Retrospect problem part II

[rtcstudio]

I couldn't find my earlier post on this, I guess it was too old.

Basically I went back to a project I started last July, finished in November. I went back recently to this project to do some remixes, and when I started to do the incremental backup with Retrospect, it wanted to re-backup the entire project. It did not seem to recognize the Mac File backup I had on another firewire drive.

Folks here were helpful. Dantz's forum was not too helpful until just recently, I guess they were all on vacation or something 'cause it took 8 days...

ANYWAY they said the problem was that IF Daylight Savings Time has switched, then Retrospect sees ALL the files on the project disks as NEW files because their inception dates do not match. Dantz says this is an Apple OS bug. You cannot "fool" Retrospect by changing the system clock, your ONLY choice is to completely rebackup the project. You can RESTORE, but you can NO LONGER do incremental backups until a NEW backup is done.

Dantz says this is okay because a "good backup program" includes the renewal of backup media from time to time. I think 5 months is a little soon to renew my backup media.

Anyway, they say they've known about this for 15 years. The issue is in some obscure articles in the Knowlege Base at Dantz, but is not documented in the manual. A similar problem, changing Time Zones is in the manual, but the workaround stated there does not work for DST.

Anybody experienced this?

[Jan Folkson]

That doesn't seem to make sense. I've been using retrospect for years and have never seen this, even with projects that have spanned across daylight savings time.

[rtcstudio]

That doesn't seem to make sense. I've been using retrospect for years and have never seen this, even with projects that have spanned across daylight savings time.

I've used Retrospect for over 5 years myself. I have seen this happen at least twice where for some reason Retrospect would want to start from scratch on an old project instead of incrementally backing up when I came back to an older project and made a new session with some updates (like a remix). But like I said, sometimes everything works just fine.

It's a documented bug at Dantz. Their Knowledge Base even suggests that when this situation occurs, to take that opportunity to use fresh media to make a new backup "since you're going to have to rebackup anyway".

But it really seems that no one over there can give a really good answer as to why or when this will occur. Like you I know I've been working on projects that went across DST (at least I think so) so I don't know why I've never had a problem except when going back to an old project that I've left for a while.

One thing they did say is that it makes no difference where the physical drive is (either the project drives with the ProTools sessions or the one you're using for the Mac File backup). It only has to do with how Retrospect interacts with the OS either on the Mac or in Windows and how the OS handles time stamping and DST.

Dantz says they are "working with Apple to find a solution".

[Mark Wheaton]

And if you have upgraded from OS9 version to OS X or from OSX retro 5.x to Retro 6.x thenb you are in for another rude surprise, a new "feature" of Retrospect is that it does not incrementally backup previous versions mentioned above. When you upgrade you are required to start your backup from scratch.

[Jan Folkson]

Yeah, I went through both of those scenarios. I had to keep an old system setup on another drive with the old versions of Retro so that I could complete the projects started with them...a BIG PITA! That enabled me to migrate slowly to the new version each time.

[Adamsound]

This has happened to me, too, but only when I moved a project from one drive to another for some reason. When I tried to back it up again, it wanted to start over, which I did. I almost always do two backups, anyway.

[rtcstudio]

This has happened to me, too, but only when I moved a project from one drive to another for some reason. When I tried to back it up again, it wanted to start over, which I did. I almost always do two backups, anyway.

That's what I used to think it was as well, but Dantz says it does NOT matter where your backup file/project files is/are, inside outside, firewire, whatever. They say the only thing that causes Retrospect to want to start from scratch is some sort of file change, and I mean all of them. Their explanation is that it is either the Time Zone changing, or Daylight Savings Time. In the case of DST, you have no choice but to backup from scratch.

I think more people are bitten by this bug than know it.

Also, I make THREE backups of all my projects: One AIT tape and two ready to go firewire drive backups. So I really get bummed out when I have to start from scratch on all those just to do a remix of one song. I haven't checked yet, but I don't think this problem affects tape backups only backing up to hard drives.

Anyway, they say they are working on it.

[rtcstudio]

I've been trying to understand this issue, and to be honest, I think it is more of a problem when you use a hard drive for your backup medium instead of tape.

Here is a response by one of guys at Dantz that has been really helpful:

* * * * * * * *
"This may be a bit simplistic but here it goes:

How does Retrospect tell the difference between a modify date that changed because of daylight savings rather than an actual modification to the file?

I think the answer is it simply can't. At best we could tell Retrospect to ignore changes of exactly one hour on files modified on the day daylight savings kicks in. That leaves Retrospect wide open to not back up files that have legitimately changed.

After daylight savings the file does not retain any of the date change nformation in its attributes. The file system just knows to change the time on all files by one hour. It doesn't track the changes file by file.

Hey, I completely agree this is a huge pain and a full backup involves a _ton_ of time and effort. It is truly aggrivating that such a simple problem can be so complex to try and resolve."

* * * * * * * *

So I guess it may not have a fix any time soon. I just need to plan for it, for now, to crop up every now and then.

[martian]

or turn off daylight saving?

[rtcstudio]

Yep, that would work. Probably not a bad idea for just my studio Mac.

I do catch myself looking at the clock there in the right corner, but I guess I could buy a wristwatch, eh?