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Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

#9198 My backup files are not being uploaded to Amazon S3 - Command Line CRON

Posted in ‘Akeeba Backup for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
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PHP version
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Akeeba Backup version
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Latest post by nicholas on Friday, 02 December 2011 06:46 CST

Thursday, 01 December 2011 14:19 CST

Metzed
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? No
Have I searched the forum before posting? No
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? No
Joomla! version: (1.5.25)
PHP version: (5.2.17)
MySQL version: (5.1.56-community-log)
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Akeeba Backup version: (Akeeba Backup Professional 3.3.9

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach your Akeeba Backup log file in order for us to help you with any backup or restoration issue.

Description of my issue:
I started off in the Troubleshooting Wizard, but the relevant article title seems to be linked to the wrong article.

"My backup files are not being uploaded to Amazon S3"
https://www.akeebabackup.com/troubleshooter/a-typical-backup-restoration-workflow.html

So I have successfully created a 'manual' backup to Amazon S3. Using the same profile and the following Cron it only uploads 3 parts each 5Mb in size, whereas the successful backup produced 99x 5Mb files. Are there any clues to this failure in the attached command line log?

/usr/bin/php5 /home/sites/mydomain.co.uk/public_html/administrator/components/com_akeeba/backup.php -profile=2 -description="Automated backup"



Thursday, 01 December 2011 14:42 CST

Metzed
Also the tooltips advise that the part size for split archives be 5Mb, is this too small?

I also disabled multipart uploads, but that made no difference.

Thursday, 01 December 2011 14:43 CST

nicholas
I will need to see your backup log file from the Command Line origin. Without a log file I have no idea what's going on. That's why I ask that all support requests include an attachment of your log file, inside a ZIP archive.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Thursday, 01 December 2011 14:51 CST

Metzed
It'd be a good idea to put ZIP in this statement to make it more obvious "EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach your Akeeba Backup log file in Zip file format, in order for us to help you with any backup or restoration issue."

I uploaded a txt file and didn't realise it hadn't uploaded.

I've attached the zip file.
Thanks

Thursday, 01 December 2011 15:03 CST

nicholas
Nice catch on the wording of the attachment prompt. I fixed that. Thanks!

Now, back to your issue. I can see that you have a timeout while the fifth part, the .j04 file, is being uploaded. OK, now you may be thinking that I'm on drugs. Timeout? In the CRON script which runs in the command-line mode which is supposed to not suffer from timeouts? Yes, indeed, it is a timeout. It's not a PHP timeout, mind you, it's a timeout imposed by the CRON server itself. But let me explain that.

Most web hosts cap the maximum time a CRON job can run. Usually it's something in the area of 2 to 3 minutes. In your case, your hosts limits that to 140 seconds or so. This is why your backup starts at 18:18:33 and gets killed at 18:20:53. That's 2 minutes 20 seconds, or 140 seconds in total. The only workaround is to ask your host to put your account in the "safe list" and allow you to run the backup CRON job for a longer period of time. I'd say that 10 minutes are plenty. It's up to your host's discretion to grant you that privilege, though.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Friday, 02 December 2011 06:10 CST

Metzed
Hi I'm posting to say how I solved this.

After your advice I contacted my host and after many hours of troubleshooting found that the problem was not a timeout as such, but the 'Test Command' button which you can click on in their control panel to test a CRON...."isn't the most reliable for long CRON jobs with a large output"..... so instead I set the CRON to start in a couple of minutes and it worked! All that time and it was the stupid button!! ;-) Thanks for your help!! Much appreciated.

Friday, 02 December 2011 06:42 CST

nicholas
That explains it :) The test button is limited by Apache's timeout. Anything over a couple of minutes is bound to fail. I thought you were launching it as a regular CRON job all along.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Friday, 02 December 2011 06:44 CST

Metzed
Sorry about that, I didn't realise it was so relevant. oops!

Friday, 02 December 2011 06:46 CST

nicholas
Sometimes a tiny bit of information makes all the difference in the world :D

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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