Support

Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

#11496 Command line indicated failed - but it didn't

Posted in ‘Akeeba Backup for Joomla! 4 & 5’
This is a public ticket

Everybody will be able to see its contents. Do not include usernames, passwords or any other sensitive information.

Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Akeeba Backup version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Sunday, 11 March 2012 15:31 CDT

Friday, 09 March 2012 01:07 CST

swingshoes
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? yes
Have I searched the tickets before posting? yes
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? yes
Joomla! version: 2.5
PHP version: 5.2.17
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: Webhostinghub.com
Akeeba Backup version: (unknown)

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach a ZIP file containing your Akeeba Backup log file in order for us to help you with any backup or restoration issue. If the file is over 2Mb, please upload it on your server and post a link to it.

Description of my issue:

After running a cpanel cron:
/usr/bin/php5-cli /home/myusername/public_html/administrator/components/com_akeeba/altbackup.php -profile=YourProfileID

I receive an email indicating that the update was successful. It also shows the backup file in my dropbox.

But the "Backup Statistics" indicate:
Description Command-line backup
Status Failed
Origin Command-line
Type Full site backup

Please let me know if this is an issue as of Akeeba 3.4.2 (since I don't remember it happening in prior version (3.3 or earlier). It seems odd because the backup looks like it's working, but the status shows "failed".

thanks,
Erik


Friday, 09 March 2012 03:20 CST

nicholas
Hi Erik,

This is certainly not a generic bug, as I don't see anything like that in any of my sites (Joomla! 2.5 and 1.5) which use the CLI backup. Would you mind ZIPping and attaching the CLI log file?

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Friday, 09 March 2012 12:03 CST

swingshoes
Ok I think I figured this one out:

Some workflow facts:
a) I use cpanel cron
/usr/bin/php5-cli /home/myusername/public_html/administrator/components/com_akeeba/altbackup.php -profile=YourProfileID

b) I have akeeba set up to send me an email to an aol account for each frontside backup.

c) My backups are uploaded to Dropbox

Solution:
I found that aol is not liking the emails from php from Akeeba and is bouncing the email. That seems to disrupt something. When there's a bounce from aol I get a notice: http://postmaster.aol.com/Postmaster.Errors.php#421dynt1
That disruption to the backup must trigger something in Akeeba to note it as an failed backup even though the actual backup was completed and the file is uploaded to dropbox. I was able to eliminate this issue by not using my aol account.

Have you seen or heard of this issue from other users who use an aol account (without bashing aol)?

Thanks,
Erik

Friday, 09 March 2012 12:25 CST

nicholas
Not really. I think that the problem is something different. Any chance of giving me the log file so that I can see if what I suspect is true? :)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Friday, 09 March 2012 13:55 CST

swingshoes
Here you go!!

Saturday, 10 March 2012 03:52 CST

nicholas
That's interesting. I thought that the mail function probably crashed, but no, it works perfectly. The entire backup process runs to completion. The statistics update (when Akeeba Backup marks the backup as OK) run normally, too. Amazing. I've never seen that happening again! It seems that the email bounce is indeed causing the backup to show as failed.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Sunday, 11 March 2012 13:11 CDT

swingshoes
Ok - here's the latest log file.

Akeeba is still showing the backup as failed and there seems to be an issue on the log file.

Any advice would be great - I'll even uninstall and reinstall if necessary.

Thanks,
Erik

Sunday, 11 March 2012 13:45 CDT

nicholas
Nope. There is no issue recorded on the log. Whenever you see a line like this 
DEBUG   |120311 13:17:57|Kettenrad :: Just finished
it means that the entire backup process has finished successfully without fatal errors. Everything mentioned on the log after that can be safely ignored; it's log entries written when Akeeba Backup performs a sanity check every time you load its Control Panel or Backup Now page. Still, the failed status is a mystery.

Please do me a favour. Using phpMyAdmin or whatever MySQL management tool your host provides, please dump the structure of the jos_ak_stats table (where jos_ must be substituted with the table name prefix of your site) and paste it here. Remember, I only need the structure, not the contents. I am suspecting that something's missing from that table.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Sunday, 11 March 2012 14:26 CDT

swingshoes
When you say dump - is that they same as "drop" (I'm a little bit of a newbie on this stuff).

Here's a screenshot of the structure (attached).

Erik

Sunday, 11 March 2012 15:04 CDT

nicholas
No, drop = delete. It is a catastrophic command and that's why phpMyAdmin strongly complains before you do it. Never drop a table unless someone explicitly asks you to (I can see no reason, but who knows). I saw the screenshot which is exactly what I wanted. Um, the table structure is exactly as it should be. This is still a mystery to me. There is no failure recorded anywhere, the backup is transferred correctly, I can see no reason why it should be reported as failed – and I can't replicate this on any of my test sites :s

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Sunday, 11 March 2012 15:14 CDT

swingshoes
What's the proper Nicholas-authorized way to uninstall? I'll reinstall the component. I really don't have any special setting (except for my dropbox). I'll reset everything after.

Or let me know any other recommendations you may have.

Thanks,
Erik

Sunday, 11 March 2012 15:31 CDT

nicholas
If you don't mind resetting the backup entries –which seems to be quite irrelevant in your case– the normal uninstallation is perfect, i.e. go to Extensions, Manage Extensions and uninstall Akeeba Backup, then install it again.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Support Information

Working hours: We are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm Cyprus timezone (EET / EEST). Support is provided by the same developers writing the software, all of which live in Europe. You can still file tickets outside of our working hours, but we cannot respond to them until we're back at the office.

Support policy: We would like to kindly inform you that when using our support you have already agreed to the Support Policy which is part of our Terms of Service. Thank you for your understanding and for helping us help you!