Backups recently started failing

[Ed AmmendolaParticipant]

Environment
OS version: Windows Server 2016
(WAMP)
Apache version: 2.4.37
PHP version: 7.2.14
WordPress version: 5.2.4
UpdraftPlus version: 2.16.20.24

Last week our backups stopped working. I’ve been investigating possible causes, but I’ve not found a solution. I’m getting email from our site indicating that the backup is failing. When initiating a backup from the site admin side, I see things like these displayed and in the logs:
“To decrease the likelihood of overlaps, increasing resumption interval to: #### seconds”
“Scheduling a resumption (4) after 1206 seconds (1573593010) in case this run gets aborted”
“Terminate: pclzip-5dcb1afc8f7e0.tmp exists with activity within the last 30 seconds (time_mod=1573591804, time_now=1573591804, diff=0, size=43396KB). This likely means that another UpdraftPlus run is at work; so we will exit.”

I’ve also noticed a file in my-site/wp-content/updraft there is a file that starts with pclzip-##############.tmp that keeps randomly changing it’s name even though I’ve deactivated the UpdraftPlus component.

So far, I have:
Doubled the available disk size to 200GB.
Changes the split size from 400MB to 100MB.

We need help resolving this. Thanks.

[Bryle CroduaModerator]

Hi,

Please can you send us a copy of the backup log?
This can be found in the UpdraftPlus Existing Backups tab.
Please use an online service such as Dropbox or Pastebin for the log, and post the link here.

Best Wishes,
Bryle

[Ed AmmendolaParticipant]

Here are logs from yesterday and today.
https://downloads.edammendola.com/11-12-2019.log.txt
https://downloads.edammendola.com/11-13-2019.log.txt

I’ve also included this screenshot, because I think it is odd that the timestamps don’t match between the backup date-stamp and the log entries that are scrolling by during attempted backups.
https://downloads.edammendola.com/updraft-time-stamp.png

[Bryle CroduaModerator]

Hi,

The log shows “0220.639 (0) The attempt to close the zip file returned an error (Unknown: ZipArchive does not return error messages). List of files we were trying to add follows (check their permissions).”

This usually means that your storage has already reached its maximum limit. Please can you check if this is the case?

Regards,
Bryle

[Ed AmmendolaParticipant]

Bryle,

C: (OS) drive where website is installed and backups are stored:
Capacity allocated: 199GB
Used space: 69.5GB
Free spaces: 129GB
Size of all the files in the website subfolder: 8.39GB
RAM: 32GB

As I mentioned previously
So far, I have:
Doubled the available disk size to 200GB
Changes the split size from 400MB to 100MB

The backups were working fine with the 50% smaller allocation a little over a week ago. Given the information you have, what do you recommend for the size of storage??

[Dee NutbourneModerator]

Hi,

Apologies for the delay.

I have reinspected your error logs, and the issue appears to be caused by a separate WordPress installation present on the server.

The logs show that you are backing up the WP Core files (i.e. everything in the WordPress root directory except wp-content).
However, that directory contains a folder named 1572641604070 which appears to be another WordPress installation.

This should not be backed up by the main site’s UpdraftPlus.
I would recommend adding that directory (1572641604070) to your site’s WP Core backup exclusion list.

Best Wishes,
Dee

[Ed AmmendolaParticipant]

Dee,

This did indeed resolve the issue. Thank you!

To give some additional information. I am using a plugin called “WP Staging”, which allows us to test plugins and updates before updating the live “parent” site. I even disabled the WP Staging component to see if it was causing the backups to fail. However, I did not consider that the stage root folder would interfere with the normal backup process.

I excluded the 1572641604070 folder, tested UpdraftPlus and it worked just fine.
Then I changed the split size from 100MB back to 400MB and retested the backup, and that worked fine as well.

Thank you again and I hope this thread helps anyone else who runs into this issue.

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