Support

I've used Akeeba Backup for several years without problems, about a week ago I started encountering errors on restore. The problems started soon after (possibly immediately after, I'm not certain) upgrading from Backup 3.11.4 to Backup 4.1.2.

I'm trying to port my site from preview.kurtmeyer.com to test2.kurtmeyer.com, am using FileManager to move the backup to the test2 folder. Or, if downloading, I am using FireFTP in Binary mode.

On running Kickstart, I get errors such as "Invalid header in archive file, part 0, offset xxxx", but when I re-start Kickstart the offset changes, the status bar shows a different file, and every now and then it simply works. I've also had problems where it restores the files, then gives errors during the database restore, again if I restart the db restoration the location of the error changes and finally succeeds after several restarts, sorry I can't give you exact errors for this as it hasn't gotten that far recently.

I've excluded log files from the backup, and have searched the forums for possible solutions.

As an example, here is the error I got the first time I tried to restore a fresh backup today:
Invalid header in archive file, part 0, offset 13167160
and the next time it was:
Invalid header in archive file, part 0, offset 12583214
and the third time it was:
Invalid header in archive file, part 0, offset 16457848

I'm attaching the log file from the backup creation, and here are the lines from error_log in the target folder during a number of restoration attempts today:
[25-Feb-2015 00:14:02 UTC] PHP Warning: require_once(/home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/includes/defines.php) [<a href='function.require-once'>function.require-once</a>]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/index.php on line 28
[25-Feb-2015 00:14:02 UTC] PHP Fatal error: require_once() [<a href='function.require'>function.require</a>]: Failed opening required '/home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/includes/defines.php' (include_path='.:/opt/alt/php53/usr/share/pear:/opt/alt/php53/usr/share/php') in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/index.php on line 28
[25-Feb-2015 00:15:06 UTC] PHP Warning: gzinflate() [<a href='function.gzinflate'>function.gzinflate</a>]: data error in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/kickstart.php on line 4864
[25-Feb-2015 00:29:02 UTC] PHP Warning: require_once(/home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/includes/defines.php) [<a href='function.require-once'>function.require-once</a>]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/index.php on line 28
[25-Feb-2015 00:29:02 UTC] PHP Fatal error: require_once() [<a href='function.require'>function.require</a>]: Failed opening required '/home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/includes/defines.php' (include_path='.:/opt/alt/php53/usr/share/pear:/opt/alt/php53/usr/share/php') in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/index.php on line 28
[25-Feb-2015 00:37:38 UTC] PHP Warning: gzinflate() [<a href='function.gzinflate'>function.gzinflate</a>]: data error in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/kickstart.php on line 4864
[25-Feb-2015 00:38:19 UTC] PHP Warning: require_once(/home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/includes/defines.php) [<a href='function.require-once'>function.require-once</a>]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/index.php on line 28
[25-Feb-2015 00:38:19 UTC] PHP Fatal error: require_once() [<a href='function.require'>function.require</a>]: Failed opening required '/home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/includes/defines.php' (include_path='.:/opt/alt/php53/usr/share/pear:/opt/alt/php53/usr/share/php') in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/index.php on line 28
[25-Feb-2015 01:02:50 UTC] PHP Warning: gzinflate() [<a href='function.gzinflate'>function.gzinflate</a>]: data error in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/kickstart.php on line 4864
[25-Feb-2015 01:04:12 UTC] PHP Warning: gzinflate() [<a href='function.gzinflate'>function.gzinflate</a>]: data error in /home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/kickstart.php on line 4864

I normally use FireFox but for this last attempt have done everything on Google Chrome.

I've also tried restoring the backup locally with similarly random offset errors. And using eXtract Wizard locally I get Warning: Invalid Archive Format, but this always stops with the same file (a jpg) showing in the status bar.

If you can help me figure out why I can no longer create a viable backup, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks for your support.

Sure, when eXtract Wizard stops for this backup it is always showing the following in the status area:
images/stories/virtuemart/product/resized/8-pt/1015-14-02_0x220.jpg
I see the file is created, but it is empty.

When I run kickstart, the path that is showing changes, just like the offset changes. I just ran it twice, the first time:
Invalid header in archive file, part 0, offset 11279786
/home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/images/stories/virtuemart/category/3010h.jpg
The second time:
Invalid header in archive file, part 0, offset 12648347
/home/kurtmeye/public_html/test2/images/stories/virtuemart/product/2330/2330-14-04.jpg

Possibly a problem with Virtuemart? (version 3.0.4). I was making many changes in VM at the same time that I upgraded Akeeba Backup. I am also using CSVI 5.20 Pro to populate my VM categories, products, shipping methods, and users, and installed CSVI for the first time around the time these problems started, though I was able to succesfully port my site from localhost to my subdomains for online testing several times before becoming stumped by this problem.

I have been ftp'ing the images themselves, and letting VM handle re-sizing. Yikes, after writing that sentence it occurred to me to look at that jpg and it turns out the file is there with size "0KB". I deleted it, reran the backup, and...the first time I ran it Chrome crashed immediately, the window just disappeared. Re-running it, Kickstart quickly jumps to a completed status bar and just hangs. Running eXtract Wizard on this new backup hangs at
plugins/vmc
I'm attaching the error_log from the restore attempt on the server.

Thanks for helping me with this.

That seems to have done the trick, thank you so much! I wonder what it is that is changing size while running the backup, is there any way to track that down? Thanks again!