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"File Changed" error

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2008-01-01
2013-04-11
  • Arthur Dent

    Arthur Dent - 2008-01-01

    Hi Steve

    Happy New Year!

    Two days ago I upgraded my FC6 box to F8. All went well and I included v0.3.3 of SLB.

    I changed nothing in the configuration files (copied them over from the FC6 partition) and run all the cron jobs at exactly the same time as before (copied the crontab file too).

    Since the upgrade I get "Return Code 1"

    On looking into the bkup-Mon.log.gz file I see this:

    Simple Linux Backup Copyright (c) 2006-2007 Steven J. Rosen
    Version 0.3.2-182

    Beginning system backup at 2007-12-31 024001

    Starting backup in directory '/'
    Full backup last performed about 1 day(s) ago.
    Performing full backup
    Copying files...
    tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
    tar: /home/wife/.beagle/socket-helper: socket ignored
    tar: /home/son/.beagle/socket-helper: socket ignored
    tar: /home/mark/.beagle/socket-helper: socket ignored
    tar: /home/mark/.xine/session.1: socket ignored
    tar: /home/mark: file changed as we read it
    tar: /home/admin/.bittorrent/data/ui_socket: socket ignored
    Done collecting and compressing files; return code 1.
    Done!

    What's with the "File changed" thing?
    How can I find out which file(s) are changing and by what and when?
    Why is this happening now when it never did before?
    Why is there always one sock missing when you take them out of the washing machine?...

    Thanks for a great product!

    Mark

     
    • Arthur Dent

      Arthur Dent - 2008-01-16

      Gentle Bump...

      Still not sure what to do about this...

      Mark

       
    • Steve Rosen

      Steve Rosen - 2008-01-17

      Mark,

      I haven't been on in a couple of weeks...I'll start to look into this. Strange error.

      Steve

       
    • Steve Rosen

      Steve Rosen - 2008-01-17

      By the way, I assume everything still gets backed up despte the return code 1, correct? The backup script ("bkup") doesn't actually check the return code from the "tar" command.

      As for the sock thing, actually your washing machine is *creating* another sock.

       
    • Arthur Dent

      Arthur Dent - 2008-01-17

      Well, this is my entire /home directory (give or take a few excluded directories) so it's hard to be certain, but well... yes there are several thousand files in the backup.

      If I could only see *which* files were changing I might have some idea how to chase down the problem. At the moment I have no idea if the file(s)concerned are trivial tracking files or absolutely vital documents...

      Thanks for looking into this for me.

      Much appreciated.

      Mark

       
      • Steve Rosen

        Steve Rosen - 2008-01-19

        Mark,

        After doing some research, I'm fairly certain that this isn't a problem.

        The "file" that's being changed is actually the home directory itself; that's why the log says "/home/mark". It's likely that, when you do the backup, some process is writing something in your home directory. Maybe it's another process or maybe it's SLB itself. Writing something to your home directory would cause the directory's attributes (e.g., last modified time) to be changed, which the "tar" command (that's the command SLB uses for the backup) would see.

        However, I believe that the backup is working just fine. As my previous post said, the "bkup" script doesn't even check the return code from the tar command.

        -- Steve

         
    • Arthur Dent

      Arthur Dent - 2008-01-19

      Hi Steve,

      Thanks for that. It's what I was hoping to hear. Judging from, if nothing else, the size of the backup it certainly seemed to be working but I couldn't be certain.

      I know the principal factor hear was the fact that I upgraded from FC6 to F8, but I really changed very little during the the upgrade so I am a little puzzled as to why this should have started.

      Incidentally I have got a Return code 1 on *every* "root" backup since the upgrade, but *none* of the "mark" ones. (I run 2 SLB backups - one as "root" backing up all /home/* + assorted others, and another as user "mark" backing up stuff from other partitions). Naturally these run at very different times.
      root = 1:40am mark = 3.40am.

      Anyhow, I will continue to run the backup(s) quite happily and hope that one day someone will find a solution.

      Thanks again for a great product...

      Mark

       

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