OK, that explains it, thanks!
(I did look for OS version beside the download link, and I was glad not to see the crossed out app icon typically coming with OS X 10.7 or later apps on OS X 10.6 but I did not look for release notes as I was going to test my specific 1 TB issue on a copy anyway. With no 10.6 support, that option is gone anyway now).

Thanks!
both the volume that is backed up and the target volume are Journaled HFS (the QRecall archive being on a Sparse image which has the same format).
What happens is that the backup process aborts, the archive "unbundles" (looks like a folder) and the file system of the disk volume with the sparse image is corrupted.
The first time this happened I thought it was a bad disk, so I went and bought a new one, increased the room in the sparse image, copied the archive over (a slightly older one) and - ran into the same issue again.
If this is QRecall 1.2.3 running into limitations, then how can I know when I am hitting the wall before it happens? Is it the number of files in the archive or the size of the archive or something else I can check?

The disk image http://www.qrecall.com/release/QRecall_2.0.0rc1.dmg contains the app 37rc for me.
This app shuts down right after launch both on Mac OS 10.6.8 and 10.7 for me.
What am I missing?
Thanks!

Hello,
I am consistently getting a corrupt archive backing up to a fresh copy of a working archive, just around the 1 TB size.
As I was wondering if there is any limit in QRecall (or possibly in accessing the archive on a networked volume) I found this thread but unfortunately no immediate pointers.
Should I start a new archive and avoid running higher than 1 TB ?
This will eventually get impractical (source has 1 TB capacity) but for now it might work.
Thanks!

Thanks for the quick response, once again!

I will look into DNS issues to see if there is anything to be improved. Since Mac OS X 10.5 the lack of reverse naming schemes in a local network makes Mac OS X file sharing slower/trickier than necessary (many users coming from 10.4 knew this as the slow login effect, for example).

Other than that, everything is on wired Ethernet with no disconnects on other (sensitive) network operations, so hopefully my hunch works out!

Concerning older QRecall versions, where can I find those, please?

Hi,
I am in the process of testing how to best back up a network of machines using QRecall.

So far all the stumbling blocks have been external to QRecall (like Mac OS 10.5 formatting a 4 TB drive correctly but later unable to write to it consistently, ending with Drive Utility trashing the volume and all the data on it).

I have set up a couple machines (4 or 5 right now) to back up to a central Mac OS X 10.6 server, using a 4 TB drive exclusively dedicated to the process.

Standard users are all backed up to a single QRecall archive file (to maximize disk space savings from all the identical Mac OS files) while "special" users with unique setups each get their own archive.

Now I have three questions:

1) "Standard" users every now and then don't execute the daily backup run - QRecall patiently shows "waiting for archive" even when the volume with the archive is mounted and the archive visible in the Finder and no other machine uses the archive. Restarting the machine generally seems to solve the issue but that obviously misses the backup window at night. Is this a result of several machines sharing the archive file? Is there anything one can do to avoid the issue?

2) "Special" users sometimes (but not always) have trouble mounting both the network volume and their dedicated sparse image file. Restarting or manual mounting seems to solve the issue but I wonder if there is a better way to do things.

3) I noticed QRecall having trouble on Mac OS X 10.5.5 (odd crashes) but working well on Mac OS 10.5.8. We are dependent on specific OS versions due to legacy software for certain tasks. Are there any older versions of QRecall available that could operate using 10.5.5 or even 10.4?

As always, thanks for your quick help. It is what makes implementing your software a real joy!

On a computer with VM disabled I noticed the following log entry:

Unable to determine path to VM swap files; assuming /var/vm

VM was disabled with sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist, not sure though if it is worth checking this variable to avoid the error message.

More detail on disabling VM is here: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=201106020948369.

Amazing responsiveness, thanks!

I will definitely try that out and I appreciate you spelling it out, since I probably would have tried the drag and drop if you had not answered.

It is so rewarding to see software that seems to anticipate the needs of the user, keeping it tucked away until the moment comes to use it, a sure sign that its creator really knew what he was doing!

Many thanks for enabling such an experience!

I wish I had found QRecall earlier, so much time spent on less worthy software could have been saved...

One question I could not easily work out with the excellent test scheme is how to perform a full restore of a hard disk.

I have run into situations where I wanted to do that with Retrospect and it was not always a great experience.

I guess I could restore a full HDD and see whether it works the way I expect but maybe there are more people interested how QRecall will handle this, thanks!