GFI MaxBackup / IASO / MaxFocus Backup Review, Problems & Help

I recently switched to LogicNow’s MaxBackup (part of their MaxFocus suite) for our cloud based backup solution (a service previously called ‘GFI MaxBackup’) which appears to be based-on-and-identical-to IASO Backup, a continuation of GFI’s never ending cycle of rebranding designed to confuse customers.  😀

As you can see, it’s a baffling blur of catchy names and marketing terms. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to the solution as MaxBackup.

I have created this page because while on the whole I’ve found the solution to be absolutely fantastic (I highly recommend it),  I’ve found it difficult to get to the bottom of any issues, to find centralised documentation and to generally debug the product/service when something doesn’t go quite right.  I’m very hopeful that is something that will be easily resolved because all of the LogicNow team I’ve dealt with have been helpful and efficient.

Given that the software is good too, it just seems like some internal organisation needs to be done (and probably a little more budget in the support department).

Update: This document has expanded in to a bit of an unofficial help page so I will write my detailed review separately.

Here I intend to post my findings, problems and solutions as a I go in the hope it will help others.

Contents

Tips & Useful Info

1. General Issues

1.1 Backup Selection Window

1.2 Cannot Uninstall Backup Manager

1.3 Unable to stop the Backup Service Controller service

2. VMWare Backup Problems

2.1 VMWare Virtual Machine Selection Problems

2.2 Adding New VMWare Server Does Nothing

2.3 Can’t Delete VMWare Server

2.4 VMWare Backup Fails Immediately, Multiple Errors

3. Backup Errors

3.1 Disaster Recovery will not be possible.

4. Installation Problems

4.1 This contract has already been used during another installation

4.2 Download link doesn’t work

5. Exchange Backups

5.1 The Circular Logging Requirement

6. MySQL Plugin Problems

6.1 Serious MySQL Backup/Restore Limitations

Support Review

Tips & Useful Info

Log Files

• The log files can be found at C:\ProgramData\MXB\Backup Manager\logs
• You can only successfully take a copy of the log files if the backup service is stopped
• You can view the logs in real time view your web browser by going to http://127.0.0.1:5000/logs/app

Backup Service / Process

• If you cannot stop the backup service (it times out), open task manager and kill the BackupFP.exe process (you may need to select ‘Show Processes from all users’ to see it).

1. General Issues

1.1 Backup Selection Window

The backup selection window seems to be plagued with problems across all of the backup types, often selecting files for the first time gives an error saying they are already selected.

1.2 Cannot Uninstall Backup Manager

I recently had to uninstall the backup manager client from a customer to install from scratch (due to a backup node unable to recover from a full drive), unfortunately trying to remove it via Uninstall a Program in the control panel didn’t work – it simply did nothing (no errors, etc). I was because the backup manager couldn’t stop the backup service to perform the uninstall.

Solution: Stop the backup service, then uninstall the software (if you are having problems stopping the service, see below).

1.3 Unable to stop the Backup Service Controller service

When trying to stop the Backup Service Controller on a system, you may get an error saying it cannot be stopped:

Windows could not stop the Backup Service Controller service on Local Computer
Error 1503: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

Solution: Right click on the service and mark it as disabled, then reboot the machine – it is then stopped upon boot up.

2 VMWare Backup Problems

2.1 VMWare Virtual Machine Selection Problems

When I was creating a VMWare backup for the first time, I found that no matter what I did, the system appeared to select ALL of my VMs.  I would select two of eight, click Save (and the window didn’t close, indicating a problem) – I would close the window and click edit to check my selection only to find ALL of the VMs selected.

I contacted IASO support via their chat feature and in their defence, they spent about two hours in the session with me testing out the problem.  It turned out to be a display issue only – the system does accept the selection you give it but upon clicking edit, it incorrectly shows all VMs as selected. It is now a confirmed bug and will be fixed in the next release.

