Unexpected snapshots at unspecified time

[KC-T]

I have more than one profile set up to back up on different hard disks. One of the profiles has been set to back up at 2 am everyday. However, for unknown reasons, another backup is also done at 2 pm everyday. I have checked the crontab and found that the relevant profile has only one time set. This situation appears only in the past one or two months with no problems for years before.

How to go further to debug the problem?

[buhtz]

Hello KC-T,
thank you for your report. Please add some more details.

Open a terminal, run the following commands and post the output please.

• backintime --diagnostics
• conrtab -l

Regards,
Christian

[KC-T]

May I upload the output as the attached files:

{
    "backintime": {
        "name": "Back In Time",
        "version": "1.4.3",
        "latest-config-version": 6,
        "local-config-file": "/home/UsernameReplaced/.config/backintime/config",
        "local-config-file-found": true,
        "global-config-file": "/etc/backintime/config",
        "global-config-file-found": false,
        "started-from": "/usr/share/backintime/common",
        "running-as-root": false,
        "user-callback": "/home/UsernameReplaced/.config/backintime/user-callback",
        "keyring-supported": true
    },
    "host-setup": {
        "platform": "Linux-6.8.0-51-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.39",
        "system": "Linux #52-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Dec  5 13:09:44 UTC 2024",
        "OS": {
            "/etc/os-release": "Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS",
            "/etc/lsb-release": "DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu\nDISTRIB_RELEASE=24.04\nDISTRIB_CODENAME=noble\nDISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=\"Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS\"\n",
            "/etc/debian_version": "trixie/sid\n"
        },
        "display-system": "tty",
        "locale": "en_US, UTF-8",
        "PATH": "/home/UsernameReplaced/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin",
        "RSYNC_OLD_ARGS": "(not set)",
        "RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS": "(not set)"
    },
    "python-setup": {
        "python": "3.12.3 main Nov  6 2024 18:32:19 CPython GCC 13.2.0",
        "python-executable": "/usr/bin/python3",
        "python-executable-symlink": true,
        "python-executable-resolved": "/usr/bin/python3.12",
        "sys.path": [
            "/usr/share/backintime/qt/plugins",
            "/usr/share/backintime/common/plugins",
            "/usr/share/backintime/plugins",
            "/usr/share/backintime/common",
            "/usr/lib/python312.zip",
            "/usr/lib/python3.12",
            "/usr/lib/python3.12/lib-dynload",
            "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages",
            "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages"
        ],
        "qt": {
            "Version": "PyQt 5.15.10 / Qt 5.15.13"
        }
    },
    "external-programs": {
        "rsync": {
            "version": "3.2.7",
            "protocol": "31.0",
            "capabilities": {
                "file_bits": 64,
                "inum_bits": 64,
                "timestamp_bits": 64,
                "long_int_bits": 64,
                "socketpairs": true,
                "symlinks": true,
                "symtimes": true,
                "hardlinks": true,
                "hardlink_specials": true,
                "hardlink_symlinks": true,
                "IPv6": true,
                "atimes": true,
                "batchfiles": true,
                "inplace": true,
                "append": true,
                "ACLs": true,
                "xattrs": true,
                "secluded_args": "optional",
                "iconv": true,
                "prealloc": true,
                "stop_at": true,
                "crtimes": false
            },
            "optimizations": {
                "SIMD_roll": true,
                "asm_roll": false,
                "openssl_crypto": true,
                "asm_MD5": false
            },
            "checksum_list": [
                "xxh128",
                "xxh3",
                "xxh64",
                "md5",
                "md4",
                "sha1",
                "none"
            ],
            "compress_list": [
                "zstd",
                "lz4",
                "zlibx",
                "zlib",
                "none"
            ],
            "daemon_auth_list": [
                "sha512",
                "sha256",
                "sha1",
                "md5",
                "md4"
            ]
        },
        "ssh": "OpenSSH_9.6p1 Ubuntu-3ubuntu13.5, OpenSSL 3.0.13 30 Jan 2024",
        "sshfs": "3.7.3",
        "encfs": "(no encfs)",
        "shell": "/bin/bash",
        "shell-version": "GNU bash, version 5.2.21(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)"
    }
}

