Tweaking.com Support Forums
Main Forum => Tweaking.com Support & Help => Topic started by: DonGateley on September 18, 2013, 11:17:38 pm
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When executed manually (or via Pycron) Registry Backup 1.6.7 almost always says that VSS is not running when according to the Windows Services panel it is and all it's prerequisites are too.
I say almost always because every now and then and with low frequency it finds VSS running and works correctly.
Help appreciated.
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Oh, I am running with administrator privilege.
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Its not that vss isnt running, but that VSS didnt make the snap shot it needed.
Check the vss log in the backup folder and see what it says, the error should be in there :-)
Shane
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Its not that vss isnt running, but that VSS didnt make the snap shot it needed.
Check the vss log in the backup folder and see what it says, the error should be in there :-)
Shane
Thanks Shane,
No, it's that Registry Backup doesn't think VSS is running. The UI says "Volume Shadow Copy Running: NO" and no VSS log is created. It just waits a while and switches to the Fallback which only saves the logged in user and only sometimes that. I can verify that VSS is in fact running by creating a Windows restore point.
This is intermittent, it ran from Pycron last night and no user info was backed up and no Log_VSS.txt was created. I just invoked it manually and it said VSS was running, backed up all users and created the log as it should.
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OK I think I know where the problem is.
The program is a single thread exe, so that means when I run any calls to say vss or a Windows API that the program has to wait for a response, the program will apear forzen even though it isnt. To avoid this I use other exes from the files folder to work with vss.
SO depending on which OS your on the program will first run
vss_start.exe and then that will run one of the other files such as vss_7_64.exe.
That file is what works with vss, and that is the file (Or which ever one is set in the settings) the program looks for to see if vss is running. So when it says is vss running: no then that means it isnt seeing vss_7_64.exe (If your on Windows 7 64 bit) running.
So the problem may be those exes are crashing. Or vss_start.exe isnt being ran.
It goes in this order.
vss_start.exe (This also creates the vss log file), it opens a command pipe to a cmd.exe window to run the commands to work with the vss exes.
vss_7_64.exe (or one of the others) is ran from the bat file made by vss_start.exe.
Once the vss snap is created vss_pause.exe is ran. This does nothing, it is used so the program knowns that when it sees it that the snap file is ready to work.
And thats it. So even if vss_7_64.exe crashes the vss_start.exe should still be making a log file, but you said there isnt any log files.
So perhaps the problem is in vss_start.exe, is something blocking it? Or is it crashing?
Also something to known, vss_start.exe looks for TweakingRegistryBackup.exe to be running, if it isnt it closes itself, so make sure you dont rename the main exe.
Shane
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Shane, via the Advanced Setttings page I am telling it to run vss_7_64.exe specifically and it still tells me that vss is not running. The .bat file that pycron (alternate scheduler) runs to invoke Registry Backup is:
net stop vss
net start vss && cmd /c "C:\Program Files (x86)\Registry Backup - Tweaking\TweakingRegistryBackup.exe" /supersilent
The && after the start vss ensures that it completes without errors before executing the backup.
When the .bat is completed vss is in fact running but the Registry Backup log reports that the exes you mention are not running. I don't see them running from Task Manager. I've attached the log.
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OK you see the command it is running here
Starting: C:\Program Files (x86)\Registry Backup - Tweaking\files\vss_start.exe -log:C:\Backups-WFW&Registry\LENOVO-1\9.21.2013_12.44.19-PM\Log_Vss.txt -vssexe:vss_7_64.exe
But then you see
[9/21/2013 - 12:44:50 PM] Volume Shadow Copy Failed! vss_start.exe isn't running. vss_start.exe is needed to start the volume snapshot process.
[9/21/2013 - 12:44:50 PM] Is vss_start.exe Running: False
[9/21/2013 - 12:44:50 PM] Is vss_7_64.exe Running: False
[9/21/2013 - 12:44:50 PM] Is vss_pause.exe Running: False
Is it possible you have something that might be blocking vss_start.exe?
Such as Avast has a sandbox mode which would keep the exe from working.
Shane
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I think it was Malware Bytes. I had tried to install that so that it didn't do any monitoring and I could just use it for manual scanning but I guess it can't help but be intrusive. I found two of its processes running so decided to get rid of it. After uninstalling it with Revo Uninstall, letting it do a full sweep and then rebooting I now get a full Registry Backup as I used to. Since the problem was intermittent, this may not really be the issue but until I find otherwise we can consider it fixed.
Many thanks and I hope I don't have to come back with bad news. :-)
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Glad you found out what was getting in the way :-)
Let me know if you find anything else.
Shane