If you want to confirm which VMs you have selected manually, you can do so with the ‘ClientTool.exe‘ utility using the following command:

C:\Program Files\Backup Manager\clienttool control.selection.list -datasource VMware

Which should give you a result similar to this one:

VMware Inclusive Normal 192.168.1.10\ha-dc\host\esx01.acme.com\Resources\SERVER1
VMware Inclusive Normal 192.168.1.10\ha-dc\host\esx01.acme.com\Resources\SERVER2

2.2 Adding New VMWare Server Does Nothing

Sometimes adding a VMWare server for the first time (and entering the authentication details) results in no response.  No error, no confirmation and no VM guest details.
Solution: I found simply restarting the client solved the issue, it would appear that connecting to the VMWare host takes a while and the client doesn’t give any sort of progress or indication it is still working.

2.3 Can’t Delete VMWare Server

Sometimes when deleting a VMWare Server,  it stays visible even after a refresh.  If you try to delete it again,  you’re told its not found – yet there it is, staring at you.
Solution: I simply had to ignore the stubborn VMWare host and continue as though it wasn’t there – when I added another one it finally disappeared.

2.4 VMWare Backup Fails Immediately, Multiple Errors

After working through the issues above, I finally got Backup Manager ready to go and with the seeding options all set, I started the backup, clapping my hands and patting myself on the back as I saw everything initialize.  My party was shortlived however as the backup terminated within about 30 seconds, listing four rather cryptic errors.  I immediately submitted the errors to the support team and as of the time of writing, am waiting for a response (I got a message saying my ticket had been escalated).  I’ll post the solution below when I get it but for now, the errors are:

11:22:36 192.168.94.10\ha-dc\host\esx01.acme.com\Resources\SERVER\Hard disk 1
Virtual machine disk processing error. Failed to read virtual disk metadata. Error: The specified key is not found in the disk database (16052).

11:23:05 192.168.94.10\ha-dc\host\esx01.acme.com\Resources\TERMINAL2
Virtual machine disk processing error. Config for '192.168.94.10\ha-dc\host\esx01.acme.com\Resources\TERMINAL2' not found

11:23:05 192.168.94.10\ha-dc\host\esx01.acme.com\Resources\SERVER
Virtual machine disk processing error. Config for '192.168.94.10\ha-dc\host\esx01.acme.com\Resources\SERVER' not found

11:23:05 192.168.94.10\ha-dc\host\esx01.acme.com\Resources\SBS
Virtual machine disk processing error. Config for '192.168.94.10\ha-dc\host\esx01.acme.com\Resources\SBS' not found

3. Backup Errors

3. 1 Disaster Recovery will not be possible.

When backing up a system that includes the System State, sometimes you’ll get errors similar to:

Path: System State\ASR Writer\BCD\?\Volume{ec23adab-ef9c-11d2-a203-346e6f6e3543}\Boot\<VssFileGroup>
Error: Disaster Recovery will not be possible. Reason: Volume not found for file "\\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy362\Boot\BCD".

Solution: ShadowCopy doesn’t have enough storage space available on your C: drive, increase the limit by:

1. Right click your C: drive in Windows Explorer
2. Click Configure Shadow Copies…
3. Ensure C: is selected in the pane and click Settings
4. Increase the limit (for a SBS2011 Server, I set this to 10GB)
5. Click OK on both dialog boxes to accept the settings

4. Installation Problems

4.1 This contract has already been used during another installation

When reinstalling the software for some reason, you get an alarming message saying:

This contract has already been used during another installation

This can happen only when reinstalling the application.  Installing the contract on two computers at the same time results in two unusable backups.  Are you sure you want to continue?

I assume that what they mean is that ‘this should only happen when reinstalling’ and that its safe to proceed but they don’t say that.  Unfortunately both of the online articles (MaxFocus and ISAO) offer no additional insight whatsoever.

 4.2 Download link Doesn’t Work

When I sent some customers the download link to install the Backup Service Controller client, it simply did nothing for them.  Unfortunately it turns out that the download link is only valid for 15 minutes (what the hell?), making it pretty much unusable unless you are doing the installations yourself.   This is apparently done of security reasons but all that will happen is that people starting sending the device name and password via email instead (see solution below) which is less secure.

