Support

 I have been reading up for the last two days and have tried many of the suggested solutions.

I have been using Akeeba on this site and several sites, with no issues. I had a small issue with my menu system and decided it would be easier to restore than try and fix, so I tried to restore on my live server.

I used cpanel to copy the .jpa (one 1 file) to the live directory, I uploaded the latest kickstart and began the restore. I kept getting an invalid error header error or an AJAX error. These errors happened at different points in the extraction.

Using the troubleshooter, I first contacted my host to check on disk space. That was not the issue. I also check on changing the permission to 777, the host does not allow that. Please note however, that I have had dozens of successful restores using Akeeba and only using 755, so I do not think that is the issue.

Next I tried moving to my other host (Fatcow) to see if it was a host issue. I downloaded the jpa using binary ftp with Filezilla. I confirmed that the size was equal and began the process again. I received the same errors.

Next, I tried to extract using Akeeba Extract on my local windows machine. Just doing Dry Runs, I would get an invalid archive error. I tried a previous backup from the same day and received the same error. Both files stopped at the same point/file. I was successful on a Dry Run for a archive from two days earlier.

This leads me to believe that the archive is corrupt. Reading through your support forums, it does not sound like there is much I can do. My question is two fold:

1) Is it hopeless to restore from the most previous files? 1 from 3 days ago works, but 2 from yesterday do not.
2) If so, how can I prevent it from happening again. Since I tried with to restore with 2 of the most recent archives, I am concerned that something is preventing proper backups.

You have certainly done your homework and used up all the easy answers.

Your site should still be usable but still has the menu problem, right? If so, please run ALICE Troubleshooter against your most recent backup. The log analyser will catch a problem where the size of a file actually changes while it is being backed up. Log files will do this. That causes an invalid header because the actual file size does not match the expected file size. If we can figure out what is wrong with the archive, that may tell us if it can be used.

Couple things

1) I don't know what Alice is? I see via google that it analyzes the log files, but not sure how to get to ALICE.

2) Oddly, I just noticed the status summary says my last backup was 12 April 2015 16:15 and under "Manage backups", that is the latest. However, in that folder, I have 3 more recent .jpa, but they are not showing in the "Manage Backups". They are showing up under the log files though.

Not sure if #2 is related or not, but I thought I would let you know of any irregularities.

What next?

Nevermind question #1, didn't realize I needed to update to Pro to see Alice.

Attached is the results of Alice.

This time with attachment

The "step 22" warning may be relevant to the archive problem. Can you please zip and post that log file so I can take a closer look?

The "large file" issue does not appear to be causing the current issue (unless it is "step 22"), but a 69 Mb file takes up a lot of space in your backup archive. It is worthwhile to take a look and see if you really need that file.

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