Support

This is the correct forum, so let's try to help you.

The first thing we have to check is whether your host supports SSL communications to S3 or not. Go to Akeeba Backup's Configuration page, click on the "Configure..." button next to the "Data processing engine" and uncheck the "Use SSL" checkbox.

If this doesn't help, please ask your host to open their firewall to allow connections to s3.amazonaws.com on ports 80 and 443. If they ask for an IP address, please ask them to run a ping from their server, as the above domain name is a multicast DNS record, returning a different IP address depending on the part of the world where your server is located in.

Please note that this may indeed be the cause of the problem. Amazon just added new data centers, making it very possible that your server is now trying to connect to an Amazon data center more close to your server. If your host hasn't added the new IP to the firewall, it would cause the connection to be blocked, resulting in the reported error.

I would say that your host doesn't know jack about how they server works. First off, Akeeba Backup doesn't produce SQL files, it produces archives.

Second, the archive files were created successfully. As a result, their claim about "bad .sql files" doesn't hold more water than a baloon with a 2" hole.

Third, the problem was not in the backup taking process, it was in getting the files to Amazon S3. They didn't even look at what the problem is before replying.

Fourth, Amazon S3 is the single most tested feature in Akeeba Backup. It uses PHP's cURL extension to contact Amazon S3 over their RESTful API and store the files. Hardly has anything to do with "bad .sql files"...

Fifth, the problem is NOT in Akeeba Backup's code, it is somewhere between PHP and Amazon S3. Given that hundreds of us use this on a daily basis without a problem, the only possibility is that their firewall cuts the connection to Amazon S3. Why do the suppose I have no problems with Rochen?

Sixth, cPanel backup (what they suggested) is not something you can easily schedule and you can certainly not use it to restore the site on any other server except the one it was taken from. The "questionable" backups are used by major template providers to provide installable sites and countless Joomla! professionals to move sites between hosts, between accounts and between live and local servers. You just can't do that with a cPanel backup. But, how could your host know if they just care about snatching your money instead of trying to provide support to their paying customers?

You would suppose a decent host would take a look at the problem and know all of the above, because it's their business to do so. You do pay them to do so. Instead, they didn't even look at any error logs and dismissed your claim with a -sorry for the language- BS excuse. I hope you're not paying them more than $2/month, because that's how much this inexistent customer support is worth. If you want me to provide you with a list of hosts who actually know what they are doing and can really help you when you have a problem with their service, I am more than willing to do so.

Yeah, I saw that too. Maybe the user deleted his post in the meantime.

I'm glad it's working correctly now :) Thank you for your feedback!

You're welcome :)

Hi Alex,

Please follow these troubleshooting instructions. It seems to me that Amazon S3's multipart upload feature is not very stable on their end. It occasionally closes the connection while we're still sending data, causing this issue. The troubleshooting instructions explain what you need to do and, trust me, they do work fine on Rochen (tested on my sites!).

Regarding the error message which flashes by, please ignore it. If it flashes and disappears everything's OK. What we're doing there is that the page has the warning message hard-coded. As soon as the Javascript on the page loads, it disappears. If, however, you have a permissions issue and the Javascript fails to load, this warning message will stick on the page and instruct you how to work around this issue. The only drawback is that the Javascript on the page may load 2-3 seconds after the HTML on the page, which causes this momentary flash.

You're welcome!