Solution: You can either use the link to download the installer yourself and send it securely to your client (it has the device name and password embedded in it) or simply download the vanilla installer and email the device name and password/s to your customer.

5. Exchange Backups

5.1 The Circular Logging Requirement

I was recently wanted to onboard a customer with a very large and busy Microsoft Exchange deployment.  Unfortunately seeding the backup wasn’t practical or easily done and as they had relatively quick DIA I wanted to just go ahead.  Unfortunately this mean I had to disable circular logging on Exchange before I could start the backup.  I did so and immediately ran in to problems as they server hard drives start filled up with GBs of logs files, unfortunately the initial Exchange backup just wasn’t going to complete in time (at which point it would purge the logs) before the hard drives filled up.  I was forced to abandon the backup, switch circular logging back on and restart Exchange.  I am still trying to arrange for a seed backup.

I contacted IASO support to ask about the circular logging requirement but no-one was able to give me any detailed information other than that I shouldn’t backup with circular logging on as it can cause data inconsistencies.

I would like to know if there is a temporary workaround to prevent the inconsistencies or is it perhaps ok for the initial backup, etc?

6. MySQL Backups

Update May 2015 on MySQL Backups

Today I received an email from MaxBackup containing my first real disappointment with the product:

We are not able to restore InnoDB single table and DB instances.  If it was MyISAM we would be able to offer that recovery method.

Again, still does not help with your specific situation, but they suggested if you client converted to MyISAM engine, it would work in the manner you need.

Obviously the InnoDB database type exists for a reason – MyISAM doesn’t have a lot of features that InnoDB does (transactions for one) so this isn’t really a fix for most people.

For my part, I have given up on MaxBackup to protect individual MySQL databases and use it only for a full server restore (disaster recovery), I then protect the individual databases with the mysqldump utility using a script I created (see it here).

6.1 Serious MySQL Backup/Restore Limitations

I recently had a customer hosted on one of our Plesk servers accidentally delete a large amount of data accidentally.  As I knew I had configured MaxBackup to include all of the databases on the server, I immediately turned to that for a simple restore of the whole database.

I fired up the MaxBackup console and followed the guide here which states that:

MySQL databases are recovered according to a general instruction. The only difference is that the whole database is restored, not individual files/tables.

Unfortunately, when I selected my backup (by date), the only thing with a checkbox for selecting it is the whole MySQL server.  It seems that at this stage, its only possible to restore the entire server, not individual databases (a whole level of hierarchy up from that in the article):

Unfortunately for me – and likely for anyone with more than one database running on a MySQL instance – this renders the restore facility useless.  Unfortunately due to the way MySQL handles InnoDB data, it also makes it an absolutely nightmare for anyone attempting to manually restore a database so even restoring to a different location isn’t an option either.

I have informed our customer that their data is permanently lost at this stage but obviously the situation is far from ideal.  All I really need is a series of SQL statements I can ‘play’ in to database server (which allow even ‘table’ level restoration) but I don’t know if such a think is practical.

Support Review

LogicNow Support

The support I’ve received from LogicNow so far has been excellent but inconsistent.  Only an email-based support ticket is available which leaves you wandering through an inbox full of unformatted threads, trying to work out where you are at – I’d give anything for a central web-based ticketing system.

When I had one customer without offsite backups for over a week due to a problem, I was only getting a basic response about every 48 hours – in the end I had to contact the CTO of LogicNow via LinkedIn to ask him to escalate the issue: it was then resolved within an hour (which only goes to show how little effort had to go in to resolving my issue and confirms that even less effort had gone in to providing me with support up to that point).  I have to say however than anytime I *did* interact with anyone, the experience was positive – I wonder if the department is just underfunded or stretched thin (or both!).

IASO Support

Due to the email-only support on the LogicNow site, I recently starting contacting IASO for support, given that the product is the same and they have a support chat option (its probably the same team).  They were very responsive and when they couldn’t solve my issue (a bug in VMWare selection – see below), they escalated it and found a workaround for me too.  They even let me wait while they re-created my problem then-and-there, confirming the problem was only ‘front end’ and the back-end backup process was actually behaving as it should.