Support

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

• https://www.akeebabackup.com/documentation/akeeba-backup-documentation/native-cron-script.html
• https://www.akeebabackup.com/documentation/akeeba-backup-documentation/alternative-cron-script.html

Joomla! version: Joomla 2.5.11
PHP version: PHP 5.3.x
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: Cartika Hosting
Akeeba Backup version: Akeeba Backup Professional 3.8.0

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:

Hi Akeeba Team (Nicholas):

I'm running into what seems to be an odd issue with scheduled akeeba backups. I've configured the cron job to run from from the CLI, and I had it running daily. The configuration was supposed to push the backups to Amazon S3. This seemed to go pretty smoothly for a while.

Then this morning I had a complaint from my client that the site was running unusually slow. I checked with my host and discovered that the cron job never completed successfully, and was just consuming resources on the processor by never ending. I took a look at the log (attached) but didn't see any reason for this to happen. Another strange thing I noticed is that this backup didn't get pushed to amazon like the others.

You can see an example of this here: http://d.pr/i/JySG

The configuration though, never changed. So I'm trying to track down exactly what might cause this backup to be different than the rest. The others seemed to end properly.

If it helps, here is a screenshot of my profile configuration: http://d.pr/i/KeK5

I know available diskspace is a major issue, but my host shows that I should have adequate free space: Diskspace: 2,416.85 MB out of 6000 MB

Here is my cron job command as well

 /hsphere/shared/php5/bin/php-cli /hsphere/local/home/bridge/887thebridge.com/cli/akeeba-backup.php

I hope I've supplied enough information to get some ideas on how to resolve this. Also I do want to know I had the cron job running daily, but in light of this issue I have reduced it to a weekly job in hopes that this will resolve the issue.

Hi Nicholas:

I waited for the week to run through and see what happened when the scheduled backup job came through again. Same issue seems to have happened. The job got caught somewhere near the completion stage and never pushed to amazon, and then the job just ate up the processing power of the server till we realized it and killed the process. I did check all the configs in Akeeba's profile, and the cron. Here are screenshots of those screens:

Akeeba's 'manage backups' screen:
http://d.pr/i/Pa1x

You can see last week it ran properly - pushing to Amazon and completing with no performance issues. Then last night it ran and never completed, so the file stayed local. I assume because we killed the process after it got hung-up that's why it never made it to amazon. Could this be an issue with Amazon not responding?

Akeeba's Profile Backup Config:
http://d.pr/i/KxoU

You should be able to see here that the backup is set up to be remote.

Cron Tab
http://d.pr/i/AOMm

The full command:

/hsphere/shared/php5/bin/php-cli /hsphere/local/home/bridge/887thebridge.com/cli/akeeba-backup.php

You should see here I'm not overriding any of the profile's configs, so those should be taken directly from Akeeba's config screen.

--

To answer your specific questions:

How long does it take to complete a backup of the site and how often does the CRON job run?

According to Akeeba's manage backups screen, when then job runs and pushes to Amazon it takes around 4:07 - 4:20 on average, if it doesn't complete the push to amazon it appears to only take about 3:45 - 3:50.

Don't assume that the CRON job is unchanged: check it. Last time I saw a similar issue the CRON job was changed to run every few minutes. Apparently nobody remembered changing it.

Right now I know I'm the only one changing it, but it's good to keep in mind not to assume! Thanks. Above you should see the exact settings for the cron.

Attached is an updated copy of the Akeeba Log as well. Hopefully I've provided enough information to help figure out what's going on here. Please let me know if there's anything else I can provide that will help. Thanks!