Is my Actinic Biz croken?

[Fairyglass]

As a result of this thread I checked my backups, and around 1 in 10 were much smaller- no images. I'm using XP Pro with V9 so it's not just a possible Vista problem.

[dave_finlayson]

with V9 so it's not just a possible Vista problem.

It's just not a v9 problem either, IMO it has been around in varying degrees since v7. Our v8 does it all the time.

[Donald Gray]

Hi,

I've never seen this problem before. Can I just ask a couple of questions:

1) are you using Vista (guessing from the names of the files)?
2) if 'yes' to 1) did this happen before you went to Vista?
3) what exact verson of Actinic are you using (ie Catalog, Business, Designer etc)?
4) do you have more than one site?
5) can you give the steps you use to create the snapshot please

Hi Tracy - Sorry for not replying earlier...

My platform:
Quad core QX6800
4GbRAM
2x500gb HD (not striped)

1) Vista Ultimate 32bit Sp1
2) I don't know as I wasn't monitoring as closely as I do now - I only stumbled on it during a general backup discipline.
3) Business 8.5.2.0.0.0 HMVA
4) One site only
5) Up until I discovered this , invariably, I would click the x (top right of the window) and exit with a backup (snapshot). As you can see, I number each backup and date them too. I keep the last 10 - 20 backups as a matter of course.

However, since I discovered this, I have changed my snapshot creation method to File|Snapshot|Export and before closing Actinic, I use File Explorer to check the file size of the current snapshot. I then close the programme without backup.

Since I changed to that method, I have not had a problem.

If you want to have an in depth look at the problem, I will be happy to send you two files of the same Instance. IE a small (corrupt?) and a larger (correct) backup. (say #159 & 160 as per my original post - they were the same 'intance' snapsots made within minutes of each other)

[cdicken]

Interesting. Thanks for your findings on this. I'll do some testing on it.

[Donald Gray]

Small update...

I am having the same problem no matter which method employed creating the snapshot. Last night, it took several attempts before I made, what I hope was a successful snapshot.

What concerns me is the criticality of the snapshot and that the Actinic procedure reports a 'Successful' creation when it is abundantly clear that it IS NOT successful. I have to use File Explorer EVERY TIME to check.

Personally, I have lost confidence in the snapshot procedure....

[TraceyG]

Hi Donald,

That is disappointing. Neither Chris or myself have been able to recreate the problem.

If you want to have an in depth look at the problem, I will be happy to send you two files of the same Instance. IE a small (corrupt?) and a larger (correct) backup. (say #159 & 160 as per my original post - they were the same 'intance' snapsots made within minutes of each other)

Yes please, however the larger one is too big for me to receive by email so could you upload it somewhere and email a link to me at tgsupport [@] actinic [dot] co [dot] uk.

[Donald Gray]

Noted Tracy - thanks - will do.

[party_pete]

On inspection of some recent snapshots, I too have found some smaller than 'normal' snapshots. Average is around 45/46MB but the smaller snapshots are around 10MB smaller in size.

I always create snapshots this way;

File > Snapshot > Export Site

v8.5.3 IDHB
Buisness Multi Site

XP Pro

Bit of a worry this

[jont]

Only last week asked a client to ZIP up all the product images and send over as about 300 from 4500 were missing from the ACD. Standard JPEG's created the same way as the others, no funny product, all essentially the same just missing from the ACD (v8 ACD importing into v9)

[Donald Gray]

All my images are processed via Photoshop and regular jpgs in rgb mode, apart from a few logo gifs...

@Tracy: as we speak I am uploading the files & will email you the url...

[Donald Gray]

As a point of interest & because the snapshot procedure reports a successful save, even when it is a small file, is it possible in future iterations to have it report back the file size it actually saved? Or some form of checksum. IE it actually reads the file size it created on the HD & then compares it with the file size it should have created?

This is quite worrying because I have recently read Gabriel Crowe's tutorials on Blocks & Block Ifs - he has encouraged me to achem... 'modify' some coding. I have already made a huge mistake and will be relying heavily on being able to restore Actinic Business to its original unsullied and shiny (working) state!

[jont]

The ACD is a ZIP file so compresses the file so probably the best result would be at least a head count on files.

You should as a matter of course take a raw copy of the site folder which you know has everything included as a matter of course.

I had to reinstate a v9 site the other night and simply copied the raw files back into the site folder and then extracted the .MDB file (it was marginally more recent than the folder copy) into the site folder .. took a few mins to copy rather than the 15 it takes via the ACD import (125MB file size)

[Duncan Rounding]

That's the route I generally take too. I've always copied the complete Site folder in addition to creating the snapshot anyway.

OT - The only issue I have with this is that Explorer seems to have a memory leak when copying large numbers of files, so I often have to kill it and restart it before beinfg able to complete the copying.

[jont]

Explorer seems to have a memory leak when copying large numbers of files,

..aye ... I tend to do in a couple of batches on the larger transfers.

[Donald Gray]

... Explorer seems to have a memory leak when copying large numbers of files...
.

Agreed.

I use 'SyncToy2' a neat utility by Microsoft. Easy to set up. Easy and quick to use.

I have it set up for 4 seperate batch backups of certain user defined directories across different internal & external drives...

Back-up, then back-up the back-up....