Error messages and debugging options were significantly improved in Box Backup 0.11. If you are running 0.10, and having problems with your backups, please try building and running the new version (you do not have to install it or replace your old version) to help you to debug the problem.

If your backup is not completing or not including files that you would expect to see, please check your system logs (e.g. /var/log/messages or /var/log/syslog on Unix, or Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Event Viewer on Windows) for messages from bbackupd.

If you are trying to fix a store after your disc has been corrupted, please see the FixingCorruption page.

If some files are not being backed up when you expect them to be, and you want to know why, or you are having problems with including and excluding files, please see the LogAllFileAccess page.

Search on Google to see if the problem is already known about. Also, take a look at the KnownBugs page and see if the problem is covered there (new problems should be in the ticket system, however).

Unfortunately, some of the Box Backup error messages are not particularly helpful at the moment. We are trying to improve them, and we value your input through the mailing lists. This page lists some of the common errors, and the most likely causes of them.

When an error occurs, you will see a message like 'Exception: RaidFile/OSFileError (2/8)' either on the screen or in your log files. (it is recommended you set up another log file as recommended in ConfiguringAServer.)

This error may not be particularly helpful, although some do have extra information about probable causes. To get further information, check the list of exceptions or the !ExceptionCodes.txt file in the root of the distribution. (This file is generated by the ./configure script, so you may need to run that first.)

Some common exceptions and their causes are listed below.

Please email us with any other codes you get, and we will let you know what they mean, and add notes here.

If you get one of these error messages:

Backup object failed, error when reading /var/named/run-root/proc/222/task/222/exe
Error code when uploading was (1/9), Common OSFileError (Error accessing a file. Check permissions.)
Error code when uploading was (1/2), Common OSFileOpenError (Can't open a file -- attempted to load a non-existant config file or bad file referenced within?)

This probably means that you failed to exclude an unreadable directory or /proc filesystem from the backup. Box Backup 0.11 automatically excludes mounted filesystems (including procfs) unless you explicitly include them as a location. Please do not try to back up such filesystems.

This is found either when running bbstoreaccounts or in the bbstored logs.

Problem: The directories you specified in the raidfile.conf are not writable by the _bbstored user.

Resolution: Change permissions appropriately.

This usually occurs when the configuration files can't be opened.

Problem: You created your configurations in non-standard locations, and the programs cannot find them.

Resolution: Explicitly specify configuration file locations to daemons and programs. For example

/usr/local/bin/bbstored /some/other/dir/bbstored.config
/usr/local/bin/bbackupquery -c /some/other/dir/bbackupd.config

(daemons specify the name as the first argument, utility programs with the -c option.

Problem: bbstored can't find the raidfile.conf file specified in bbstored.conf.

Resolution: Edit bbstored.conf to point to the correct location of this additional configuration file.

The server can't listen for connections on the IP address specified when you configured it.

Problem: This probably means you've specified the wrong hostname to bbstored-config - maybe your server is behind a NAT firewall?

Resolution: Edit bbstored.conf and correct the ListenAddresses line. You should replace the server address with the IP address of your machine.

This probably means that there is a problem with the Box Backup store server.

If you are the administrator of the server, please run this command on the store server to correct the problem:

bbstoreaccounts check <account> fix

If you are a Box Backup client user (bbackupd), please contact the server administrator and ask them to check the account.

These errors all relate to connections failing - you may see them during operation if there are network failures or other problems between the client and server. The backup system will recover from them automatically.

These problems are often, but not always, caused by a firewall closing the connection between the client and server when it appears to be idle for some time. This can happen if the client spends a long time diffing a large file, for example, or reading a huge directory.

