MacOS and the returning Finishvolume error

Support
1

Hi,

I am a new user, not afraid of some experimenting.

The goal is to have Duplicati backup over SSH to my local Linux server and maybe later, when proven stable, to let it backup family windows pc’s over the internet to my local server.

So I started making a full backup directly after installation, resulting in:

“Previous volume not finished, call FinishVolume before starting a new volume”

I then realised that Duplicati needed root rights, so I found the instructions, and was smart enough to enable the open file option, so what could go wrong?

A lot, when you select a full backup of an operating system, so I found the exclusion list from time machine and the markers of applications what to exclude (both can be obtained from the OS using a few commands and may be simpler to import than I did). The first was an xml file, so I changed the output in a readable list for Duplicati and discovered how the notation is used in script mode for exclusions. the second was a direct listing with files and folders, I was getting experienced, so that went well too.

Because of this dreaded error (where to call Finish volume, when you can’t call it?), I removed earlier attempts three times in full (as it looks in my setup Duplicati is not able to resume or accept new modifications).

Strange enough, after excluding /dev but it still is in the full disk selection, it still attempts to read /dev.

So my last attempt resulted in only 4 file failures (in /dev), but that is enough reason not to finish, so please finish volume, but … how?

So I have two questions: how do I finish a volume and what is bothering me from making a successful backup.

So the program looks promising, all though a plane took off when busy (had to tame the cpu usage as well, does it really need that much resources?)), 150 GB to backup is a good heater in my living, and it appears, when reattempting, that it starts all over again counting files when restarting, in stead of looking for changes (or is this too because of the unfinished volume?).

So I really want this to work, again not afraid of some experimenting and googling around, but now I am through my options, so please give me some direction and explanation in off course your spare time (so I don’t mean to be disrespectful, it was a long journey what’s bothering me, figuring in out so-far).

Hear are the latest log entries, maybe they can shed some light in this darkness.

Off course I hope this will help more people, maybe even help in developing (all though I am not a developer, I hope to help with these attempts).

Thanks for your help!

Regards,
Roelof

MainOperation: Test
Verifications: [
Key: duplicati-20180107T143730Z.dlist.zip.aes
Value: [],
Key: duplicati-i4fadfab1d12c4185ac6e85044cf6e84d.dindex.zip.aes
Value: [],
Key: duplicati-b9cad3efb6884489d852b1db3377dd0e7.dblock.zip.aes
Value: []
]
ParsedResult: Success
EndTime: 1/8/2018 11:58:49 AM
BeginTime: 1/8/2018 11:54:32 AM
Duration: 00:04:17.5349830
Messages: [
removing file listed as Temporary: duplicati-20180108T080221Z.dlist.zip.aes,
scheduling missing file for deletion, currently listed as Uploading: duplicati-b6020541d6648474db9a1e7d279a45d99.dblock.zip.aes,
scheduling missing file for deletion, currently listed as Uploading: duplicati-i7a78d27373694b3887b3b40d3eb25012.dindex.zip.aes
]
Warnings: []
Errors: []
BackendStatistics:
RemoteCalls: 4
BytesUploaded: 0
BytesDownloaded: 162795095
FilesUploaded: 0
FilesDownloaded: 3
FilesDeleted: 0
FoldersCreated: 0
RetryAttempts: 0
UnknownFileSize: 0
UnknownFileCount: 0
KnownFileCount: 1969
KnownFileSize: 103245222669
LastBackupDate: 1/7/2018 3:37:30 PM
BackupListCount: 1
TotalQuotaSpace: 0
FreeQuotaSpace: 0
AssignedQuotaSpace: -1
ParsedResult: Success
Jan 8, 2018 9:03 AM: Message
Expected there to be a temporary fileset for synthetic filelist (2, duplicati-b84813fe9bcff4ec4866c494ee9afe0ed.dblock.zip.aes), but none was found?
Jan 8, 2018 9:03 AM: Message
scheduling missing file for deletion, currently listed as Uploading: duplicati-i2a923f83834b43338082d376c93d0138.dindex.zip.aes
Jan 8, 2018 9:03 AM: Message
scheduling missing file for deletion, currently listed as Uploading: duplicati-be5f6d545957e4d2ab3c36e9dcc9d683d.dblock.zip.aes
Jan 8, 2018 9:03 AM: Message
removing file listed as Temporary: duplicati-20180108T034605Z.dlist.zip.aes

2

Hi @roelof, welcome to the forum!

Your plan sounds like a good one and you certainly seem to be doing all the right things, though it should be noted that Duplicati is designed for file, not “whole system”, backup. While it should handle a whole drive’s worth of files without a problem, you couldn’t restore a backup of a bootable disk to another disk and have it be bootable (since Duplicati doesn’t back up drive formatting and such).

Assuming file level backup is adequate for your needs, then my guess about the /dev issue is that there are some symlinks / mount points elsewhere on your system that also point to dev. So while you have correctly excluded /dev, some other folder that you are including may itself have a link of some sort to /dev.

In your final section of job results the “synthetic filelist” line is just saying that an expected temp file was not found. And the “scheduling missing file for deletion” lines are just saying that files Duplicati thought had been put in the destination aren’t there so it’s going to remove references to them from the local database.

And the Finish volume message is most likely due to Duplicati not being able to complete a previous backup (probably the cause of the “missing files”). What we don’t know for sure is WHY Duplicati couldn’t finish the volume.

If you could try some of the following that might help us figure out what’s going on:

  • post your backup job with “Export …” -> “As Command-line …” (with personally identifiable data like email address, passwords, usernames, etc. removed / obfuscated)
  • take a look at the “Show log” main menu item and see what shows up in there (note that clicking on a time-stamped log entry will expand it to show details)
  • if you’re actively running a job you can “monitor” it in “Show log” -> Live -> Profiling
  • if you’d like a text log output somewhere you can use --log-file=<path> to create a file and --log-level=<profiling | warning | information | error> to set what level of detail you want in the log file
3

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, made me rethink what I want, so I will lower my demand, hopefully also resulting in a lower system demand of Duplicaty.
Unfortunately I am too busy right now to continue, hopefully in the next few weeks.

So I did read it, am still interested, but in the need of time, so to be continued at a later moment.

Roelof

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