Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

Tuesday, 21 May 2013 05:39 CDT

toomanylogins

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: (2.5.6)
PHP version: (5.3)
MySQL version: (5)
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Akeeba Backup version: (3.5.1)

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 some symbolic links which point to a folder that is shared among users. The folder is read-only. In the files and directories exclusion the link shows up as a file not a folder in the exclusion list. And I have excluded the file.

When I attempted to restore I get error message

The extraction has failed

Extraction of the backup archive has failed.

The last error message was:

Could not create accounts/documents/3/ecm/Master Templates Read Only/ folder

where the symbolic link is "Master Templates Read Only"

The file exists on the source and target of the restore and is owned by apache.

I have double checked that this file is excluded. Is there a regular expression to exclude this file ? or another method to resolve this error.

Nothing in the log file

Thanks
Paul

Tuesday, 21 May 2013 05:41 CDT

nicholas

Hello Paul,

I'd suggest that you used the "Ignore most errors" option in Kickstart when extracting the backup archive.

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!

Tuesday, 21 May 2013 05:47 CDT

toomanylogins

Hello Nicholas,

Cant find the option. I am restoring via the backend between live and staging server on the Administer Backup Files page.
Thanks

Tuesday, 21 May 2013 06:43 CDT

nicholas

There's no such option there, it's only available in Kickstart.

Plan B. Go to Files and Directories Exclusion. Click on the Summary View tab. Click on the Exclude Directory button. Type in the path of the symlink (relative to the site's root) and click on the disk icon. That should allow you to exclude the symlink.

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!

Tuesday, 04 June 2013 03:08 CDT

toomanylogins

Hello Nicholas,

I have updated to the latest version 3.7.7 and try to exclude the symbolic link in both the browser view and the summary view as a directory neither works. In the log file I think you have a bug whereby the directory separator is missing.

INFO |130603 13:21:08|Scanning directories of <root>/accounts/documents/6/ecm
DEBUG |130603 13:21:08|Adding symlink to folder as file: accounts/documents/6/ecmMaster Templates Read Only

you are missing the directory separator after ecm it should be ecm/Master Templates Read Only

however I think I need to use regex expression to get this to work as I have the link in many places and I need to exclude by searching for the string. I have tried this option but also this does not work.

#\^Master Templates Read Only$#

regards
Paul

Tuesday, 04 June 2013 16:01 CDT

nicholas

Thank you for the bug report. It was actually a bit more complicated. I fixed it for the next release, scheduled to be released after mid-June.

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!

Wednesday, 03 July 2013 09:18 CDT

toomanylogins

Hello Nicholas, Just did a test restore to my local server with version 3.7.10 and still get error

Could not create accounts/documents/2/ecm/Master Templates Read Only/ folder

This is with kickstart and after the extraction has taken place so it causes a problem getting back into Administrator. if I delete the installation directory and try restore via backen after importing the archive I get.

The extraction has failed
Extraction of the backup archive has failed.
The last error message was:
Could not create accounts/documents/2/ecm/Master Templates Read Only/ folder

Have to delete the install folder again to gt back into Admin.

I have checked permissions and the files and folders have correct owner group www-data.

this is a problem for me because I need to backup the accounts/documents folder and we have the symbolic links in a number of subfolders.

Also fix you mentioned the exclude symbolic link function or did you fix a restore of the links ?

Regards
Paul

Wednesday, 03 July 2013 11:07 CDT

nicholas

> Also fix you mentioned the exclude symbolic link function or did you fix a restore of the links ?

The exclusion of symlinks. There's nothing to fix in the restoration of symlinks. It's not a "fix" if I stop restoring them, it's deliberate introduction of a major bug.

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!

Friday, 05 July 2013 06:15 CDT

toomanylogins

OK, What I am trying to say is are they excluded by default or do I have to manually exclude them ?

If they cannot be restored then obviously they should be excluded by default. However I still get the error on restore therefore they can't be excluded.

Does that make sense ?

Friday, 05 July 2013 09:17 CDT

nicholas

> are they excluded by default or do I have to manually exclude them ?

You have to manually exclude them

> If they cannot be restored then obviously they should be excluded by default.

Says who? They can be restored as long as a. they do not cause cyclic references b. the file/directory they are pointing to exists at restoration time and c. you are give sufficient privileges by the system/filesystem. None of the above can be checked at backup time. (a) is only possible to determine by doing a deep directory scan and comparison with the parent level, a process which requires too much RAM and CPU; it would cause the backup to fail for most users when it could only benefit you and probably two or three more users of Akeeba Backup. (b) depends on how the symlink is created and where you are going to restore the backup; it's outside our control. (c) depends on your host / operating system; it's outside our control. Therefore implementing what you suggest is impossible.

> However I still get the error on restore therefore they can't be excluded.

I have tested over and over. They can be excluded if you do exclude them.

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!

Friday, 05 July 2013 09:48 CDT

toomanylogins

I cant manually exclude them as I dont know where they are, They are created by the system as a means of providing read-only access to a couple of folders. The problem is on restore, the restore functionality does not seem able to create a new sym link if one doesn't exist already. The folder to which the sym link points to definitely exists. and I have checked all permissions are okay.

However this seems a big deal for a small issue so I think I can change the way we access the folders without using symbolic links.
Regards
Paul

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