It often looks like this, on the client side:

WARNING: Exception thrown: [ConnectionException](ConnectionException)(Conn_TLSWriteFailed) at SocketStreamTLS.cpp(442)
ERROR: Failed to upload file: ...: caught exception: Connection TLSWriteFailed (Probably a network issue between client and server.) (7/33)
ERROR: SSL error during Write: error:1409F07F:SSL routines:SSL3_WRITE_PENDING:bad write retry
WARNING: Exception thrown: [ConnectionException](ConnectionException)(Conn_TLSWriteFailed) at SocketStreamTLS.cpp(442)
ERROR: Exception caught (Connection TLSWriteFailed (Probably a network issue between client and server.) 7/33), reset state and waiting to retry...

After this the client should retry automatically after 100 seconds, but it may get stuck on the same file if diffing that file always takes longer than the firewall timeout.

Normally the solution to this problem is to enable SSL Keepalives.

I once got this on the client side:

bbackupd1904: Opening connection to server xxxx.xxx...
bbackupd1904: SSL err during Connect: error:xxxxxxxx:rsa routines:RSA_padding_check_PKCS1_type_1:block type is not 01
bbackupd1904: SSL err during Connect: error:xxxxxxxx:rsa routines:RSA_EAY_PUBLIC_DECRYPT:padding check failed
bbackupd1904: SSL err during Connect: error:xxxxxxxx:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_verify:EVP lib
bbackupd1904: SSL err during Connect: error:xxxxxxxx:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed
bbackupd1904: TRACE: Exception thrown: [ConnectionException](ConnectionException)(Conn_TLSHandshakeFailed) at SocketStreamTLS.cpp(237)
bbackupd1904: Exception caught (7/30), reset state and waiting to retry...

and this on the server side:

bbstored19291: Incoming connection from xx.xxx.xx.xxx port xxxxx (handling in child xxxxx)
bbstored21588: SSL err during Accept: error:xxxxxxxx:SSL routines:SSL3_READ_BYTES:tlsv1 alert decrypt error
bbstored21588: in server child, exception Connection TLSHandshakeFailed (7/30) -- terminating child

This indicates that the client failed to verify the server's certificate.

The solution was: needed to create a new CA on the server side and re-generate the client certificate. Re-creating the client certificate request was not necessary.

There is also some information on problems that can be caused by SSL configuration on the OpenSSLNotes page.

On Tue, 5 Aug 2008, Tom Albers wrote:

> >     Soft limit    97280.0Mb  95% **************************************
> >     Hard limit   102400.0Mb 100% ****************************************
>
> But I'm also getting:
>
> > Failed to upload file:
> > /home/backup/keriobackup/F20080729T180002Z.1.zip: server error:
> > StorageLimitExceeded

If you do not have enough free space (the difference between used space and the hard limit) at the start of the backup run for all the files that the client will try to upload, then the run will stop with this error.

Housekeeping should then remove old and deleted files to bring the account back under the soft limit, and the next backup run should upload more files. However, you should ensure that the difference between the soft and hard limits is enough for the largest file that you want to upload, otherwise housekeeping will never make enough space for it.

If this really doesn't help, then using the DEBUG builds of the system will give you much more information - a more descriptive exception message and the file and line number where the error occurred.

DO NOT DO THIS for bbstored or bbstoreaccounts, as the debug versions use a different store file layout and they will NOT be compatible with your existing store, and may well corrupt it.

For example, if you are having problems with bbackupquery, build the debug version with the following commands:

cd boxbackup-0.xx
cd bin/bbackupquery
make

(within the module directories, make defaults to building the debug version. At the top level, it defaults to release.)

This will build an executable in debug/bin/bbackupquery which you can then use instead of the release version. It will give far more useful error messages.

When you get an error message, use the file and line number to locate where the error occurs in the code. There will be comments around that line to explain why the exception happened.

If you are using a debug version of a daemon, these extended messages are found in the log files. You can also try running the daemon with the -DV options for debugging.

If you've found nothing that helps in the above information then you should consider raising a [../newticket new ticket] for your problem if you're sure it's a problem with Box Backup. If you've a problem with getting Box Backup to work on your system, however, then you should ask a question on the MailingLists instead; tickets should only be used where a change to Box Backup to resolve a problem is expected.