Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

Saturday, 17 September 2011 10:19 CDT

user46715

Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? yes
Have I searched the forum before posting? yes
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)?yes
Joomla! version: (1.5.23)
PHP version: (unknown)
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: (unlimitedwebhosting.co.uk)
Akeeba Backup version: (3.3.3)

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach your Akeeba Backup log file in order for us to help you with any backup or restoration issue.

Description of my issue: Hi Akeeba recently not working showing
Ajax error. I attach this log. I did try to set min execution time to 0 but that did not remedy the problem.
many thanks
Itay

Saturday, 17 September 2011 13:26 CDT

nicholas

Hi,

Go to Akeeba Backup's Configuration page and find the Temporary Directory setting. Set it to [DEFAULT_OUTPUT] (all caps, include the brackets).

If it still fails, go back to the Configuration page and check the "Use database storage for temporary data" (it's towards the top of the page).

If this doesn't help, try setting the following:
- Minimum execution time: 5 seconds
- Maximum execution time: 3 seconds (yes, minimum is LESS than maximum, it is not a typo!)
- Runtime bias: 50%
This should make the backup dead slow, but consume much less CPU resources (using too much CPU causes many hosts to abort the backup process).

If you still have a problem, please check with your host that you have adequate free space on your account. We generally recommend 40-50% of your disk quota to be free before taking a full site backup.

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!

Sunday, 18 September 2011 14:03 CDT

user46715

Hi again. I followed the instruction you gave and it did not work.
However changing the configuration to minimum exc. time:2 and Max exc. time 7 and excu. time: 75% I managed to do the backup. However sometimes it works sometimes it does not.
See log of the unsuccessful one.Thanks.
Itay

Sunday, 18 September 2011 14:07 CDT

nicholas

The problem is that, as I thought, your host is applying a CPU usage limit. If PHP scripts running on your account start using a lot of CPU, your host kills (stops) them. Backing up your site is an inherently CPU-intensive task. I mean, you get to dump the contents of your database and copy your files, compressed, in an archive. This takes a serious amount of CPU power and memory to be accomplished.

Since we can have no control over the CPU usage restriction of your host, you can either live with the possibility that your backups may not complete sometimes, or choose a better host. It really comes down to that.

FYI, this is a "problem" I have been dealing with ever since JoomlaPack 1.0, back in October 2006. On hosts which are too restrictive, there is not much you can do. It's like trying to watch HD video over a 56Kbps PSTN modem connection: technically impossible.

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!

Sunday, 18 September 2011 16:07 CDT

user46715

Thank you. I will try to raise this issue with the host= unlimitedwebhosting.co.uk and hopefully thy will resolve the problem at their end.
Thanks.
Itay

Sunday, 18 September 2011 16:08 CDT

nicholas

You're welcome! Please let me know of their response.

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!

Monday, 19 September 2011 02:37 CDT

user46715

Good morning.
This is the response I got from the hosting service (However that did not solve the problem):
Thanks Itay.
Quote:
Hey, its Dave I am the senior architect.
The issue is the mode In which your using Apache, in Plesk, click Web Hosting Settings, then ensure your using Apache mode and not FastCGI.

We do not limit anything cluster wise, so this is not an issue. The issue is timeout's these are enforced within FastCGI as the process runs as a thread whereas apache does not.

Kind Regards
Unlimited Web Hosting Technical Support Team
[cid:[email protected]]

W: www.unlimitedwebhosting.co.uk
E: [email protected]

24/7 Technical Support: 0845 652 00 47

Monday, 19 September 2011 02:41 CDT

nicholas

Hello,

Thank you for the feedback! Yes, it makes perfect sense now :) All you have to do is to go to your Plesk panel and there should be an option regarding which mode PHP should use. The options are Apache module, CGI and/or FastCGI. You need to select the Apache module option.

It's been a very long time (over 5 years) since I last used Plesk. I don't remember where exactly you should go to change that, but I'm sure that your host's tech support will be able to tell you.

BTW I'm impressed with the quality of the response you got and the speed of the reply - and I'm rarely impressed by hosts' tech support :)

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!

Monday, 19 September 2011 02:53 CDT

user46715

Hi. Another problem which I now have is that I only manage to download the backup files through flezilla ftp client and not as I used to by double click on the file. (The file will start downloading and stops for some reason or another)
Thaks again
Itay

Monday, 19 September 2011 02:56 CDT

nicholas

I am not sure what you mean by "double click on the file"? Do you mean clicking the filename in the rightmost column of the "Administer Backup Files" page? If so, this is expected. If you have a quite large backup, that method is bound to fail. In fact, that's why I have put that warning message when you click there to download the file. Besides, using FileZilla in Binary transfer mode is the recommended method to download backup archives, which is exactly why I only have a video tutorial which uses that method :)

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!

Monday, 19 September 2011 15:44 CDT

user46715

Hi.
Choosing the Apache mode did not do the trick.
Do you have any known issue with Akeeba 3.3.4?
Do you recommend upgrading joomla to a later version of 1.5
or any other issue I missed?
Thanks.
Itay

Monday, 19 September 2011 23:48 CDT

nicholas

There are no known issues with Akeeba Backup 3.3.4. In fact, I am currently using it also on two servers running PHP as a CGI module and it works fine. My local test servers run Apache as a module and it still works fine.

Is it possible to send me a Personal Message (I am user "nicholas") with the following information:
- URL to your site
- Super Administrator username/password
- A link back to this thread

This will allow me to have access to your site, take a look at the configuration and try to beat it to submission :)

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, 20 September 2011 05:48 CDT

user46715

Thanks. I have sent you the required details in a personal message.
Itay

Tuesday, 20 September 2011 07:15 CDT

nicholas

Thank you for your PM! With direct access to the site it was very easy to solve this issue :)

For starters, I deleted the oldest backup as I was suspecting that you may be running of disk space. If you get an AJAX error again, try deleting the oldest backup.

Then I set the following options:
- Minimum execution time: 1 second
- Maximum execution time: 3 seconds
- Runtime Bias: 75%
- Disable step break between domains
The reason is that your server is lightning fast. In fact, it is so fast that it caused Akeeba Backup to try to do extremely too much in each backup step, causing memory depletion. So, the solution was to put Akeeba Backup on a short leash (allow it to run just 2-3 seconds) so that it consumes less memory.

Even with these restrictive settings, your 120Mb backup completes in less than 30 seconds. That's awesome! Just to give you an idea, on an Intel i3 2.3GHz, 4Gb RAM, dedicated Linux box this kind of backup takes 90 seconds. Wow! You have one blazing fast server there! It beats everything I've tried this far, hands down.

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, 20 September 2011 09:44 CDT

user46715

Thank you very much Nicholas
I will share that information with the support team of unlimitedwehosting.co.uk and hopefully they will be able to assist other customers who use Akeeba.
Thank you for the time, patience, effort and the excelent service.
Itay

Tuesday, 20 September 2011 09:55 CDT

nicholas

You're welcome!

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, 21 September 2011 09:50 CDT

user46715

Hi again.
I had to change your configuration slightly to make it work 100% of the time. Min ex time: 0 and Max ex: 3
Bias:80%
I left the disable step break between domains unchecked.

So all is good and now we can go dancing. (Cuban style of-course)
Thanks.
Itay

Wednesday, 21 September 2011 11:33 CDT

nicholas

He he, yeah, when you have a server that fast you may have to slow things down even more :) I'm glad it's working now!

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!

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