norton may be accounting for compressed files differently than WIndows does.

[James_Carr]

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SendOfJive wrote:

Hi frustrated71,

What are you trying to backup?  The Norton Security Suite is designed to do backups of your personal data, such as photos and documents.  It is not a system recovery tool.  There is generally no reason to backup the Windows folder, other than as part of a disk image for system restoration.  I am not sure about the file count being wrong.  Norton may be accounting for compressed files differently than WIndows does.

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Not to mention temporary or protected files. It may be possible that Norton is designed to look over certain files regardless of settings. For example, thumbs.db

I haven't tested a backup of something like thumbs.db, but it seems to me that it would be wise to ignore it.

[frustrated71]

So on my windows system I have created a folder. and in that folder I put all kinds of files, txt, jpg, mov, etc. This is a folder I created so it has no system files. It is not a system folder - just a folder that I created and store things in. This is the folder I'm trying to back up.

[frustrated71]

Just to be more clear yes just personal data, such as photos and documents.

BTW I'm using Norton security suite 6.0.0.145 - which I think is the latest version.

[James_Carr]

I don't suppose you would be able to find one of the files that is not being backed up? I'm wondering if there is something special about these files that are causing them to be ignored. For example, do any of them have extremely long filenames or names containing abnormal or obscure characters?

A couple of important things:

1. Do you have enough free space on your account to accompany 43+ GB of data?

2. Have you made sure that some of these files are not already backed up?

[frustrated71]

Good questions:

1) Yup I have over 100GB of free space so that should be OK

2) I noticed this the first time I setup the back up so there were no files already backed up. The preview always shows the same number of files to back up - even after it has completed a back up. So I don't think that's the issue either.

Yea it's hard to find the missing 564 files in the source folder (there are 12,341 files in there). I would love to be able to find at least one so I could get a data point on the issue....any suggestions on how to find one that is not being backed up?

[James_Carr]

I would just skim over and find any files with strange or large filenames.

Also, if over 500 are being ignored, they are probably clustered together somewhere as it is likely a shared reason they are being ignored. In other words, there are likely entire folders that didn't get backed up. Missing folders in your backup set may be easier to find.

While 12,000 is a lot of files, it's not impossible to skim through the folders and look for any sort of differences.

I'm not saying it's not a bug, but I have to rule out every possible scenario before reporting it to the engineers. ;)

[frustrated71]

OK I found 1 folder which name was 5 chars long. It had a ~ as the third character. I replaced the ~ with a space and then Norton back up counted that folder and it's contents (235 files) in the preview and backed them up.

A ~ inhibits a folder from being backed up - seriously!?!?!

Geee what other special characters do I need to remove from my file names and folder names!??!?!

How the hell I'm I supposed to go through 12,000 plus files and folders and find all the special characters in their names that this buggy software does not recognize?!?!