Hi Barry
I'm about to buy another license for this great software as I'm now backing up my home PC (at last!). I've installed the latest version and am in the 30-days trial period. Everything works perfectly writing to DVD-RAM when I run it manually but a scheduled backup gives this error in the log:
11:02:03 SSTART Backup Session Auto Run: Started on 23 August 2005 at 11:02:03 Version: 2.1 (249)
11:02:03 INF Run Time Parameters: YYYYYYY
11:02:03 INF Creating Session: 4
11:02:03 MSG The CD packet writing system has not been activated.
See the menu item Tools / Program Options.
11:02:03 SESSEND AISBackup Session Finished: 23 August 2005 11:02:03
But, as I said, it works perfectly when running it manually.
Have you any ideas? It's the LG DVD-R/DVD+R/DVD-RAM combo drive.
Many thanks
Jon
Scheduled backup to DVD-RAM disc
DVD-RAM
You have to pretend that there is a packet writing system installed when writing to DVD-RAM formatted as FAT32.
Tools / Program Options / Select Direct to CD, DVD or Compatible Device
I think AISBackup needs to be tidied up if there is no packet writing system installed but the PC does support DVD-RAM or Iomega Rev. AISBackup refers to the packet writing system as ‘Not Known’ which looks a little strange on some of the forms – all the on-screen help text looks okay and mentions ‘select this option’ for DVD-RAM.
Barry
Tools / Program Options / Select Direct to CD, DVD or Compatible Device
I think AISBackup needs to be tidied up if there is no packet writing system installed but the PC does support DVD-RAM or Iomega Rev. AISBackup refers to the packet writing system as ‘Not Known’ which looks a little strange on some of the forms – all the on-screen help text looks okay and mentions ‘select this option’ for DVD-RAM.
Barry
Scheduled backup to FAT32 DVD-RAM
Is the job running under a different user account, e.g. Backup?
AISBackup holds the CD writer options under the User’s Local Software Settings. Log into the AISBackup User Account and run AISBackup set-up options.
I have confirmed that this will cause the problem.
Also ensure that the ‘Use Loaded Media, No Prompt to change’ is selected (the run time parameter is U (after the pipe character |)). AISBackup hangs without this parameter when not running interactively – something we must fix
)
If this does not fix the problem please send us the job files via the Help / Bug Report option.
Barry
AISBackup holds the CD writer options under the User’s Local Software Settings. Log into the AISBackup User Account and run AISBackup set-up options.
I have confirmed that this will cause the problem.
Also ensure that the ‘Use Loaded Media, No Prompt to change’ is selected (the run time parameter is U (after the pipe character |)). AISBackup hangs without this parameter when not running interactively – something we must fix
)If this does not fix the problem please send us the job files via the Help / Bug Report option.
Barry
Auto-run AISBackup
Hi Jon
Looking at the code the ‘packet writing’ error message only gets displayed if there is no packet writing system selected in the options form. Clearly this is not the case with your set-up as I can see from the registry entries you e-mailed with the bug report.
Please e-mail the actual schedule from the Microsoft Task list, this can be dragged and dropped directly onto an outlook e-mail.
The job must be set to run under your account name and the account must be password protected – I guess this is true as the job would not run.
We may need to get you to run a patched version of AISBackup so that we can see exactly what is happening.
Meanwhile, please try a desktop shortcut for the backup via Manage Backup / Create Shortcut For This Backup Job - this creates the same runtime parameters as is used by the task scheduler.
Barry
Looking at the code the ‘packet writing’ error message only gets displayed if there is no packet writing system selected in the options form. Clearly this is not the case with your set-up as I can see from the registry entries you e-mailed with the bug report.
Please e-mail the actual schedule from the Microsoft Task list, this can be dragged and dropped directly onto an outlook e-mail.
The job must be set to run under your account name and the account must be password protected – I guess this is true as the job would not run.
We may need to get you to run a patched version of AISBackup so that we can see exactly what is happening.
Meanwhile, please try a desktop shortcut for the backup via Manage Backup / Create Shortcut For This Backup Job - this creates the same runtime parameters as is used by the task scheduler.
Barry
Hi Barry
I'll post you the Task Scheduler log in a moment but I think you may be onto something as my PC is not password protected at all. That just winds me up having to enter it every time so I don't! Will I need to create a password then? It's not the end of the world if I do I guess...
I'll email you the log now anyway.
Many thanks
Jon
I'll post you the Task Scheduler log in a moment but I think you may be onto something as my PC is not password protected at all. That just winds me up having to enter it every time so I don't! Will I need to create a password then? It's not the end of the world if I do I guess...
I'll email you the log now anyway.
Many thanks
Jon
Hi again Barry
Sorry I've not emailed you yet the log but I've created a shortcut onto my desktop and it seems to be running perfectly. It takes about 20 mins to do it's stuff so once it's finished I'll try and run the shortcut via a Scheduled Task and will let you know how it goes.
Looks promising though. I will still send you the log but need to wait for the backup to finish first!
Thanks again
Jon
Sorry I've not emailed you yet the log but I've created a shortcut onto my desktop and it seems to be running perfectly. It takes about 20 mins to do it's stuff so once it's finished I'll try and run the shortcut via a Scheduled Task and will let you know how it goes.
Looks promising though. I will still send you the log but need to wait for the backup to finish first!
Thanks again
Jon
Hi Barry
Sorted it. A slightly roundabout way of getting it to work but it seems to work fine now.
I created a shortcut using the feature in AISBackup and looked at the properties of the shortcut to manually add a Scheduled Task and set it to only run while logged in. As I always am it's running fine.
