File in use, error non-recoverable

I used Duplicati for the first time, intending to create a backup of my Thunderbird profile. I overlooked to stop Thunderbird before starting the backup, predictably Duplicati complained “Failed to process path: :..\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\parent.lock IOException: … (file in use, in German)”.

The complaint was accompanied by a popup including “Repair”, which I hit after terminating Thunderbird. The process repeated with the same result. I found documentation explaining there are options for the pros I might want to consider, and activated “rebuild-missing-dblock-files”. Still, repairing had no effect. When the process was repeated as scheduled the next day, the result was still the same, even though Thunderbird was not running at the time.

I deleted the process, and will set it up anew. Is there anything I can change in the setup that will enable a repairable backup? Or can I somehow schedule the backup such that it will not run unless all files scheduled for backup are available?

Thanks for you help!

Welcome to the forum @BoahEy

Locked files should not cause anything needing Repair. It’s a Warning.
Here’s the popup I get, which mentions no Repair, and has a log entry:

How did your results compare? Also check About → Show log → Stored for relevant entries.

Your locked file path will differ of course. Are you running 2.0.8.1 Beta? See About if not sure.

The way to get locked files backed up is to run as an elevated admin (Windows needs it) with

snapshot-policy

This setting controls the usage of snapshots, which allows Duplicati to backup files that are locked by other programs. If this is set to off, Duplicati will not attempt to create a disk snapshot. Setting this to auto makes Duplicati attempt to create a snapshot, and fail silently if that was not allowed or supported. A setting of on will also make Duplicati attempt to create a snapshot, but will produce a warning message in the log if it fails. Setting it to required will make Duplicati abort the backup if the snapshot creation fails. On Windows this uses the Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) and requires administrative privileges. On Linux this uses Logical Volume Management (LVM) and requires root privileges.

Setup is awkward. You can set Run as Administrator on a manual start shortcut, or install a Duplicati.WindowsService.exe to run as SYSTEM (default). Old video below gives general plan:

Duplicati Tutorial 02 Install Duplicati as a Service

EDIT:

If you mean something like Task Manager kill of two processes, was such kill ever done before? Preferred way to stop Duplicati is with Quit on the Tray Icon menu, but this isn’t always possible.

Dear ts678,
thank you for the warm welcome, and the very detailed reply.
Indeed, what you showed is the warning I first received (orange rectangle). If I remember well, I subsequently reran the backup, and only then saw a red rectangle stating an error that applied to 138 files. That box had a repair option, but repairing had no effect. Unfortunately I made no screenshots.
I proceeded by deleting the task (not the process, sorry) in the duplicati Home screen, and setting it up anew. Ever since, everything is running smoothly.
In order to avoid the situation, I added a reminder for myself to terminate Thundebird 5 Minutes before the backup runs. So far that has worked well. Even if I set the system up to create snapshots of the file in use, it might not give me a file allowing a full recreation of a Thunderbird profile. So I’d rather keep using the reminder.
Best regards
BE

It should be what’s known as crash-consistent, sort of like a computer crash.
I can’t say for sure if Thunderbird can survive that, though I’d sort of hope so.

Example Scripts shows how you might be able to not backup if that’s not done.
You’d need some non-Duplicati tool to test for right process, then set exit code.

This “should” just be to avoid a Warning. If other things fail, please note details.

“I can’t say for sure if Thunderbird can survive that, though I’d sort of hope so.”
Better safe than sorry, so I’ll stick to avoiding these conflicts :slightly_smiling_face:

“Example Scripts”
Thanks very much, yes, that’s nice to know and have. I’ll need to play around with such a script to get it just right.

1 Like

As mentioned by @ts678 a locked file should not cause any problems (aside from not backing up the locked file).

If you experience it again, I would love to see an error message, so I can trace what was happening.

That would be equivalent to deleting the local database and recreating it. I guess you had to run “Repair” first to get it running, otherwise you are storing data in a new location?

As to the first issue, I have not seen it again, so I’m afraid I can’t provide.

As per your second question, I am using the same directory for the repository, but deleted all the files therein from the earlier attempts. Hence, no need for a repair.