I purchased Norton 360 a couple of months ago and the backup feature has been working great up until now. The backup is no longer working.
When I go to run a backup now, the computer just idles and does nothing at all. It is says it's starting, and then after about 20 minutes it says its running, but nothing at all happens.
I need help ASAP as I'm running a home based business and can't afford to not backup my files.
Oakwell wrote:I purchased Norton 360 a couple of months ago and the backup feature has been working great up until now. The backup is no longer working.
When I go to run a backup now, the computer just idles and does nothing at all. It is says it's starting, and then after about 20 minutes it says its running, but nothing at all happens.
I need help ASAP as I'm running a home based business and can't afford to not backup my files.
Welcome Oakwell,
Need some details about your system -operating system, backup destination, are you doing the files and folders of by drive letter?
If it was working and now it isn't, what has changed? Have you added software, hardware, let the destination get full?
Looking forward to your responses
Hi Dick,
Thanks for your reply.
I have a brand new HP Pavilion PC with Windows 7. My backup destination is online Norton backup/server. I have only used about a gig of Norton online storage space to date (leaving me with around 24 gig spare). I'm pretty sure I haven't added any new software, and definately no new hardware. Nothing has changed with the way I use my PC.
Cheers
Oakwell.
Oakwell wrote:Hi Dick,
Thanks for your reply.
I have a brand new HP Pavilion PC with Windows 7. My backup destination is online Norton backup/server. I have only used about a gig of Norton online storage space to date (leaving me with around 24 gig spare). I'm pretty sure I haven't added any new software, and definately no new hardware. Nothing has changed with the way I use my PC.
Cheers
Oakwell.
Oakwell,
I saw a report that they were doing maintenance on some of the backup servers and one other set of servers. Since I haven't seen an 'all clear' this may be part of your problem. To confirm that is the Norton servers see if you can do a small backup set to a local drive - internal or external, even a CD/DVD. If all of that goes well we'll just have to wait for the tech types to finish their work.
Sorry for the upset.
Dick,
I ran the backup to DVD which worked fine. As you say, I'm guessing we just have to wait for maintenance to finish. I'll check again in a day or so to see if the issue has been rectified.
Thanks for your help.
Oakwell
We have a plan 
What's the point of having an "automatic backup" it it never works? I'm so tired of this now, problem after problem. Looking at the other posts in the thread, I'm not experiencing anything that isn't experienced by other users as well.
I know what you mean. Norton Online backup hasn't worked for over a week now. I'm certainly not impressed.
I understand your frustration. Please step across the line and try to understand that of the staff and another line to try and understand ours. We're users just like you are and we are having the same problems. I haven't been YELLING at the staff, too much, so that they can hear themselves think and get the problemS fixed.
I haven't seen this type of cascade effect in a long time. It appears that as soon as one problem gets resolved another one is uncovered. It has to end somewhere and at some time. I'm rooting for the staff and thinking it will be soon.
Stay well and surf safe
Dick, sorry but who are "we" and "the staff"? Are you a representative of Symantec/Norton? Couldn't find any info in your signature about this.
Hi improwise,
I will try and answer the question you have put to Dick as it may be easier for me to respond than him.
There are two types of people on this forum, The first group are Norton staff these are the ones I think Dick means by - staff. Symantec staff are called "Symantec Employee" or possibly "Administrator" or "moderator" under their user names and have their user names in bold red type. The second group are other users who have an interest in Norton products. This is what I think Dick means by we.
Of the latter group there are many that are fairly new to the forum and many of these will just come to get a problem solved and then not bother to log in again. Others however stick around to try and help other users with problems. Some people stick around for a long time and give a lot of help. When someone thinks you have been particularly helpful they may give you "kudos" (from the button at the bottom right of posts). When you gain kudos Norton give you a sort of rank (displayed just below their user name) which changes as you earn more kudos. When you have given a vast amount of help to others and a lot staff and other people on the forum think you are both expert and very helpful you may be granted the exalted title of Guru. Which you will see that Dick has. This means that lots of ordinary users have found him very helpful in the past and he has the respect of Norton staff.
And now maybe you can see why I thought it might be easier for me to reply, than Dick. ;-)
I hope that answered your question.
improwise wrote:Dick, sorry but who are "we" and "the staff"? Are you a representative of Symantec/Norton? Couldn't find any info in your signature about this.
Hi,
'We' are users and 'the staff' are the employees
I am a user and volunteer here to help, as best I can, other users. I have no 'official' connection with Symantec/Norton other than as a customer of long standing and a history of being active here as a resource for others.
Stay well and surf safe
Reading this and other threads, I find that Symantec staff (and expert users) have confirmed that the Backup service isn't working as it should currently (not even for interna Symantect usage). Still, as a paying customer, I have not received any information whatsoever regarding these problems, what is being done to correct them and when it will be corrected. Instead, I have spent a lot of time trying to look for problems at my end and at the same time paying full price for a service that isn't working as it should?!?
To me, this is as far from a professional service you can get, and I would be suprised if I am the only customer of yours feeling the same (if not, please make yourselves heard so I know I'm not the only one).