If you are able to implement a neater solution then that would be very helpful. I've set it to run at 3am tomorrow so will no then if all has worked as it should.
Many thanks. I'm emailing the log to you now....
Jon
Sorted it. A slightly roundabout way of getting it to work but it seems to work fine now.
I created a shortcut using the feature in AISBackup and looked at the properties of the shortcut to manually add a Scheduled Task and set it to only run while logged in. As I always am it's running fine.
If you are able to implement a neater solution then that would be very helpful. I've set it to run at 3am tomorrow so will no then if all has worked as it should.
Many thanks. I'm emailing the log to you now....
Jon
Fixing the AT job
For readers other than Jon (who I e-mailed earlier) The problem was because the scheduled job was an AT job which runs under User Account SYSTEM and not a normal user account. AISBackup keeps the ‘packet writer installed’ parameter in the user part of the registry, and as this is auto-detected as ‘NOT PRESENT’ when first run under account SYSTEM the DVD-RAM job will keep failing.
Until we fix this problem within AISBackup the work around is to either set the job up as Jon has (see above post) or manually edit the registry as follows:
Use AISBackup to backup the registry before you start using Tools / Backup Registry.
Start / Run / RegEdit
Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
And click each of the S-1-5-18 keys until you see the value ProfileImagePath which contains %systemroot%\system32\config\systemprofile (The key value is most likely S-1-5-18, and the following instructions will use this value, substitute if different)
Navigate to:
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Software\Aquarius IS Consultancy\AISBackup\Defaults
If \Aquarius IS Consultancy\AISBackup is not there run AISBackup via an AT job at least once.
Double click the value PacketWriting and change the value from the number 0 to the number 1.
Click OK and re-run the AT Backup job.
There are more potential problems for AT jobs, for example, if the AISBackup database folder is changed, this will not be reflected in the SYSTEM part of the registry, so the folder for existing AT jobs will not change. We will find a solution for this in the next release of AISBackup.
Barry
Until we fix this problem within AISBackup the work around is to either set the job up as Jon has (see above post) or manually edit the registry as follows:
Use AISBackup to backup the registry before you start using Tools / Backup Registry.
Start / Run / RegEdit
Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
And click each of the S-1-5-18 keys until you see the value ProfileImagePath which contains %systemroot%\system32\config\systemprofile (The key value is most likely S-1-5-18, and the following instructions will use this value, substitute if different)
Navigate to:
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Software\Aquarius IS Consultancy\AISBackup\Defaults
If \Aquarius IS Consultancy\AISBackup is not there run AISBackup via an AT job at least once.
Double click the value PacketWriting and change the value from the number 0 to the number 1.
Click OK and re-run the AT Backup job.
There are more potential problems for AT jobs, for example, if the AISBackup database folder is changed, this will not be reflected in the SYSTEM part of the registry, so the folder for existing AT jobs will not change. We will find a solution for this in the next release of AISBackup.
Barry
Hi Barry
Thought I'd just post my results to trying out what you suggested.
If I create a shortcut and use the properties from that to create a scheduled task it works perfectly.
But not satisfied with that way of doing it, I've followed the instructions you left regarding the registry and this too worked perfectly.
I hope this helps anyone else using DVD-RAM.
Thanks again Barry,
Jon
Thought I'd just post my results to trying out what you suggested.
If I create a shortcut and use the properties from that to create a scheduled task it works perfectly.
But not satisfied with that way of doing it, I've followed the instructions you left regarding the registry and this too worked perfectly.
I hope this helps anyone else using DVD-RAM.
Thanks again Barry,
Jon
Task Scheduler
I was lead to believe that it was not possible to execute a job under Windows XP without a valid password, this is why AISBackup insisted on a password protected account to run under.
A User of AISBackup, Bart Kamminga, then told us that we may be able to use the old NT4 ‘AT’ jobs, this works fine, except the job runs under the SYSTEM account and is not really suitable for accessing network drives, and as we found out, the AISBackup parameters may not get set-up correctly.
I have done some research and found out that the “Run only if logged in” parameter only appeared on the GUI version of the Task Schedule Properties after Windows XP SP2. However, the internal parameter that this sets has always been in the API. The next version of AISBackup will discard the AT option (which can lead to error) in favour of the option not to submit a password, where the job will only run if that user is logged in (the user account does not have to be active, i.e. switch user may still be used). This has been tested (so far) on Windows XP with no SP, SP1 and SP2 and Windows 2000 SP4 and works okay. If only we knew this a few years ago…….
Jon’s solution of running AISBackup on a non-password protected account by checking “Run only if logged in” is therefore the best solution as far as we can see, and is the way AISBackup will work in the future – Unless feedback tells us different.
Barry
A User of AISBackup, Bart Kamminga, then told us that we may be able to use the old NT4 ‘AT’ jobs, this works fine, except the job runs under the SYSTEM account and is not really suitable for accessing network drives, and as we found out, the AISBackup parameters may not get set-up correctly.
I have done some research and found out that the “Run only if logged in” parameter only appeared on the GUI version of the Task Schedule Properties after Windows XP SP2. However, the internal parameter that this sets has always been in the API. The next version of AISBackup will discard the AT option (which can lead to error) in favour of the option not to submit a password, where the job will only run if that user is logged in (the user account does not have to be active, i.e. switch user may still be used). This has been tested (so far) on Windows XP with no SP, SP1 and SP2 and Windows 2000 SP4 and works okay. If only we knew this a few years ago…….
Jon’s solution of running AISBackup on a non-password protected account by checking “Run only if logged in” is therefore the best solution as far as we can see, and is the way AISBackup will work in the future – Unless feedback tells us different.
Barry