Old backups are not being deleted

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FlumenSV
Posts: 8
Joined: 26 Jan 2021, 10:17
Location: Croatia

Old backups are not being deleted

Post by FlumenSV »

Greetings!

Recently we have encountered a problem with older backups not being automatically deleted. The problem started after we have (finally) upgraded our backup server from Win 7 to Win 10. It was a clean install of the OS. In the fresh environment we have installed latest version of Cobian (11.2.0.582) and used task list with former backup jobs (15 jobs in total, if this matters any).
So the new backup jobs were identical to old ones, however the only difference we made was changing the compression type from 7zip to zip for all jobs. But changed our minds and reverted back to 7zip compression soon after.
After all this, backups are created normally, but old ones are not removed.

Here are the settings for one of the backup jobs:
Image

History for the job:
Image

And backup files for the job:
Image

From the backup files it can be seen how everything worked fine until the 13th of Jan when we started with the upgrade of the backup server machine. On the 18th of Jan, Cobian Backup was installed with all old jobs transferred. However, even though History List reports a Full Backup job for 18th of Jan, the 7zip file on the server does not exist!? And upon creation of new Full Backup on 25th of Jan, Cobian did not delete old Full Backup for 15th of Dec 2020 (including its incrementals).

Lastly, one more thing. Out of those 15 backup tasks, one was set differently: formerly it was a "no compression" task, but with a newly Backup Server, we have set it as a 7zip compression. Problem is similar as with other 14 tasks: old backup jobs are not automatically deleted.

Image

Image

Image


So, it seems like, if a compression type for a task is changed, Cobian "forgets" to delete old backups!?
Any help would be much appreciated!
FlumenSV
Posts: 8
Joined: 26 Jan 2021, 10:17
Location: Croatia

Re: Old backups are not being deleted

Post by FlumenSV »

We were thinking, if Cobian considers only backup files that are in its History list, is there a way to manually add old backup files to the History list so they're counted for?
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cobian
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Re: Old backups are not being deleted

Post by cobian »

There is clearly a inconsistence where the history backups) and the actual files are not synchronized. Are the files in the exact same path than they where in the old machine or have they changed its path (example from c:\backup\file to d:\backup\file)?
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Cobian Backup's creator
FlumenSV
Posts: 8
Joined: 26 Jan 2021, 10:17
Location: Croatia

Re: Old backups are not being deleted

Post by FlumenSV »

Thank You for the reply.

No, everything is the same. We figured out, the problem is, we have copied MainList.lst file with all the backup jobs to the new server, but what we didn't copy were all of *.CBU files that start with "{" character. And those files hold the info on previous backup jobs that the software uses as a history of everything that was done in the past.

We have confirmed this was the case by opening one of the CBU files in Notepad and saw basically the same thing we can see in the History tab of Cobian Backup: records are only from the point of the new installation. We went so far as to fake[1] few records: we duplicated one of the records and changed the lines to match of the physical files on the disk. When the backup job was triggered, Cobian Backup was correctly deleted old backup, both from the history and from the disk.

Now, for the purpose of testing, we have done this manually for 3 history records, but manually modifying CBU files is a tedious work and would take an eternity for many hundreds of records in 15 CBU files that we have. So here's a question: is there a way for Cobian Backup to automatically populate/repair those CBU files from the physical backup files on the disk?


[1] We faked a record in CBU file by changing few lines, namely:
  • gave a new unique History backup ID,
  • set a proper date and time when the job was supposed to happen by changing History date time,
  • and most importantly, targeting the correct backup file on the disk by changing History files line.
FlumenSV
Posts: 8
Joined: 26 Jan 2021, 10:17
Location: Croatia

Re: Old backups are not being deleted

Post by FlumenSV »

This is an example of one of a records from a CBU file:

Code: Select all

{11//
History task ID={5A4A1526-6A09-4AB8-878A-160F7665C317}
History backup ID={0856615F-C0E0-4947-9738-7FA854521739}
History parent ID=
History backup kind=0
History date time=0100000011100101100101000101101010101010101100111110001111101000
History next backup=0100000011100101100101000111101010101010101100111110001111101000
History source="1,\\Fileserver\Codeplugs"
History destination=1,D:\Fileserver\Codeplugs\Daily
History compression=1
History encryption=0
History schedule=1
History parked=false
History files="0,""\\?\D:\Fileserver\Codeplugs\Daily\Codeplugs 2020-12-29 20;00;09 (Full).7z"""
History size=619922370
//11}
For Cobian Backup to correctly consider a record as valid and include a record and a backup file on disk for a deletion, at least 3 lines should be modified: History backup ID, History date time and History files.
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cobian
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Re: Old backups are not being deleted

Post by cobian »

Yes, the history files should be copied as well. Glad it solved the problem.
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Cobian Backup's creator
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