I have 2 computers and I am using the same key and the same file for both.

I forgot to mention, you should really use two identity keys if you are capturing two different systems to the same archive.

The files from each computer will belong to their respective owner (in the Owners & Volumes drawer) where there's no possibility of confusing the two. Yet they will both share the same data store, with the all space saving advantages.

From your logs, it appears that you captured your home folder to the archive IncyBack.

QRecall captured (read) 41.7 GB worth of files. Of this, 11.5 GB (28%) was duplicate, so the archive only grew by about 30.1 GB.

You can see these numbers by increasing the detail level in the log viewer by one and expanding the line that says "Captured 33360 items, 41.7 GB (28% duplicate)". The details of that message will list exactly how much data was read, how much was duplicate (already in the archive), how much new data was written to the archive, and other miscellaneous details.

The "problems" encountered during the capture are minor, and I intend to remove them from the log in future versions. They occur when QRecall reads a folder to determine what files to capture, then comes back a few moments later to actually capture them. If another process has deleted or renamed the file in the intervening time, QRecall logs a "File not found" error.

I have plans to eventually extent both filtering and capture item selection to include a vast array of rules, probably based on Spotlight queries.

Frederic Thomas wrote:I think the Mac world could do with an alternative to the moribund Retrospect. There's a million of solutions to backup stuff to a local HD, but very few solutions to replicate what can be done with Retrospect backup server: network backup every N hours (or ASAP) of potentially mobile mac (and windows) clients.

Have no fear; I have Retrospect squarely in my sights.

IMHO QRecall is very close to that goal (except for Windows). What's missing is probably better collaboration between instances and "home/server" detection (if the backup volume is on an airport extreme, it works).

QRecall will eventually grow to include direct network support, so that captures and recalls can be performed remotely -- even over the Internet. (Please be patient; there's a lot of work to do between now and then.)

QRecall's duplicate data detection is (roughly) based on the principles of rsync -- although on a much grander scale. I'm sure you can see the potential for extremely efficient network-based captures. Far faster and more efficient than Retrospect or similar utilities.

Frederic Thomas wrote:However it seems 2 QRecall instances cannot access the file simultaneously, is this correct?

Two actions can't modify an archive simultaneously, but QRecall is fully aware when other actions/computers/processes are doing so and will patiently wait until the current action is finished.

Go ahead a schedule your two computers to capture to the same archive. If one doesn't finish before the other is ready to start, it will wait its turn.

I capture five systems to a single archive and all of them start nightly at 2:00 AM. They capture one at a time until all five are done.

Frederic Thomas wrote:Again, I understand the logic. I am suggesting the UI is fixed as staring at a beach ball for 1 minute and 20 second feels very long (progress bar?), especially since the size of the full disk is known...

I would have loved to have used a progress bar, but it's a catch-22. You have to read all of the folders to determine how many folders you have to read....

But I agree that it's the one point that sort of "breaks the flow" of the assistant. I'll look into ways of handling it more efficiently.

How can I find it back in the middle of 555 other windows?

For that, I find exposé particularly handy. You can always launch QRecall and choose Window > Activity Monitor > QRecall Activity to force the activity window to the front.

Also note that QRecall supports Growl.

Also, this little window only tells me what qRecall is doing. It would nice if it was telling me as well what qRecall will do when (i.e. "Currently: idle Next task: merge in 23:45 hours").

That's an excellent suggestion. I'll put that on the to-do list.

It would also be nice to be able to launch the program from the window?

I've considered having a persistent Open Log button in the activity window, which would have the side effect of launching the application.

(Note I have QRecallMonitor and QRecallScheduler in my process list)

FYI: QRecallMonitor is a tiny background application that manages the activity window. QRecallScheduler is a daemon that schedules actions to run.

Frederic Thomas wrote:OK, maybe I was not very clear.

I am not saying it does not calculate fast enough. I am saying it would be best if it was not calculating at that point in time.

Your point is that it needs the calculation to provide "intelligent suggestions". But how good will be these suggestions if any of the accounted for sizes (data and backup sizes) do significantly change?

The assistant performs a number of sanity checks, like making sure you don't start off by trying to capture three times more data than the size of the volume the archive is on. It also make quesstimates about how much data, and how long, you can reasonably expect the archive to hold. All of those checks and suggestions require knowing approximately how much data you're trying to capture.

I agree that things can change, and the various actions created by the capture assistant can deal with those based on your preferences. But I think it's important that you be presented with some reasonable estimate of what can, or can't, accomplish before you begin. While the estimation process might be slow, a failed multi-GB capture is even slower.

Don't get me wrong: I am all for a new good Mac backup solution. And what I have seen so far with qRecall is great. But from a user interface perspective however, I don't think having to wait for 30 minutes to be able to finish a wizard is good. If it takes that long, it should be done in the background, or something...

Yikes, that's way too slow. I think I've got a fair number of files in my home folder (~200,000) and it take less than a minute to estimate my home folder size. If it's taking more than 5 minutes, then something is amiss.

The capture assistant is calculating the size of your home folder about as fast as it can. If you went to the Finder, selected your home folder, and choose Get Info, it would take about as long.

Unfortunately, there's no magic way of quickly determining the total size of a folder without reading every folder it contains and totalling the contents. The capture assistant needs this information in order to make intellegent suggestions.

Jan Sass wrote:Ok, created a new archive with 44b yesterday, pressed 'run' in actions-pane today, and got 'connection with command process closed' after about 5 min. and 17 files backup. backup stoped after some more minutes, stating: corrupted, repair or reindex?

plus: i have backup up only 1 drive, not multiple as in the past.

so, my 44b is broken again, backup data lost.

Your QRecall Helper process is crashing.

Please send me your log files again along with the crash log at ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/QRecallHelper.crash.log and we'll try to figure out what's going wrong.

If you want, we can take this to private e-mail. You can send me the files directly at james@qrecall.com.

Jan Sass wrote:btw: where are the actions aliases stored? i have a 'cant resolve alias ...' in logs

That's nothing to worry about. The aliases in question are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/QRecall/Recent Captures/. They are used by the Desktop Capture/Recall commands to locate the 10 most recently captured archives. Since you've been deleting archives, you have aliases here to archives that no longer exist.

If the messages are bothering you, you can trash the aliases that refer to deleted archives.

Interim release 1.0.0b45 corrects this problem.

Download and install the update by choosing QRecall > Check for updates....

Interim release 1.0.0b45 corrects this problem.

Download and install the update by choosing QRecall > Check for updates....

Jan Sass wrote:You can have all of my logs, if only i knew where to find them (i can view them, but where can i save them?).. Pls advise, and i'll PM them.

Your log files are stored at (your home folder)/Library/Logs/QRecall. You might want to compress them into a ZIP archive before sending them.

So, new backup worked like a charme - thank you. BUT i would like to see the O&V Window removed or at least have an option: always show all drives. This is because i need to back up multiple drives and don't want to to switch between the "master-layers" in O&V-window. is this possible in a future release?

That would be a very difficult and there are some technical problems in doing so. But I'll add your suggestions to the wish list.

Jan Sass wrote:Did so, opened my archive, got th4e message: Open failed, you should reindex or repair.

I'd be very interested in your log files around the time when you unsuccessfully opened, reindexed, and repaired this archive.

In my testing, this bug caused only cosmetic problems. If it is corrupting archives, I want to know how.