Confused about backup status

I set up Norton V3 to backup a much larger amount of my data and left it to do the backup.

 

It now says that my data is fully backed up but when I click on the Backup Status Details it says that the last Backup was cancelled - which doesn't inspire confidence.


How can I check that everything is backed up?

 

At one stage, I remember seeing a screen which showed me the progess of my backp but I can't find this screen now.

Hi rcollings,

 

Norton360 provides "backup status overlays". When a file is backed up, you can see a green checkmark over the file indicating that the file has been backed up successfully. If a file is yet to be backed up, that is, it is pending for backup, you will be seeing a blue mark over the file. These are good indicators to find out if your file has been backed up.

 

These backup status overlays can be turned on/off from an option called "Backup Status Overlays" under Settings->Quick Controls. 

 


rcollings wrote:

 

At one stage, I remember seeing a screen which showed me the progess of my backp but I can't find this screen now.


This screen will show up when a backup operation is in progress. You can see this screen when you click on "Run Backup Now" button present under Backup pillar on the Main UI. (We are assuming that a backup is already configured, if not, you will be seeing the "Manage Backup Sets" screen). 

 

Let us know if this info was useful.

 

Thanks,

Padma

Message Edited by Padma on 04-22-2009 04:06 AM

Alternately you could go to "restore" and see if your file exists.

 

Hover over the "Backup" icon on the main page, and select "Restore Files" from the drop down menu that shows.

 

From there you can either click "edit" next to the catergory of the file you are looking for or click "Search" and type part of the name of the file you are trying to make sure was backed up.

 

Matt


Padma wrote:

Hi rcollings,

 

Norton360 provides "backup status overlays". When a file is backed up, you can see a green checkmark over the file indicating that the file has been backed up successfully. If a file is yet to be backed up, that is, it is pending for backup, you will be seeing a blue mark over the file. These are good indicators to find out if your file has been backed up.

 

These backup status overlays can be turned on/off from an option called "Backup Status Overlays" under Settings->Quick Controls. 


I was totally confused by this as the help and now your explanation does not explain where this checkmark appears.   It turns out that the missing words were 'in Explorer'.   I can now see the checkmark against some of the file when I look in Explorer..

 

However,  this was after initiating anothe backup as you describe here:


This screen will show up when a backup operation is in progress. You can see this screen when you click on "Run Backup Now" button present under Backup pillar on the Main UI. (We are assuming that a backup is already configured, if not, you will be seeing the "Manage Backup Sets" screen). 

 

so I am not confident that they were backed up before despite Norton 360 assuring me that I was fully protected.

 

Is there a way of seeing what has been backed up in the backup itself?

 

There are two other reasons why I think my data was not backed up

  1. My daughter, whose machine it is, said that she had seen an error message saying the backup had failed
  2. When I intiated another backup,  the Backup progress screen shows that it is starting the backup process from scratch - ie backing everything.   I would presume that if the previous backup had suceeded,  then it would have completed very quickly as nothing had changed on the computer.

Thank you


Matt_Boucher wrote:

Alternately you could go to "restore" and see if your file exists.

 

Hover over the "Backup" icon on the main page, and select "Restore Files" from the drop down menu that shows.

 

From there you can either click "edit" next to the catergory of the file you are looking for or click "Search" and type part of the name of the file you are trying to make sure was backed up.

 

Matt


 

Thanks, Matt.  I will try this when the current backup has completed.

In fact, I am pretty confident now that Norton 360 was lying when it said that I was protected because I have now looked at some of the other files that it should have backed up and these do not have the green tick.

 

Could it have got this wrong because I extended the scope of the backup set?   ie: under Norton 360 Version 2,  I was backing up a small set of files;  when I got Norton Version 3,  I extended the backup set to backup a lot more files.   It looks as if this backup failed for some reason but Norton was still reporting success because the original smaller set was still backed up?

rcollings,

 

Can you give me more information as to your backup set?

Where are you backing up your files? Online, optical, local, USB, network drive?

 

When the backup starts it has to analyze all the files in the backup sets, because we have to determine which of those files have changed and which need to be backed up. So even if you changed very little it would have to go through the whole set.

 

Now on to the real problem, why did you get an error? Could you give me more details of the error? You originally said it reported "canceled", now what does it report?

 

Matt


Matt_Boucher wrote:

rcollings,

 

Can you give me more information as to your backup set?


Not quite sure what information you want - it is backing up my daughters My Documents including Music and Photos

 


Where are you backing up your files? Online, optical, local, USB, network drive?

Onlline


When the backup starts it has to analyze all the files in the backup sets, because we have to determine which of those files have changed and which need to be backed up. So even if you changed very little it would have to go through the whole set.

