Backup creating empty folders

[Folkien]

Super thx for the folow up !

[BassmasterP]

I guess this problem never got resolved. I have the same issue and from reading these posts it seems likely that the software is behaving as intended yet users (myself included) expect something different.

I am backing up 4 high level directories from my E: drive that each contain a multitude of subdirectories that also contain subdirectories and files at every level. I am backing up to a NAS via UNC path with passthrough windows authentication. I have options set to "Create Separated Backups", "Include Subdirectories", "Always Create Top Parent Folder", and have UNCHECKED "Ignore Empty Directories".

After the full backup, if nothing has changed, the incremental backup builds the entire directory structure (some 500 directories) and leaves them all empty. This could be what the makers of Cobian intended given the settings but it is CLEARLY NOT what users, such as myself, expect.

To me, my settings say...
"Create Separated Backups" = Create a separate backup folder on the NAS each day with an indicator of the backup type.
"Include Subdirectories" = Don't just backup up the files under each of my 4 directories but rather include all directories under them and so on.
"Always Create Top Parent Folder" = Always create the highest level directory specified in the "Source" area of the task - this would be my 4 directories
"Ignore Empty Directories" = When doing a FULL backup (makes no sense for Incremental) skip directories that don't contain any files (if checked. I have it unchecked).

Given my understanding of the settings, a FULL backup should create a dated "full" directory on the NAS under which I would find my 4 main directories (I selected them individually in the source tab) and all subdirectories and files under them, even if a directory is empty. Assuming nothing changed when a Incremental is done, I would also expect a dated "incremental" folder containing each of my 4 main directories - but each of those 4 directories should have nothing under them. By definition an Incremental backup only backs up changes - but no change took place. Yes, I specified "Include Subdirectories" but that setting is merely a way to say "backup all my data under directory X so I don't need to manually add 500 subdirectories to the source tab".

So.....unless I am misunderstanding what these setting means, this is a bug. If it's not, then please...put this topic to rest and tell us how to create incremental backups that only create a directory structure that ends in something that has changed. I mean, that's what we're after, right? If I open a Incremental folder I expect to see my main directories and then ONLY THINGS THAT CHANGED underneath - the incremental files and folders.

Thank you for your time and, to the Cobian folks, thanks for the great software! This issue aside, the software has been wonderful.

[cobian]

Create Separated Backups" = Create a separate backup folder on the NAS each day with an indicator of the backup type.. That's right


"Include Subdirectories" = Don't just backup up the files under each of my 4 directories but rather include all directories under them and so on. That's right

"Always Create Top Parent Folder" = Always create the highest level directory specified in the "Source" area of the task - this would be my 4 directories That's right

"Ignore Empty Directories" = When doing a FULL backup (makes no sense for Incremental) skip directories that don't contain any files (if checked. I have it unchecked). This doesn't matter if the backup is full or not. The same result will be expected under both full or incremental. Unchecked, means, do not delete any empty directories.

[BassmasterP]

Thanks for the clarification. So, really "Ignore Empty Directories" doesn't mean what it says, and that's fine. Nice to know where the common misunderstanding comes from. "Ignore Empty Directories" sounds like the software will not backup a directory if nothing is in it (i.e. "empty"), when in reality it means that the software will ignore any directories if nothing in it has changed.

Perhaps the option should read something like: "Create full directory structure regardless of underlying changes"?

In any case, I unchecked the option and my backups are as expected. THANKS!

[cobian]

The directory is not really ignored, it will get created at the destination. At a later stage, the program will check if there are files in it. Because it doesn’t continues ny (no changes files) then it’s considered empty and thus deleted, so technically the description is ok, but not relatively to the source but to the destination.

[MrPineapples]

Suggest not creating the directories until required, rather than deleting them after the backup is done copying changed files. It takes 2 hrs to create an empty backup directory structure to the network storage device. Could speed up the backup process immensely!

Cheers

[Folkien]

Is this has been solved in the actual version ?

[cobian]

Nope.