Log Hell

Questions about Cobian Backup 11 (Gravity)
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nascent
Posts: 4
Joined: 12 Dec 2020, 14:02

Log Hell

Post by nascent »

I'm a massive fan of cobian and have used it for many years now.
I have cobian setup to email me backup logs so that I know when they've failed without having to manual check the logs. This worked for years but stopped about 2019 on one computer, then 2020 on another. I haven't been able to get them working again. Mail test works every time.
I assume it's log size but have tried log in body and log as attachment with no resolution.

Today I found a folder (not the folder my cobian logs go to) full of 10gb worth of cobian backup logs.
cobian logs.png
cobian logs.png (23.65 KiB) Viewed 5729 times
cobian log 1.png
cobian log 1.png (17.23 KiB) Viewed 5728 times
again this is not the folder I have set to store my logs which also is full of logs.

I just don't understand the logging anymore. I've already been bitten trying to do a restore some months ago to find the majority of my backups were incomplete but without mail alerts had no idea.

I know you're not updating Gravity currently, but it'd be great if something can be improved for any successor. Maybe something as an option to not mail to log at all, but to just send an email with the number of errors vs number of successes (which was the only info I cared about in the mails anyway - I can read the logs for more info). It'd be great to get a range of user-friendly mail options one day.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to have to turn of the mail feature entirely and try to monitor both these log folders (the one I set and this other appdata one ) and parse all the logs for successes and errors and email that independently or something.
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cobian
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Re: Log Hell

Post by cobian »

Such a large log is only possible if you are using Verbose logs. That's not necessary for common backups. Is that the case? Is so, try setting it back to "Normal" to get a not so big one.
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Luis Cobian
Cobian Backup's creator
nascent
Posts: 4
Joined: 12 Dec 2020, 14:02

Re: Log Hell

Post by nascent »

I didn't get an email notification of your reply.

My logs are set to normal. It's possible I temporarily set it to verbose at the time of the bigger logs. Either way I'm still unsure why my logs are in that location.
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cobian
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Re: Log Hell

Post by cobian »

The log files are copied to the temporary directory when the files are being mailed, in order to compress them. For some reason (perhaps the mailing thread has crashed) the files were not successfully deleted.
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Luis Cobian
Cobian Backup's creator
nascent
Posts: 4
Joined: 12 Dec 2020, 14:02

Re: Log Hell

Post by nascent »

Ah that makes sense, and also explains why the folder has hundreds of logs as none are being successfully sent.
Interesting that the logs were moved there for compression as some of the dates of the logs coincide with periods of time I unticked send as attachments.

I feel that there needs to be more alerting to issues with mailing. If I had mail on errors checked, I'd have zero idea mails weren't working as no emails, in that case, would typically be good news. If there's an issue compressing/sending with log, then cobian should send an email that the log cannot be sent.

As recommended before. There should be an option to email statistics of a backup and not the log.

I have my mail send
Cobian Backup [Errors: %ERRORS] (%COMPUTERNAME) - %TASKNAME
so that I know how many errors occured, which computer the backup task was on, and which task. There's no way to have that emailed without including the log as either the body or attachment, and as the logs are apparently huge the mails never send.
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cobian
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Re: Log Hell

Post by cobian »

Agree.. Thanks!
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Luis Cobian
Cobian Backup's creator
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