Understood.  When I kicked off the new backup, the progress bar showed it doing this for 10-15 minutes.  This then changed to Transferring which is, I presume N360 uploading the changed data.  This proceeded very slowly - it had only reached 5% after a couple of hours indicating (to my mind) that the previous backup had failed as it was having to transfer a large amount of data.

 


Now on to the real problem, why did you get an error? Could you give me more details of the error? You originally said it reported "canceled", now what does it report?

 

Matt


I am sorry - I can't give you much more information.  My daughter said that she got a message saying the backup had stopped.  That was why I trying to check whether it had succeeded in backing all the files that I had specified.   And as far as I can see it was lying  - there was  green 'Protected' for the backup which was not true as the files had not been backed up.

 

I started another backup and was watching progress on the Scan progress screen.   I then closed this screen assuming that it would continue in the background.    However, when I clicked on start scan again, I assumed it would show me the continuing scan but it looks as if it was starting the whole process off again <sigh>

 

What should I do now - where should I look for details of progress?


Thanks

 

Ok thanks for the extra information, this helps for sure.

 

As for closing the backup progress window, that will put the backup in the background and continue to proceed until completed.

 

The status at the time may indicate "At Risk" while it proceeds to backup.

 

As for how long it will take, remember upload speeds are generally a lot slower than download speeds, that is, when accessing web pages you are possibly at speeds that are roughly 10 to 20 times faster than what you can upload.

 

I would suggest letting the backup run overnight and see what you get for messages either success or failure.

 

Matt

Thanks, Matt.

 

 

Having read this message, I went back to the machine and checked the progress of the backup - it has transferred 4% of data (and I do understand this is a slow process - the A in ADSL standing for asymmetric).

 

I clicked the close x on the status window and went back to the main Norton Window.

 

The backup panel is showing Protected and the words underneath 'All your important files are backed up' (or similar).

 

This is clearly not the case!!!!!!

 

And there is now no  way of telling when the backup process has completed and my files are safely backed up. 

 

I would suggest very strongly that this is a major flaw.  

 

If I was an average user, I would assume that my files were now backed up.  Very dangerous.

 

Just to repeat how this situation has occurred:

*   Set up a backup to backup a small amount of data (this was done under Norton 360 V2)

*   After upgrading to Version 3,  change the backup set to significantly increase the amount of data to be backed up

*   Kick off Run Backup and wait for it to complete the first stage of working out what extra needs to be backed up and to move onto the second stage of transferred this data to your online backup store -

*   Close backup status window - with the status showing (say) 4% transferred

*   Norton 360 backup status page incorrectly shows Protected and 'All your important files are backed up' despite this not being the case

 

Thanks

 

 

Richard

What the main status is reporting is that your last backup was complete, running a backup right now to update the latest files does not change the fact that the last backup was complete.

 

That main backup status would change if you don't have a successful backup for a week.

 

So picture this:

 

1) no backup set created

2) create backup set with 100 files

3) run backup, backup completes (main status green)

4) add 50 more files to backup set

5) run backup, but while it's running (main status is still green)

6) once complete status is green or red based on success or failure

 

Matt

I think I and most other people would disagree.  

 

In my view, as soon as you alter the backup set to add more files,  that should change the status to something different than 'Protected' because N360 is no longer protecting the files that you have asked it to protect.

 

I have asked N360 do something; it has yet do this;  it needs to tell me this!!!!

 

And it needs to tell me when it has done it.

 

Imagine Norton was a filing clerk.  It has done some filing.  I ask it do some more filing.  And I come back a few hours later and ask the filing clerk, have you done that filing and the filing clerk says 'Yes'.   What I am to think.   Most people would assume that the new piece of filing work as been done.   But not, in Norton 360's view of the world,  the fact that he did the filing last week is sufficient for him to say that the work is complete even when the new piece of filing work has yet  to be fnished.

 

Richard

Richard,

 

Let's see if I can put this in another way. Basically as soon as you change a file in the backup set, say you have a word document, and it was just backed up. You change that word document. From that moment until you actually run another backup the status is incorrect because it states Green.

 

Given your solution, the backup status would always be red, because files from backup sets are almost always modified, that's the reason you are backing them up.

 

So depending on how you look at the problem, the status is really showing that the last time you did a backup it was ok.

 

Matt

I think there is a major difference between the routine backup of changes that have occurred within the scope of an existing backup set (which N360 has yet to discover) and when you have changed the backup set to include a whole stack of files and you have kicked off a backup to actually back up those file.  

 

In the situation I describe above,  once Norton has done an initial scan to establish that there are files to backup, then it could in some way indicate the progress it has made backing up those files.


As your previous response  indicated, you thought that this is what N360 would do


Matt Boucher said:  

As for closing the backup progress window, that will put the backup in the background and continue to proceed until completed.

 

The status at the time may indicate "At Risk" while it proceeds to backup. 


