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Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

#30603 Joomla Backup cron failing to write to output folder

Posted in ‘Akeeba Backup for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

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

Latest post by tampe125 on Friday, 30 November 2018 04:25 CST

chrisvaughan
We run many Joomla site (100+) all with similar software config.
Akeeba works very well on all of these sites, excellent software.
The latest site I have set up, Akeeba worked fine from the Joomla backend but the scheduled task (cron) fails with the error
"Couldn't write to the archive file; check the output directory permissions and make sure you have enough disk space available.[len=0 / 3] "
The back end backup and the cron task both use the default profile and store the backup in [DEFAULT_OUTPUT] and then transfer it to Amazon S3
The [DEFAULT_OUTPUT] -
administrator •
components •
com_akeeba •
backup
folder is set to 0755
What I don't understand is that both backups are writing to the same place, also we have unlimited space so that should not be an issue. Attached is a log file.

Let me know what extra information I can provide.
Thanks for any help.

tampe125
Akeeba Staff
Hello,

does it happen all the time?
Does it happen always with the same size/file?

When this error is raised, it means that Akeeba Backup tried to write some data on the archive, but PHP returned both an error OR that fewer bytes were written into.

Can you please try again and check if the problem always happens in the same spot?

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!

chrisvaughan
Davide
Thanks for the reply. I have run it three time with the same results. It does start creating a file site-ndwg-org-uk.stackstaging.com-20181128-170658.j01 in the backup folder

Manage Backups says the three files were 3.8, 4.02, 4.83 Mb
I have attached the three log files

Running backup from Joomla still works okay

tampe125
Akeeba Staff
Ok, that's pretty strange.
Can you please try to set the archive part size to 3Mb?

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!

chrisvaughan
Davide
ok so I changed the archive part size to 3Mb
I then ran the cron task and the backup failed, log file attached.
I then ran a backup from Joomla > Akeeba and that ran fine.
yes very strange

tampe125
Akeeba Staff
Ok, this could be a long shot, but can you please try to exclude the ramblers folder?
The error appears on different folders, on different timing and backup size.
My only idea left is that there is some kind of CLI limitations (ie CPU usage) that kicks in and kills the write operation. Can you please get in touch with your host?

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!

chrisvaughan
Davide
what I find strange is that we have some 100+ site that were all set up by cloning a basic site (using Akeeba/kickstart)
This site is a new clone and hence should work the same as all of the ones before it.
I cannot see anything different in this installation from all the others. I have had very large site that back up with out issues.

I'll try what you suggest

chrisvaughan
I have tried removing the ramblers folder, no difference. See attached log file

I'll ask about CLI time limits, although there does not seem to be on other domains.

tampe125
Akeeba Staff
This confirms that there must be something going on server side with CLI configuration. There's nothing that we (you and I) can do: we are asking PHP to write a file and it tells us "Bad luck, I couldn't do it". Only you host can shed light on this issue.

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!

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