Help - Norton Online Backup Stuck

Archive
1

I have recenty set up this product for a client.

 

The first backup, of a lap-top, went smoothly and used 1.42 GB of the avaiable capacity—total capacity is shown as 100 GB but that includes 25 GB left over from the trial and will presumably expire shortly.

 

Backup of the client's main PC was a more-dauntng prospect as there were a large number of pictures—capacity shown by the initial scan is 51.65 GB.

 

After some 'false starts', 2 cancellations and 2 'W32' failures, the present backup has been 'in progress' since June 5th.

 

As far as I can tell, this has involved several 'restarts' though the log shows the job as having run continuously—for the last couple of days, progress has remained at 29% though 53% of the 100GB capacity is shown as used.

 

In the log file, backup progress is shown as 3272 files and 11.80 GB—as I mentioned, there appeared to be several earlier restarts with the progress bar reverting to 0% from time to time.

 

There is an additional issue that a message has now apeared telling us that there is 'insufficent storage space to backup this computer'.

On the face of it, pretty-much all of the data has been backed-up but the job will not complete. 

 

As you can imagine, I am not entirely clear what is going on—my inclination is to re-boot but I don't want to lose several day's work.

 

Please advise the best way to deal with this situation.

 

Also, can you advise whether files already backup-up will be lost in the event of a reboot/restart.

 

Regards

 

Les

 

PS I have also used the product myself and backing-up smallish amounts of data doesn't seem to be a problem though it does knock-out my regular Norton backups-to-disk while running.    

2

Hello Lesking,

 

There may be multiple issues affecting your backup in this instance.  It could be any combination of the following or just one of them. Any one of the below instances would interrupt your restore or backup.

 

1) Your ISP resetting your internet connection in the middle of the night.

2) Your PC going to sleep, system stand by, hibernate, or HD suspend.

3) Your internet connection going to sleep.

 

To double check the above settings and possibly correct.

1) Nothing we, or you can do to fix other than try backing up in smaller sets.

2) Go into your control panel and go to "Power Options". On the right click on "Change Plan Settings".  For plugged in only change Sleep to NEVER.  (The monitor has no affect on backups.) Next click on "Change advanced power settings".
  In this window change the setting for Hard Disk to NEVER for plugged in only.  Verify that both Sleep and Hibernate are both set to NEVER for plugged in.  Click OK.

3) This change is optional and for advanced users.  If your internet connection is going to sleep after the settings are confirmed in step 2 then please contact Norton Customer Support for assistance.

 

At this point since your backup hasn't completed successfully, the part that is incomplete has been sent to the server.  (Which could be 1/2 of all the files selected and not one complete file.)  When trouble shooting we would suggest canceling the backup, clearing the backup folder, and then selecting a smaller set to backup.  Then once that completes to add more data in, in smaller sets over a period of time to get the rest of your required files. Example: Tonight backup 2-5 GB as a test, and then tomorrow night add 5 GB more to your backup file selection. Continuing every night till all of your files are added back into your backup set.

3

Hi Nicole

 

To be clear, what you seem to be telling me is that there is nothing to be done wiith the 53GB already sent to the 'cloud', over several days, other than delete it and start again - is that correct?

 

You also seem to be saying tha the Norton on-line backup service cannot cope with any inturruption in the internet conneciton- is that correct?

 

Regards

 

 

Les

 

 

.

 

 

 

4

A supplemenatary question?

 

Assuming one does need to start again, how excactly does one access the backup fiolder to clear it? - the 'Purge' routine says that no files have been backed-up even though 53% of the 100GB available space is shown as used.

 

Regards

 

Les

 

5

Hello Les,

 

That's not quite it. If the backup fails as the result of a connection loss it won't disregard what was already successfully backed up. Since it knows the backup didn't fully complete though it will assume the total amount still needs to be transferred. If it encounters files it does have the incremental backup will kick in. 

 

One of the changes coming in a future release is streaming backups. That way the service will handle connection breaks and large backups far better than it does now. 

6

OK - I'm getting a bit confused now but I have a feeling that we are 'nearly there'.

 

Given that most of the data would appear to have been transferred, do I:

 

1/ Just run the complete backup again and rely on the system to recognise those files which have already been uploaded -  hence, the backup will complete in a relatively short time.

2/ Clear the backup folder Iwhen somebody tells me how to do this) and adjust the settings to backup a little at a time, as    recommended by Nicole

 

3/ Run a smaller backup in the hope that all uploaded files will be exposed once any sort of successful backup is completed 

 

Norton online backup is certainly a marathon rather than a sprint.

 

Regards

 

 

Les

 

 

 

7

Les,

 

Do you feel the connection, on the machine running the backup, is stable? 

 

If yes I'd go with option one. 

 

If no I'd go with option two. You can drop off one or two categories, let the backup finish and add them back in. 

 

The backup is relatively simple. The headache surfaces when dealing with a huge amount of data and connections that either drop out or the upload speed isn't quite as expected. 

8

Hi Wesley

 

I have already made a start on this as the particular computer is not being used today.

 

Firslty, I backed up only the category 'Office documents' and this completed succesfully in a fairly short period, while also exposing the 50+ GB of data already backed-up.    

 

I repeated this but adding 'videos'.

 

I have now addded 'pictures' which seems to be taking a while, even though I suspect that most, if not all, are already backed-up.

 

Either way, we seem a lot better-off that we were yesterday.

 

It seems that you need at least one uninturrupted backup to access any results at all.

 

To paraphrse Chairman Mao, "a backup of 1000 Gigabytes starts with a single file".

 

Regards

 

Les

 

9

Still churning away to complete upload of about 56 GB but all files previous uploaded are now accessbile.

 

Bottom line seems to be that any upload of 50GB + using ADSL-based broadband is going to take several days but, once done, the updates hopefully won't be too bad.

 

It's obviously a good idea to start with a small backup—it appears that one succesful backup will enable you to see any other files which were uploaded, even if those backups did not complete.

 

Stopping the computer from going into 'sleep mode', etc., is all good advice but none of that applied in this case—uploading large amounts of data to 'the cloud' is simply a very slow process. 

 

A bit more clarity on the pricing of this product would be welcome—setting-up a trial from a link advertising the product at £19.99 and subsequently being asked for £39.99 is simply not acceptable (though returning to the original link and selecting 'Buy Now' provided the product at £19.99).

Also, there doesn't seem to be any way for the UK user to discover the price of additional storage until they have purchased the basic product—and then, it was twice what we were led to expect from published US prices. 

Regards

 

Les