For me, having a working backup solution is critical. I even have this as an obligation in many of the contracts I have with my clients (I am a consultant in IT and business). As long as these problems remain, I don't have a working backup solution and thus are actually in breach of my contracts.
improwise wrote:Reading this and other threads, I find that Symantec staff (and expert users) have confirmed that the Backup service isn't working as it should currently (not even for interna Symantect usage). Still, as a paying customer, I have not received any information whatsoever regarding these problems, what is being done to correct them and when it will be corrected. Instead, I have spent a lot of time trying to look for problems at my end and at the same time paying full price for a service that isn't working as it should?!?
To me, this is as far from a professional service you can get, and I would be suprised if I am the only customer of yours feeling the same (if not, please make yourselves heard so I know I'm not the only one).
For me, having a working backup solution is critical. I even have this as an obligation in many of the contracts I have with my clients (I am a consultant in IT and business). As long as these problems remain, I don't have a working backup solution and thus are actually in breach of my contracts.
Hi,
The paid professionals at Symantec/Norton have been working to repair the problems since they were first reported. They have not provided any details on what has been happening nor have they allowed when it might be fixed. I will be very surprised if either of these bits of information are given.
There is nothing in your subscription for 360 that says that you will have 100% access 100% of the time. If you have made contracts which say that you will provide this type of service then I'm sure you have another means of making backups that will meet the specifications of your contracts.
This is the first time in several years that so many things have elected not to work properly. I know the level of frustration and upset is rising everywhere. Most of all at Symantec/Norton.
Stay well and surf safe
Hello all,
I'm very new to all this and I guess I would echo some of the same comments previously made. I think what frustrates me most is the fact that I'm learning about this problem through posts on this discussion forum as opposed to some other more direct way. I accidentally stumbled into this forum trying to find an actual person to talk to. For a week - I thought it was me and that it was a problem with my computer, my connection, or more importantly - my lack of computer knowledge. Last week I spent over 2 hours with Norton staff where they took over my computer and basically got me back to the same spot I was before I called. I'm not blaming anyone but I'm simply glad that I stumbled onto this thread and it appears that it isn't just my computer, or connection, but rather a more global problem. I was ready to take some drastic measures to my computer which would really have been a time killer. I guess I'll just sit back and wait for the problem to be fixed. Question: In the future, is this the place I should go which would alert me to these types of problems before I spend a week of my life questioning my technological worth? Does Norton have an automatic email notification system of problems being reported with N360? Any input would be appreciated and most importantly - thanks for the help.
I am so glad I checked here--I always think it (the problem) is me. Hopefully Norton will fix this soon. Thanks for your help and patience, Rich.
Sorry--I called you Rich--thank you Dick.
Who is talking about 100% of the time? Currently, I would be happy if it worked 50% of the times I try to use it, and that would still be at least 40% more than the current success rate. I tried to run the backup manually 20 times in a row before I could make it work. Once. Then I tried again just to test and it failed. So I don't really feel like it is me being very demanding here.
As pointed out by me and other posters here, the main problem is that Symantec obviously know about these problems, but does not inform the customers about it (at least not me, and it seems I'm not the only one). I don't know how many customers Norton 360 has, but I would guess it is most likely more than 50 000, perhaps serveral hundre thousands or even millions. If each of them spent 1 hour trying to solve these problems at their end...you do the math here.
For me, the trust I have in Norton 360 and Symantec is badly damaged by this, more the handling of the problem perhaps than the actual problem itself. And how hard could it have been to send out an email saying something like "We are currently having problems with the Norton Backup service, we are working on solving the problems as hard as we can". Instead, probably 99% of the customer (the one not being here), probably doesnt have a clue.
Dick, please don't think that I'm frustrated at you here, I realize that you are probably helping out others on your spare time and if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't even have know for sure that it was as problem at Symantects servers. So many thanks for your input!
Hi, improwise,
As you're one of the users experiencing this problem, your frustration is certainly understandable. It's also pretty cool that you're trying to provide some feedback on what Symantec might be able to do to handle these things better. As you surmise, Norton does have millions of customers, literally around the world. Disregarding those who use products that don't have backup functionality, though, there are still a significant number who don't use it. At all. Of those who do, there are many (myself included) who only backup to physical media--a USB drive, perhaps, or maybe a terabyte drive hanging off our local network--that we can physically control. Note: This might actually provide a better answer to your circumstances, given your fiduciary obligations--especially since the USB drive option allows you to store your backup offsite, just like the online option, so that a fire or flood that completely wiped out your work location wouldn't destroy your backup as well; this is what I do myself, as I have comparable requirements.
Of those who do use Norton's online backup storage, there appear to be many (remember, worldwide and thus maybe using different server farms) who aren't experiencing this problem at all. There may also be many who never see it because they backup less regularly and it's fixed between their scheduled times. Sending the mass e-mail that you suggest would, for each of these cases, either cluter their inboxes with one more piece of useless junk (at best) or cause needless worry (at worst). Like Dick said, there are a lot of people just as smart as us working at Norton; if there were a better way of handling this, they more than likely would have thought of it (thanks, though, for helping us brainstorm, cuz you never know!). And they will fix it, as soon as humanly possible. If it were otherwise, they would not have stayed on top of the pile for the quarter century I've been using their products.
Good luck--and sorry this is such a pain right now. Please do stick with us, though: that quarter century (during which I've also been an IT leader) would strongly suggest you won't find a comprehensive solution that has these less often, or handles them any more professionally.
MneMe4 wrote:Sorry--I called you Rich--thank you Dick.
Feel free to call me anything but later for supper 
Rich is short for Richard which is my name and Dick is a nickname
So you were correct on all counts