What’s happening?
· Other
How can we help?
· None of the above
Other options
· Other
Describe the issue
Scheduled Backups Failing To Complete
Describe your network setup
Virgin media hub in modem mode connected to Asus RT-AC86U Router
Hi
I had an SSD connected to my Nucleus which contained my backups folder. I noticed that after years of backups completing at the scheduled time without any problems, fairly recently backups were not completing, forcing me to do a manual backup later in the day.
I was concerned that there might be an issue with the SSD, and as I also wanted to store my backups in more than one location, I invested in a dongle and two 128GB memory sticks and scheduled new backups for each of these disks.
In the first screenshot below, from yesterday, you can see that the initial ‘weekly’ backup completed, but the initial ‘daily’ one did not.
I noticed that the daily backup hadn’t completed again this morning, as I’d been up pretty late listening to music, and there was a notification that the backup hadn’t completed for this reason - I was using Roon at the time. When I tried to complete a manual backup to the daily folder this afternoon I got the message blow:
I then went to Backups > Find Backups > Browse, and the two new memory sticks were not listed, but I powered down the Nucleus and the router and started them up again, and they were listed after I did this, as shown below:
I am understandably perplexed, because I have gone from a situation where scheduled backups were completing without issue, to a situation where backups - on two separate external storage devices - are failing to complete.
Does anyone have any advice? I’m scratching my head here, and would like to know why this communications problem has arisen.
Best regards
Alan
Don’t have an answer for the backups not completing.
I’ve heard it’s not a good idea to use memory sticks, possibly for the reason you’re experiencing.
Have you tired another USB attached SSD/ HDD for backups?
I’ve been using a USB Samsung T5 for the last 5 years. Only time the backup failed to run is when music was playing during the scheduled time.
It is probably time to replace my T5 now that I think about it.
1 Like
Hi @Mike_LC
It was a Samsung T5 I saved the backups to before. I ran Disk Utility on it and it seemed to be fine, but I erased it and started afresh, but the backups still failed to complete. That was why I tried the memory sticks, and I was not aware of there being any reason why I couldn’t use them, so I would be annoyed if that was the case.
Not quite sure why the scheduled weekly backup worked fine, but the daily one didn’t - they are identical products.
A
Hi @Alan_Meldrum , Sorry to hear about your backup issues. I’ve experienced this as well, but do not recall what tweak I made to correct it.
Till someone from the Roon team responds, you might access your log files on your Nucleus and look for anything with the keyword “backup.” If you see any error messages related to it, post an image of it here and maybe a fellow Roon member can assist. The Roon team will be interested in seeing your logs as well.
Here is a link to explain how to retrieve your logs from your Nucleus…
Hi @jb76
Thank you for this. As you can see from the screenshot below, another day, another failed daily backup 
.
I copied the logs as you suggested, link to the zip file is below. Opened up a few files, but didn’t see at first glance ‘backup’ noted anywhere, but it’s all pretty dense. I’ll wait and see to see if someone from Roon has an opinion, or maybe someone from the community. Thanks for your input, much appreciated.
Best regards
Alan
Hi @Alan_Meldrum ,
It would appear that you have a failed/failing USB port on the Nucleus. My guess is that the two disappearing than reappearing again thumb drives are on your failed port.
You can verify this by performing several attempted backups per port. Often unplugging a USB device from the port and than back again without the drives appearing indicate the drive hasn’t been mounted.
Roon support maybe able to help you with diagnosing this issue and if there are any repair options.
I ofcourse can’t say positively that’s the issue but it’s a strong contender.
Hi @Singleton
Can’t rule that out, but I’ve probably only removed the storage devices on a handful of occasions since I got the Nucleus a few years back, so it’s not as if the ports have been overused.
I read somewhere that if the capacity of the storage devices is above 32GB then they should be formatted as EX-FAT, but I think I used one of the other FAT options. I erased and re-formatted both memory sticks and the previous SSD as EX-FAT, and set up backup schedules again for them all. I did a manual backup on the SSD and it completed ok, so we’ll see how the scheduled ones go tomorrow morning.
Thanks as always for your input, much appreciated.
Best regards
Alan
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Hi @Alan_Meldrum , You can test @Singleton 's theory now by choosing the “Force backup now” option to the drive you’re concerned about…
Some have even found doing a Forced backup solved their scheduled backup issues going forward. Good luck!
Hi @jb76
That’s what I had done with the SSD, I described it as a manual backup in the last post. It completed no problem.
A
That’s great that you got the original SSD drive to perform a manual backup. Hope the scheduled backup works for it tonight. But is it plugged into the same port that you had a scheduled backup error message for one of your storage sticks?