#Back In Time system entry, this will be edited by the gui:
0 7 * * * /usr/bin/nice -n19 /usr/bin/ionice -c2 -n7 /usr/bin/backintime backup-job >/dev/null
#Back In Time system entry, this will be edited by the gui:
0 12 * * * /usr/bin/nice -n19 /usr/bin/ionice -c2 -n7 /usr/bin/backintime --profile-id 2 backup-job >/dev/null
#Back In Time system entry, this will be edited by the gui:
0 13 * * * /usr/bin/nice -n19 /usr/bin/ionice -c2 -n7 /usr/bin/backintime --profile-id 5 backup-job >/dev/null
#Back In Time system entry, this will be edited by the gui:
0 4 * * * /usr/bin/nice -n19 /usr/bin/ionice -c2 -n7 /usr/bin/backintime --profile-id 6 backup-job >/dev/null
#Back In Time system entry, this will be edited by the gui:
0 3 * * * /usr/bin/nice -n19 /usr/bin/ionice -c2 -n7 /usr/bin/backintime --profile-id 4 backup-job >/dev/null

By the way, the problematic backup is on a SSH drive.

Thanks!

K C

[buhtz]

Thank you for the feedback. I can see only 5 different profiles in your crontab scheduled. There are no duplicates.

How can you tell that there are two jobs running at 2am?

One of the profiles has been set to back up at 2 am everyday. However, for unknown reasons, another backup is also done at 2 pm everyday.

Please specify "another".

Maybe the log entries will tell you more. See how to read log.

Please be aware that Canoncial Ubuntu do not support or maintain Back In Time. BIT is available in the "universe" repo of Ubuntu which is maintained by the community and Debian maintainers. The "universe" repo is excluded from LTS version. Treat LTS as a marketing lie by Canonical.

[KC-T]

The specified backup is at 2 am. The unspecified backup is at 2 pm.

The journal is as follows (qnap2 is the drive):

bitjournal.txt

[buhtz]

Looks wired. Looking to your journal it seems you do have profiles with the same profile_id (4) but different profile names (Gen 03:00 qnap2 and Gen 02:00 qnap2).

Please show me your ~/.config/backintime/config file.

Do you have several users/accounts running BIT?

And what I realize looking into your crontab: There is no job schedule for 02:00 or 14:00.

Might it be that you mix up several user accounts?

[KC-T]

I only have one user running backintime but I have more than one profile set.
The config file is here:

bitconfig.txt

I did not know where the config file is. It seems that you are close to spotting out my problem. Thank you!

[buhtz]

Do you modified the name of that profile on 12th January from Gen 02:00 qnap2 into Gen 03:00 qnap2? You have to tell me things like this or you wasting my spare time.

Did you modified something else, e.g. the schedule time?

The config tells me your crontab file telling me that profile 4 (Gen 03:00 qnap2) is scheduled to run daily at 03:00.

This does not fit your inititial description and the screenshot you provided.

[KC-T]

Yes, I did change the time in view of the problem trying to see whether the backup would occur at 12 hours' interval, but I cannot remember the time when I made the change. The record is now as follows:

The image yesterday shows that there were backups at 02:00 and 14:00 on 14 Jan, the day before yesterday. Therefore, the change should be after those times. However, today's image shows that the backups at 14:00 on 14 and 15 Jan have disappeared.

There were backups at 03:00 and 14:00 today.

There was no backup yesterday because the electricity was stopped from 9:00 until 18:00. In theory, the one at 02:00 or 03:00 should be there but is not there.

The last error report is as follows:

========== Take snapshot (profile 4): Thu Jan 16 03:00:01 2025 ==========??
[E] Error: rsync: [sender] write error: Broken pipe (32)?
[E] 'rsync' ended with exit code 10: See 'man rsync' for more details?
Last snapshot didn't finish but can be continued.??
======== continue snapshot (profile 4): Fri Jan 17 03:00:01 2025 ========?

For complete history, I should report that apart from the problem reported here, occasionally there were many pop-up error messages saying that there were backup errors due to no permission for some files. The messages referred to the main profile, not the profile in question. On the other hand, the snapshots of the profile in question are marked "WITH ERRORS!" but the snapshots of the main profile are not so marked.