Unwanted files are kept indefinitely

[IanA]

I was trying to understand Advanced Sessions (again!) when I got some unexpected results.

I recreated a simple job to demonstrate one of the problems as follows...

Simple sessions based backup of c:\test1\testfile1.txt which keeps 2 sessions & prunes unwanted sessions.

Ran job.

Changed files to include all in C:\test1 except testfile1.txt

Ran job 5 more times with an additional file in C:\test1 each time.

When I try to restore a file there are only the last 2 sessions to choose from & neither of them contains testfile1.txt. However, when I look at all sessions, it is possible to restore testfile1.txt because it still exists in the zip files and must be in the log file long after I flagged it as unwanted.

I would have expected the first zip file to have been pruned somewhere arount the 3rd session.

Why is is kept?

Cheers

Ian

[Barry]

Actually while testing this I found a potential problem when the excluded file is due to be pruned. If your backup is working and the session numbers incremented then everyting is okay.

The excluded file was not excluded during the first backup and as it has not been deleted from the PC it will remain in the backup. However, the file should be in the latest of the 2 sessions as well as in the 'All sessions' list.

To remove the file use the Manage Backup / Backup Maintenance option.

Barry

[IanA]

Why? !!!

I don't understand why you think it should keep a file that wasn't wanted in the last 2 sessions. Surely if you are only keeping the last 2 sessions, then all that should be kept are the files that were backed up during the last 2 sessions?

It's very confusing!

Ian

[Barry]

I see your point, if a file is excluded then it should be removed from the backup as the sessions expire. The problem is that the file still exists and AISBackup does not remember when a file is excluded. I think I may have thought of a way around this problem.

Barry