Of the two USB ports, one has an SSD connected, containing my iTunes library. The other USB port has a four port dongle connected, which holds the two memory sticks and (since this afternoon) the other SSD I had previously used for backups before getting the dongle and the memory sticks.
It was while the two memory sticks and nothing else had been connected via the dongle yesterday that they seemed to be temporarily not recognised by the Nucleus. I’ll just have to keep an eye on things and see how they go.
A
Meant to say - yes, same port.
A
That’s good news that you do not have a bad port on your Nucleus. Fingers crossed that your scheduled backups work on all connected devices.
BTW, looking at the image you posted earlier…
…it appears to me that the daily scheduled backup was successful at “16:47:48” today.
Hi
It was that time yesterday. The 2am scheduled daily backup failed yesterday. That was a forced backup I managed to complete at that time yesterday afternoon.
A
Hi @Alan_Meldrum,
According to the most recent diagnostics, this Nucleus is beyond its hardware performance capabilities and reporting out-of-memory. Unusually high database validation times - triggered by track corruption that is detected in the iTunes library - are causing this Nucleus to overconsume resources. This is likely a downstream result of the large number of albums and playlists in this library - although you’re below the 100k track limit recommended for a Nucleus of this RAM, the object and metadata volume is on the order of magnitude of a much more massive library.
What is the specific number of playlists you have saved in Roon (before they began to disappear recently, per your other thread)?
In the long term, you’ll inevitably need to upgrade the RAM of your RoonServer machine as this library - and your curation thereof - expands.
1 Like
Hi @connor
I struggled quite a bit with your message, due to my limited IT knowledge, but the gist of it seems to be that my Nucleus is struggling to cope with what I am asking it to manage, yeah?
My iTunes library is in excess of 27,000 tracks, and my library in total is in excess of 57,000 tracks. There is of course a huge overlap, ie tracks I had originally purchased from iTunes and other sources being in the library, but also higher quality versions of the same tracks added to the library from Qobuz, these being the versions of the tracks I would prefer to listen to.
The Roon playlists I unfortunately lost in the event I described in my other support thread, contained tracks from my iTunes library which were not available to stream on Qobuz, and if memory serves there were around twenty to thirty of these, all genre-specific. I compiled them by going through my iTunes library with a fine tooth comb and filling up the Roon playlists with tracks that met this specific criteria.
These are the tracks I would really like to keep in my iTunes library, and filter out the iTunes version which I can stream on Qobuz. Is there any way of using Roon to perform this function for me? I don’t think I could face going through thousands of tracks one by one again. If I could do this it would obviously shrink my library and hopefully make it more manageable for the Nucleus. If you could advise I would be very grateful.
Best regards
Alan
Hi @connor
I tried something today, and it doesn’t seem to be going too well.
Having made a back up of my iTunes library to an external drive, I went though my library in iTunes and deleted number of tracks which i felt were not essential to the collection, and reduced the number of tracks in the library from 27,000+ to 18,000+. I then copied this reduced iTunes library from my computer to an SSD and connected it back to the Nucleus. I was aiming to give the Nucleus a smaller library to work with in the hope that it would not ‘overconsume resources’ as you had previously highlighted.
The SSD/music folder scanned fine, but the importing of new files is going incredibly slowly - it’s been going for about an hour and a half, and 170 tracks added so far. Should it be this slow? Is there anything I am not doing correctly? If you, or anyone else could advise, I’d really appreciate it. SSD was formatted to EX-FAT, and at this rate I reckon it might not be finished before Christmas.
Best regards
Alan
Below is a screen shot of what seems to be happening - two hours in. I just don’t remember it taking this long when I did this the first time, and am a bit anxious.
A
Hi @connor
Following on from last evening’s message, the screenshot below shows the progress of the library import this morning, approximately 14 hours after the import started. Things have obviously picked up a bit in terms of the number of tracks imported, but would it normally be this slow?
As for the backups, I attach screenshots showing the last three mornings’ backup info:
Tuesday 17th
Wednesday 18th
Thursday 19th
As you can see after Wednesday I disconnected the Samsung SSD, as it didn’t seem to be receiving any info. Today’s info I kind of expected there to be no daily backup, as the import was happening, but when I browsed the backup folders - seen in the pic below - the dongle holding the two SanDisk memory stick is not showing up. Perhaps this was because I was plugging and un-plugging on the Nucleus yesterday, but still a cause for concern.
Regarding the corrupted iTunes files you refer to from your diagnostics info, is there any way that such files can be UN-corrupted?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards
Alan