Logging the actions

• Overview
• Settings
• Error log
• Mail delivery
• Viewing the log file

Overview

If you so wish, Personal Backup can maintain a log file of all actions. The basic settings for logging are made in the dialog called from Preferences ⇒ Log ... in the Control Panel menu. In addition to the preferred log mode you can adjust at this point if a log shall be written not only during backup but also during restore, clean up and/or verification.
These settings will be used for each new backup task. An individual adjustment for each task can be made by clicking the log status label at the upper right of the Control panel (see below for details). In the dialog for editing the backup task you will find the settings under task options.

If there will occur errors during a backup or during the other actions, you can look into the log file to find out which files caused the problems. The long and especially the verbose mode will contain a great deal of additional information (e.g. about system errors) and can be used for debugging purposes.

As new logs are added to existing entries, the log files will grow ever larger. The size of these files can be limited under Log settings (default size: 1 MB). On reaching the selected size, the program will rename the current log using the current date (PersBackup yyyy-mm-dd.log) and continue with a new, initially empty, log file.
As a result of this, the number of log files will grow over time. To prevent this, the program contains a facility for the manual or automatic deletion of old log files no longer needed (see here).

Log settings

One of the following log modes can be selected depending on the data you wish to be included:

Short:

Date and time of backup

Destination directories

Error notifications (optionally with warnings and detailed error descriptions)

Backup status with the number of files copied, deleted and checked

Long:

As for Short log

List of all files copied on backup and all files deleted on synchronization

Display of errors and warnings

Detailed error information

Additional information for copied files: A succeeding A indicates that the attribute of the source file was reset (e.g. during incremental backups), a succeeding U indicates that an older file version was overwritten at the destination.

Verbose:

As for Long, but with much additional information, such as timestamps, attributes, skipped files (useful only for debugging purposes). Besides, the log will always be written completely even if the program hangs or has been terminated.
Note: the log file can grow very large and will slightly slow down the backup.

Options

• Show warnings in short log: Warnings are errors that do not affect the content of the backed up files, that means the file to be backed up was copied completely, but afterwards e.g. the file attributes and/or the timestamps at destination could not be set. In addition, if this option is selected, detailed descriptions are displayed for all serious errors.
• Show skipped files in long log: In addition to all copied files, also the files that were not copied during the backup in Update backup mode because a current version already exists at destination are also displayed in the log.
• Print automatically after action: If desired, the current log can be printed automatically on the selected printer after each backup.
• Error summary: At the end of a long or verbose log, a list of errors that occurred during the backup is added. This makes it easier to quickly check for errors during larger backups (see also the notes on the error log).

Name of the log file

• Use default log file: the log will be written to the default log file PersBackup.log.
• Use following log file for current task: you can specify any fixed filename, optionally containing a full path and/or placeholders. On clicking the red arrow button, a placeholder for the name of the task will be taken as the name for the log. In addition, on clicking the question mark button, other placeholders can be inserted, such as for the date and/or time. In the screenshot above, for example, placeholders for the task name and the current date are used.
  In all cases, if a fixed name or a name with placeholders is used, the log will be appended to an existing file when running a backup.
  Delete previous log entries: This option is only available if a particular log file was selected for the task. Before starting the backup, all existing entries will be deleted.

Placeholders for log file name

The following placeholders can be inserted into the name or path of the log file:

• %date% - current date in the format "yyyy-mm-dd" (e.g. 2010-12-04)
• %time% - time of day in the format "hhmmss" (e.g. 215325)
• %yaw% - year and week in the format "yyyy-ww" (e.g. 2009-53)
• %yam% - year and month in the format "yyyy-mm" (e.g. 2009-07)
• %year% - current year in the format "yyyy" (e.g. 2010)
• %username% - name of the logged-on user
• %computername% - name of the computer
• %dest% - destination path of backup (e.g. F:\Backup\)
• %drive% - name of destination drive (e.g. F:) or name of server share (e.g. \\server\backup)
• %volume% - volume name of destination drive
• %taskname% - name of task

Location of the log file

At the bottom of the dialog window the currently selected log directory is displayed for your information. It will be used if the name of the specified log file (see above) contains no full path. The user can either select a particular directory using the main menu item Preferences ⇒ Directories... or use the default directory located beneath the user's application data: C:\Users\<username>AppData\Roaming\PersBackup6.

Error log

If you are using individual log files for automatic backups, it is difficult to recognize whether a backup has failed and during which backup. In order to keep the overview, in case of errors an entry is created in a central error log for such backups containing the name and time of the backup as well as a short description of the error. This log can be displayed using the main menu of the control panel. Further details about the errors can be found in the specific backup log (see here)

Sending the log by mail

Using the task options you can arrange for a mail notification to be sent after backup to one or more recipients. The log file of the last backup can be attached.

  Viewing the log file

After clicking this button or the menu item Actions ⇒ Log ⇒ View, a viewer window will open and shows the log file belonging to the current opened backup task. Clicking the appropriate button will print out or delete the log file. Additionally, you can search for the beginning of a backup section (blue arrows), backup errors (red arrows) or any other text. To copy text to the clipboard, no text selection is required for the whole text. For part of the text, select a section and type Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Ins on your keyboard.

To print only part of the log, the desired text should be selected using the mouse or keyboard. If nothing is selected, the whole log will be printed out.

Shortcuts used in the log files

The following shortcuts are used in the log files to give the user some additional information.

Header

Personal Backup (Version 6.3.4.0) [nn] - Data backup
==> Start: 10.06.2023 12:48:36 - Backup task: <Task>.buj (x)

nn = log mode: 01 - short, 02 - long, 03 - verbose, 05 = short with warnings
 x = Backup mode: no = update, S = update with synchronization, F = full, D = differential, I = incremental

This is followed by more details about the backup task (file name, method and settings)

Error notations

*** Error - Kind of the error: <filename>
  => System error: reported system error (only in long and verbose log)

Long and verbose log

Header for each directory to be backed up
1st Directory:
Source: ...	Source directory containing the files to be backed up
Filter: ...	Filter conditions specified in task
Dest.: ...	Destination directory where the files will be backed up
Backed up files
...
Copied: "<file path rel. to source>" (n%)	Destination file does not exist
Copied: "<file path rel. to source>" (A - n%)	Destination file does not exist Archive bit was reset
Copied: "<file path rel. to source>" (U - n%)	Destination file was replaced
Copied: "<file path rel. to source>" (A,U - n%)	Destination file was replaced Archive bit was reset
...
n = Size of the compressed file relative to original

Verbose log

...
copying of "<file path rel. to source> (<size>) to <dest. file> [xxx]
...
compressing of "<file path rel. to source> (<size>) to <dest. file> [xxx]
...
compressing and encrypting of "<file path rel. to source> (<size>) to <dest. file> [xxx]
...
xxx = Selected options:

N - copy, C - compress, E - encrypt
additional: V - verify, T = copy creation time, A - copy alternate data streams, S - copy document summary, P - copy permissions, X - no copy of file attributes

 
Details of comparison of source ⇔ destination:

-a-- 2010-09-22 10:13:47 -> not present		new copy
-a-- 2014-12-18 17:34:52 -> 2014-11-12 19:33:14		update
-a-- 2004-12-18 17:34:52 <-> 2004-12-18 17:34:54		identical - no copy
↑↑↑↑	Attributes:
r---	read-only
-a--	archive
--h-	hidden
---s	system