So it is not an unreasonable expectation which I would anticipate most of your users would also have.

 

Perhaps something to raise with those that decide on new functionality to be included in the product.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

 

Richard

 

 

Hello RCollings,

 

I'm not sure if this had been communicated before or if it is something that you knew about, if it is I apologize for repeating it.

 

To be able to get a better idea of some of the things that are going on with the features of 360 start by opening the 360 Main Window (360 main UI) and click on 'Tasks' and then 'View Security History'.   From here one can use the 'View' pull down menu to view various events that have been happened.  Such as 'Backup'. 

 

 The backup window will display past Backups, Restores, Deletions and if they were deemed successful or failed.  However I believe you want a more in depth look at what is going so click on one of the backups and toward the bottom right of the Security History window under the header 'Other Actions' is the blue button entitled "More Details" and it will list each file that was backed up online.  (just as a sidenote, if 360 does not see any new files to transfer to the online storage it will afterwards only list  the four lines:

 

  • Action            |   Backup
  • Status           |   Succeeded 
  • Location        |   Secure Online Storage
  • Media Type   |   Secure Online Storage 


It's not an error that it for some backups it show backed up files and others shows nothing as if there are no new files to backup then it cannot list any as being transferred.

 

 

It caught my eye that you had noticed the bottom bar (total transfer percentage) at 4 percent.  I had a problem where the bottom bar in the backup interface would go from 0 to 4% per each file it was going to transfer and then would again go from 0 to 4% for the next file and simply wondered if you saw it go past 4%?

 

As the Symantec Staffer had suggested trying larger amounts of backup to transfer after each successful backup I wondered if some type of backups might have issues whereas others would backup with no problem. (such as simply backing up Music or something some such).

 

 

For direct knowledge of what is sitting in storage you can look at what is online by using windows explorer and selecting 'Norton Backup Drive'. There will be delays going between most directories and subdirectories.      Another sidenote simply to mention that there might be more backup sets listed here than you might expect as it is possible for left overs from upgrades and from deleting backup sets from the backup interface.  These cannot currently be deleted by users here in windows explorer.  Future builds may affect this part of the 360 experience.

 

I hope this was of some additional assistance.

 

Take care,

Mumford68

Richard,

 

I completely apologize, I gave you wrong information. Closing the "Activities and Scans" window, the one where it is showing the progress, does in fact cancel the backup.

 

We have a bug, where sometimes a toaster will indicate that the backup is running in the background, this is an issue being looked into and the reason I had thought we were running in the background.

 

The second issue is that if you close this window which will cancel the running scans it should also show a confirmation dialog asking if that is what you want to do. This will be looked at also, again sorry for the confusion.

 

So in your case, I think I would let the window complete it's backup.

 

And finally, your suggestion and point of view on the backup status does make sense to me, that if we make a change to a backup set and save, that it should change to no longer indicate green. I will add this to the list of items to be looked at.

 

Thank you for your information and time.

 

Matt

Matt_B,

 

May I suggest that there might be another option other than throwing up a Red X that not only get peoples attention but seems to get some people panicked when they see that.    Something that indicates a pending backup or a different color or a different symbol other than the big red X? but something that does not get people to wonder if something is wrong, failed or a security risk?

 

If not, I can understand that the programming is setup in such a way that it may be advantageous to keep certain things the way they are.

 

Thank you for your time,

Mumford68

Good suggestion.

 

I will let the usability team determine what color / text to be shown when in this state, perhaps Orange?

 

Anyway thanks for the suggestion.

 

Matt

Thanks for all your posts.  However, I am bit confused now as to what is the current behaviour of the Norton 360 backup.

 

If I tell you the sequence of events, perhaps you can tell me what I should do next.
1.  Norton 360 V2 was setup to back up my daughters Office documents and other bits and pieces
2.  I upgraded it to N360 v3 and thought I would change the backup set to also backup her music and photos as I had more space for backup.  I kicked off a backup but then clicked the close button - which it now seems cancels the backup after about 5% of the backup had transferred
3.  I kicked off another back up with the same backup set and again cancelled it at about the same point
4.  I then realised that the amount of music that she had would actually bust the 25GB limit!!   So I changed the backup set back to just backup her documents and email.  Did not kick off a new backup.
She has now gone back to college with her laptop.   What will happen?   Will the background process kick off and backup her documents, e as per the backup set.   I do I need to get her to run a backup manually.
What happens with regard the music files that have already been backed up. Will these get deleted automatically.
PS: I agree with a more gentle warning once N360 has established that it has more files to backup (orange would be fine)

Richard,

 

2) this will cancel the running backup

3) again another cancel

4) depending on your schedule you set for that backup set, it would run in the background during idle time, that is when your computer is not doing anything

 

Matt