Support

Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

#12649 Remote backup cron not working

Posted in ‘Akeeba Backup for Joomla! 4 & 5’
This is a public ticket

Everybody will be able to see its contents. Do not include usernames, passwords or any other sensitive information.

Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Akeeba Backup version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Friday, 15 June 2012 01:37 CDT

vickiwatson
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? Yes
Have I searched the tickets before posting? Yes
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? Yes
Joomla! version: (unknown) 2.5.4
PHP version: (unknown)
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Akeeba Backup version: (unknown)

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach a ZIP file containing your Akeeba Backup log file in order for us to help you with any backup or restoration issue. If the file is over 2Mb, please upload it on your server and post a link to it.

Description of my issue:

I have a site set up to back up to Rackspace Cloudfiles and am using a cron job. The email I get from the cron says that it was successful:

Warnings : no warnings issued (good)
Backup job finished successfully after approximately 3 minutes
Peak memory usage: 13.14 Mb

But the akeeba control panel indicates the backup failed (jpg attached) and the backup does not appear in the rackspace account.

The sites are on 2 different hosts, but the only difference I can see is that the profiles are reversed. And actually in the jpg it shows that the backup is using profile 1, when it should be using profile 2, as specified in the cron job.

On the site that's not working the Rackspace Cloudfiles backup profile is 2. On the one that does work it's profile 1.

Maybe I've made an error in the syntax somewhere?

cron job (that's not working)
/usr/local/bin/php /home/myaccount/public_html/cli/akeeba-backup.php -profile=2 -override "engine.postproc.cloudfiles.username=myusername" -override "engine.postproc.cloudfiles.apikey=mykey"

vickiwatson
screen shot attached

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Regarding the wrong profile you have to use --profile=2 (two dashes, not one). That's a typo in the documentation. I'm going to fix the documentation with the next release of Akeeba Backup.

Regarding the "Failed" status, I have to take a look at the log file of the "Command line" origin to tell you more. I suspect that it's simply that the backup takes too long to complete, the database server shuts the connection down and for some reason PHP doesn't return an error which Akeeba Backup could catch and retry connecting to the database. You can try going into Akeeba Backup's Configuration page for profile #2 and check the "Use database storage for temporary data" option. This should keep the database busy enough so that it doesn't drop the connection.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

vickiwatson
Where do I find that log file?

So the --profile is two dashes.

Are the -override items a single dash?

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
All options require double dash (sorry, I did screw up the docs!)

You can find the log file in the backend of your site, Components, Akeeba Backup, View Log and select "Command line" from the drop down list. Then click on Download log file, it downloads a .txt file. Put that file in a ZIP archive and attach it to your next post.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

vickiwatson
You can view the file here. Wouldn't let me attach it, file is too large.
http://vwebdesign.net/temp/backup-log.txt

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
It looks like I'm getting better at being a psychic :) Here's the log lines:
[120613 00:03:39] PHP WARNING on line 190 in file /home/bradmin/public_html/libraries/joomla/database/database/mysqli.php: 
[120613 00:03:39] mysqli_ping(): Couldn't fetch mysqli 

This tells me that the problem is exactly what I said. The database connection is dropped by the server. You should go into Akeeba Backup's Configuration page for profile #2 and check the "Use database storage for temporary data" option. This should normally resolve this issue.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

vickiwatson
Okay, I checked that option. It's scheduled to back up again tonight.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
OK! Please let me know how that works.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

vickiwatson
It worked. :)

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Awesome! Thank you very much for your feedback :)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Support Information

Working hours: We are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm Cyprus timezone (EET / EEST). Support is provided by the same developers writing the software, all of which live in Europe. You can still file tickets outside of our working hours, but we cannot respond to them until we're back at the office.

Support policy: We would like to kindly inform you that when using our support you have already agreed to the Support Policy which is part of our Terms of Service. Thank you for your understanding and for helping us help you!