Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

Wednesday, 16 July 2014 01:40 CDT

arwi04

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:

The Backend Backup just works fine.
Now I am trying to automate the Backup.
My hoster does not support cron jobs (at least not in my tarrif).
So I would like to use webcron.
I have read the manual and setup everything accordingly.
I have enabled remote/frontend backup access.
I have setup a secret key.
I have created an URL to your specification, of course using my own domain name and secret key.
I have setup the cronjob in the webcron interface.
Problem: When I try to run the job from webcron (either using the "test" function or a scheduled cron job) I get a timeout.
I have made sure that the time used for the backup is significantly lower than the tmeout setting in the webcron interface (currently ca. 180 seconds for the Backup and 600 seconds in the webchron setting).
Please correct me if i am wrong but I don´t think there is a log file for the webcron backups, I can only see log files for my "regular" backend backups, otherwise I would have attached a log file.

Any help appreciated!

Sorry for the previous ticket with the same subject, somehow I accidentally hit a button before I even filled in two or three fields. Please be so kind to delete it.

Thank you!
Arnd

Wednesday, 16 July 2014 01:50 CDT

tampe125

Hello Arnd,

did you get any error message while running the webcron?
Can you please try to create a specific profile for webcron backups and try again? In the Manage backups page, can you see a failing row with the backup profile you just created?

Davide Tampellini

Developer and Support Staff

🇮🇹Italian: native 🇬🇧English: good • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Rome (UTC +1)
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Wednesday, 16 July 2014 14:54 CDT

arwi04

Hi Davide,
thank your for your fast reply.
I have set up a new webcron profile (profile #2).
The webcron job gives a timeout. Its log says:

cronjob: http://www......de/index.php?option=com_akeeba&view=backup&key=.....&profile=2

(dots inserted for security reasons)

Time-out: 600 sekunden

programmiert:: Mittwoch 16 Juli 2014 21:25:00

ausgeführt: Mittwoch 16 Juli 2014 21:25:15

Dauer: 600.5 sekunden

Status: 9 - Fehler : Script Time Out

There is no log of this profile in the Manage Backups section.

However, when I run the job from the webcron in "Test mode" I get a slightly different error.303
Webcron help explains the error as following:

The response to the request can be found under a different URI and SHOULD be retrieved using a GET method on that resource. This method exists primarily to allow the output of a POST-activated script to redirect the user agent to a selected resource. The new URI is not a substitute reference for the originally requested resource. The 303 response MUST NOT be cached, but the response to the second (redirected) request might be cacheable.

The different URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s).

Note: Many pre-HTTP/1.1 user agents do not understand the 303

status. When interoperability with such clients is a concern, the

302 status code may be used instead, since most user agents react

to a 302 response as described here for 303.

I am afraid my knowledge is not good enough to understand the meaning of the description.
Maybe it points you in the right dirrection of the source of my problem?

Greetings to Italy and thanks for your help
Arnd

Edited by arwi04 on 2014-07-16 14:55 CDT

Thursday, 17 July 2014 02:41 CDT

nicholas

You have set up your WebCron.org scheduled task to have a maximum duration of 600 seconds (10 minutes). However, it takes more than that to backup your site. As a result WebCron.org terminates the scheduled job before the backup is complete, notifying you that you went over the maximum time limit you specified. The solution is to tell WebCron.org to have a higher timeout, e..g 1800 seconds.

Please note that I cannot tell you exactly how much you need. This depends on how much time it takes to backup your site. You can figure this out by taking a backup from the back-end of your site and then going to the Manage Backups page. In the Duration column it will tell you how much time it took to complete the backup. You need to choose a WebCron.org timeout higher than this.

Finally, as I implied before, do NOT use the WebCron.org test mode. It will NOT follow redirections and, as a result, will NOT let the backup run beyond its first step.

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, 22 July 2014 10:25 CDT

arwi04

Thank you for your reply!
In the meantime I have upped the timeout.
Ok, now I got a different error : 909 (Network error) although with a green ok sign, which was misleading as no backup was made.
I updated Akeeba Backup to the lastest version (released a few days ago).
I unsuccessfully tried to use a cron job from my hoster, although everything looked fine using wget I saw the small print that only cron jobs till 60 seconds are supported. But at least I could find a "pending" entry in the manage backups section.
Back to square one.
I purchased an Admin Tools suscription and used the generate htaccess feature (there was one forum post in the akeeba forum which pointed me in this direction).
Voila, apparently my old htacces somehow prevented the backup from being made.

Now I am happy although I need the expensive 1800 seconds job - but twice a week should be enough, thats 10€ a year, could be worse.

Thanks for your help and the nice component
Arnd.

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