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I love Arq 3 and have recommended it to several friends and family, but I ran into a problem and it wasn't fixed and I've had to stop using it. I re-installed

I love Arq 3 and have recommended it to several friends and family, but I ran into a problem and it wasn't fixed and I've had to stop using it. I re-installed Mac OS X Mavericks and then used Time Machine to bring my user folder over again. I adopted the Glacier backup, and while it has worked with some folders, it appears to want to sync my entire Library/Mail folder again. This isn't ideal as it's 15GB+ and since the data has been uploaded once before, I don't want to upload it again. I don't know if you can "skip" a folder during sync, or set it to only upload files new/changed past a date. All support said was "I'm sorry I don't have a better answer". I'm stuck now with a Glacier full of old data and software that doesn't work. Any suggestions?

tfe 13y ago
I've had a very similar experience. I migrated to a new Mac using Migration Assistant and Arq no longer sees my long backup history, and is trying to back up everything anew. I was never given the option to "adopt" the old backup set, and Arq and Glacier both see that there are several hundred GB in the vault, but apparently all of that is orphan data that I'll be paying for forever (I guess I could manually delete the vault). Support was not very helpful in my case either. On the plus side, Arq 4 recommends deleting and recreating your Glacier-backed backup sets anyway...
- sreitshamer 13y ago
  Did it see your backup folder configuration? If not then you'd have to browse under "Other Backup Sets", select your old computer's backup set and click the "Adopt" button. If you did see the folders configured, then you've already "adopted" (Migration Assistant copied Arq's config file). In that case it shouldn't have re-uploaded.
  - tfe 13y ago
    OK, it's apparently adopted then. But it shows no backup history and is trying to re-upload everything. My support case is #2152 if you want to look it up.
    - alaindc 13y ago
      Hi. Were you able to solve this issue? I am in the same exact situation. Also, where can you look up support cases for Arq? The website shows no support forum at all... Thanks
sreitshamer 13y ago
Well that's not a great support response -- I'm sorry about that. Arq 3 is good about this when backing up to S3, but not to Glacier. It uses the most recent backup record as its starting point and backs up new/changed files. (When backing up to S3, it gets an object list from S3 so it knows what's there.) But if the most recent backup record of your Library/Mail folder has the files in it, then it shouldn't re-upload everything. Arq backs up in 2 steps. First, it estimates the amount to be uploaded by comparing the timestamps and other metadata of files on disk to the most recent backup. Then it does the backup. For each file with a different timestamp, it calculates a checksum of the file's contents. If the contents are the same, it doesn't re-upload. Was it really re-uploading everything?
- coffeecheque 13y ago
  Yeah it was. I left it for a bit and it got to 250MB, so I assumed it was uploading Library/Mail again. I should clarify and say support did get me to send various log files, etc. so it wasn't a bad experience at all - it just ended with no solution. Maybe I'll just take a loss, kill my Arq 3 backups and just re-do everything with the new version! Am I right in assuming that upgrading/re-imaging an Mac OS X install normally shouldn't result in sync
  - sreitshamer 13y ago
    Right, it shouldn't result in a re-upload.
  - javier2 13y ago
    I ended up with the exact same problem. Somehow the records of my Photos folder got "lost" and completely reuploaded, all the incremental are gone. And this was not even after I adopted an old backup, just happened randomly. It reuploaded 15 GB before I saw what was going on. So now my Glacier is about double the size it needed to be. Support responded and had me send in the logfiles. I looked over the logs and there was nothing helpful there. Sure enough support could not help me and I am left with no solution. This kind of stuff really makes me wary about the whole software. Strangely enough the other folders did not see the same thing happen.

tfe 13y ago

I've had a very similar experience. I migrated to a new Mac using Migration Assistant and Arq no longer sees my long backup history, and is trying to back up everything anew. I was never given the option to "adopt" the old backup set, and Arq and Glacier both see that there are several hundred GB in the vault, but apparently all of that is orphan data that I'll be paying for forever (I guess I could manually delete the vault). Support was not very helpful in my case either. On the plus side, Arq 4 recommends deleting and recreating your Glacier-backed backup sets anyway...

sreitshamer 13y ago
Did it see your backup folder configuration? If not then you'd have to browse under "Other Backup Sets", select your old computer's backup set and click the "Adopt" button. If you did see the folders configured, then you've already "adopted" (Migration Assistant copied Arq's config file). In that case it shouldn't have re-uploaded.
- tfe 13y ago
  OK, it's apparently adopted then. But it shows no backup history and is trying to re-upload everything. My support case is #2152 if you want to look it up.
  - alaindc 13y ago
    Hi. Were you able to solve this issue? I am in the same exact situation. Also, where can you look up support cases for Arq? The website shows no support forum at all... Thanks

sreitshamer 13y ago

Well that's not a great support response -- I'm sorry about that. Arq 3 is good about this when backing up to S3, but not to Glacier. It uses the most recent backup record as its starting point and backs up new/changed files. (When backing up to S3, it gets an object list from S3 so it knows what's there.) But if the most recent backup record of your Library/Mail folder has the files in it, then it shouldn't re-upload everything. Arq backs up in 2 steps. First, it estimates the amount to be uploaded by comparing the timestamps and other metadata of files on disk to the most recent backup. Then it does the backup. For each file with a different timestamp, it calculates a checksum of the file's contents. If the contents are the same, it doesn't re-upload. Was it really re-uploading everything?

coffeecheque 13y ago
Yeah it was. I left it for a bit and it got to 250MB, so I assumed it was uploading Library/Mail again. I should clarify and say support did get me to send various log files, etc. so it wasn't a bad experience at all - it just ended with no solution. Maybe I'll just take a loss, kill my Arq 3 backups and just re-do everything with the new version! Am I right in assuming that upgrading/re-imaging an Mac OS X install normally shouldn't result in sync
- sreitshamer 13y ago
  Right, it shouldn't result in a re-upload.
- javier2 13y ago
  I ended up with the exact same problem. Somehow the records of my Photos folder got "lost" and completely reuploaded, all the incremental are gone. And this was not even after I adopted an old backup, just happened randomly. It reuploaded 15 GB before I saw what was going on. So now my Glacier is about double the size it needed to be. Support responded and had me send in the logfiles. I looked over the logs and there was nothing helpful there. Sure enough support could not help me and I am left with no solution. This kind of stuff really makes me wary about the whole software. Strangely enough the other folders did not see the same thing happen.