Backup Creation Tool problem

[nokonium]

I have been backing up my forum d/b using the above. Tonight I have had problems, it will not complete the save, all I have is the title bar and a blank page. To see what had or hadn't happened I viewed the backup folder and saw the fallowing:

database_2005-02-28.sql.gz 7062 kb
database_2005-03-01.sql.gz 1824 kb
database_2005-03-08.sql.gz 1985 kb
database_2005-03-09.sql.gz 7807 kb
database_2005-03-12.sql.gz 8125 kb
database_2005-03-19.sql.gz 2356 kb
database_2005-03-20.sql.gz       0 kb

It appears that less than half have the what I judge to be the correct file size, 1, 4 & 5.

Tonights problems may be unrelated to SMF, but the apparent unreliablity of this tool is very worrying as I imagine many peeps rely on it.

What do you think the problems are?

BTW I have pumped Ctrl+F5 and reuploaded the tool file.

[[Unknown]]

Are you sure you ran the tool all the way through until it said it was done each time?

Are you aware that there are a few versions of this tool available and all of them I have said are only for testing?

-[Unknown]

[nokonium]

Yes, I always ran the tool all the way through every time and no errors were reported.

I have the second version from your please test thread.

[[Unknown]]

Please try the attached one.

-[Unknown]

[nokonium]

Thanks [UNKNOWN]

I'm running it now, but it doesn't look promising, I'm getting the header and the rest is blank. Its been like that for over 10 minutes, file size should be circa 9000 kb.

I'm wondering if the initial problem is due to a change that the host has made, I'll check that out. The eratic file sizes may be related to that or may not be related at all.

Just in case Opera downloading caused the problem I have tried it with an IE downloaded file as well.

[[Unknown]]

Thanks [UNKNOWN]

I'm running it now, but it doesn't look promising, I'm getting the header and the rest is blank. Its been like that for over 10 minutes, file size should be circa 9000 kb.

I'm wondering if the initial problem is due to a change that the host has made, I'll check that out. The eratic file sizes may be related to that or may not be related at all.

Just in case Opera downloading caused the problem I have tried it with an IE downloaded file as well.

I'm not sure I understand how you're running this tool.  When you say, "I'm getting the header and the rest is blank" and "file size should be circa 9000 kb"... you're saying that the tool is showing nothing, and not creating a file, right?

Have you tried it with gzip unchecked?

-[Unknown]

[nokonium]

"I'm getting the header and the rest is blank"

When yo open the tool you get a page with the "Backup Creation Tool" header and two sections in the page below, where you enter the MySQL connection details etc. then click proceed. On clicking proceed the page below the header goes blank and stays that way.

"file size should be circa 9000 kb"

That is the file size if you use the admin backup within SMF

you're saying that the tool is showing nothing, and not creating a file, right?

Yes, it doesn't complete the copy and save of the database file.

Have you tried it with gzip unchecked?

Yes, it doesn't make a difference.

Interesting quirk, if I use the Admin database backup I have to dump an sql file to my PC, if I select to compress it to sql.gz I get a 500 error.

[[Unknown]]

Find:

Code Select Expand

// Gonna need a lot of memory.
if (@ini_get('memory_limit') < 128)
@ini_set('memory_limit', '128M');
@set_time_limit(300);
ignore_user_abort(true);

$db_connection = @mysql_connect($_POST['db_server'], $_POST['db_user'], $_POST['db_passwd']);
if (!$db_connection)
return step1('Cannot connect to the MySQL database server with the supplied data.<br /><br />If you are not sure about what to type in, please contact your host.');

Replace:

Code Select Expand

// Gonna need a lot of memory.
if (ini_get('memory_limit') < 128)
ini_set('memory_limit', '128M');
set_time_limit(300);
ignore_user_abort(true);

$db_connection = mysql_connect($_POST['db_server'], $_POST['db_user'], $_POST['db_passwd']);
if (!$db_connection)
return step1('Cannot connect to the MySQL database server with the supplied data.<br /><br />If you are not sure about what to type in, please contact your host.');

Any error messages now?

-[Unknown]

[nokonium]

Sorry for the slow reply, ISP had tech probs this a.m.

OK, I have modded the filr, uploaded it and run it. I got no error mesages, no completed screen but I seem to have a 95260 kb file with todays date.

On checking it appears that Arcade has created 81 pages of error messages today.

[[Unknown]]

Interesting.  So you're saying that the tool is running even though it's not showing anything?

-[Unknown]

[nokonium]

It appears that is the case.

[nokonium]

I've been through the whole process again this morning. From re-downloading your most recent file, modding it as suggested uploading it to my backups folder and running it.

Exactly the same. The file is created in seconds, I can see the browser sending the request and as soon as that stops showing the file has been saved. I am downloading todays file to take a look at and it really is 95260 kb, which is about 10x the size I was expecting. Most of the file appears to be lines like these:

  (1055, 4, 1109578679),
  (1029, 68, 1109581305),
  (1053, 20, 1109598104),
  (1054, 14, 1109578958),
  (1046, 73, 1109579925),
  (840, 73, 1109580032),
  (1051, 20, 1109592447),
  (1044, 20, 1109592490),
  (1076, 6, 1109620546);

[[Unknown]]

That's the log_topics table, most likely.

In any case, I'm not sure it's doing the WHOLE backup.  You see, it does it in steps.  You SHOULD be seeing a page that will automatically direct you to the next step.

Is it possible you could give me FTP access and a URL so I can test it myself?

-[Unknown]

[nokonium]

Thanks, you have a PM

[[Unknown]]

I tested the backup tool on your site.  It seems fine - I came to this conclusion by testing it against phpMyAdmin.

What I did was run the tool, using SMF's prefix, and gzipping enabled.  For a second, the "backup complete" message didn't show up... but then it did.

I downloaded the backup, approximately 1.78 megs gzipped.  I extracted it to get a file of 6,545 kilobytes in length, which looked fine.

Then, I went to phpMyAdmin.  I entered the database, chose Export, and then exported the "sidi" tables.  I got a backup of approximately the same size, with the same data in it.

How do your results differ?

-[Unknown]

[nokonium]

Thanks [UNKNOWN], I've just run the tool again and I get what you got. I've never seen the download button before, becase it hasn't got to the finished screen, so I used it and viewed the file and yes it looks OK.

My previous two attempts were in the same folder, both 95,260 kb, which is about the size of the whole of the Cat and Fiddler install.