Backup forum

IanPul · 2021-01-17 19:15:24

Hi.

I've been plagued by this issue since I started using IDrive 3 years ago. Back then I found it reported in the old forum and assumed that since it was known about it would get fixed, but it never has. So I'm wondering if others are hitting it too, and if anyone maybe knows of any workarounds to prevent it?

This issue is that once IDrive has run a backup, the PC won't then automatically go to sleep any more, which means that my PC is pretty much up and running 24/7. That's not good for the PC and wasteful power-wise. It's also a pretty serious security flaw since going to sleep when idle is what provokes needing to enter a password to resume it, so should I get burgled the PC is just sitting there open to anyone to view what's on it, change its password, etc.

The Windows "powercfg /requests" command shows what is preventing Windows from entering the sleep state, and it reports the IDrive service as the culprit.

I guess that I could turn on the "Automatic power off after the completion of the scheduled jobs" setting as a work-around for this, but it's not ideal. I have daily backups to a local NAS scheduled, with less frequent online backups, and shutting down after a local backup could prevent the online one from getting run.

Ian

Last edited by IanPul (2021-01-17 19:21:44)

SteveA · 2021-01-17 20:02:24

Regarding security, it will lock the computer and require a password if you set a time for "Turn off the display".

I don't think there's a way to change the behavior of IdriveService as it seems to be analyzing the disk at all times (even if Continuous Backup is disabled).

One thing you could try is to limit the time IDriveService is running by setting its Startup Type to Manual and using the Task Scheduler to start / stop it.

Start / stop scripts were discussed here: https://backupforum.progf.....php?id=79

IanPul · 2021-01-18 01:31:21

I verified, and setting "Turn off the display" doesn't actually lock the screen - unlike actually going to sleep, no password is needed with that.

However, there is a possibility that the issue may not be happening now after all. I had decided to look into this today, and after last night's backup run I found it awake this morning with IDrive reported as the cause, so then I made this post. However, I later discovered that it had run a particularly large backup due to some changes that I made yesterday, and at the point when I made that check the backup had still not completed. I stopped it (since it was backing up stuff that I didn't want backed up) and then the sleep-lock cleared, after which the PC would go to sleep again.

I certainly used to see it caused by IDrive, but with home working recently I've been using remote desktop over a VPN to my PC at work most days, and I guess that it could possibly be related to that, or something else, that has been causing it recently. It still seemed to be happening only after an IDrive backup has run, but I can't now say that for definite. So I'll monitor it through this week's backups, and will post findings if it does happen again.

SteveA · 2021-01-18 14:17:11

IanPul wrote:
I verified, and setting "Turn off the display" doesn't actually lock the screen - unlike actually going to sleep, no password is needed with that.

You're right. Sorry, my mistake.

You can of course switch on the screen saver, choose Blank so that it doesn't waste power, choose a Wait time the same as your Turn off the display time and check the On resume, display logon screen box.

If you combine this with HDD spin-down you will save a bit of power, although obviously not as good as Standby.

IanPul · 2021-01-23 18:22:31

I'm now pretty sure that this is a non-issue. I discovered that I had the start time for some of the scheduled backups set to 4am, so when I started work in the mornings the jobs would often still be running, and I think that was confusing me into thinking that the old problem of not sleeping after a job had run had come back.

I've been monitoring it all this week, and every day the PC has been able to go to sleep when idle just fine, after I waited for any running jobs to finish.

IanPul · 2021-01-26 05:56:13

The issue reoccurred again today, and it looks like it is a bit different to what I thought. All week the PC has been going to sleep when idle, waking up at 12am or 1am to run the backups, then going back to sleep again. But early last night we had a short power cut, which meant that the PC was powered down and so didn't run the scheduled backup this morning. I powered it on at 10:25-ish am and later saw that this was then logged in traceFile.txt:

[01/25/2021 0:00:38] Default SecurityProtocol : Tls, Tls11, Tls12
[01/25/2021 0:00:38] SecurityProtocol: Tls, Tls11, Tls12
[01/25/2021 0:00:42] Default SecurityProtocol : Tls, Tls11, Tls12
[01/25/2021 0:00:42] SecurityProtocol: Tls, Tls11, Tls12

[01/25/2021 10:20:51] Default SecurityProtocol : Tls, Tls11, Tls12
[01/25/2021 10:20:51] SecurityProtocol: Tls, Tls11, Tls12
[01/25/2021 10:20:58] IsComputerDeleted :false
[01/25/2021 10:20:58] Scheduled job has been skipped due to current system time(01/25/2021 10:20:58) and scheduled time(01-25-2021 1:00:00) difference :560.975510523333 Minutes.

Then tonight I noticed that it was still up and running and had not gone to sleep as it had been doing. So I checked the cause via powercfg and found this:

[~]: powercfg /requests
DISPLAY:
None.

SYSTEM:
[SERVICE] \Device\HarddiskVolume2\Program Files (x86)\IDriveWindows\id_service.exe (IDriveService)

AWAYMODE:
None.

EXECUTION:
None.

PERFBOOST:
None.

ACTIVELOCKSCREEN:
None.

This is actually a different service name than was reported while the backup was running, and in this case no backup has run since the PC powered on, apart from reporting the missed one as having been skipped. So I wonder if the skipped backup may have left it in this state?

Also, I see these logged constantly every 10 minutes or so in traceFile.txt, despite having CDP disabled. Could this also be a sign that something CDP related is running which should not be to cause this? (although I was seeing these last week when it was sleeping properly, so probably not).

[01/25/2021 21:50:48] [CDP]: Backup for D:\Users\Ian\Documents\Outlook Files\Archive.pst will not happen as its size Exceeds Maximum CDP size permitted for backup.

SteveA · 2021-01-26 12:39:04

Do you have "Start the missed scheduled backup when the computer is turned on" checked?

My guess is it went to do that when the power was restored, but the elapsed time was too great so it aborted.

I'm not sure why CDP would kick in if its disabled, but maybe that's an unknown feature to offer some protection after a missed backup.

I wonder if it'll go back to normal operation after a successful scheduled backup.

IanPul · 2021-01-26 16:57:56

I don't have "Start the missed scheduled backup when the computer is turned on" checked.

And it did go back to normal after last night's backup. I put it to sleep manually before going to bed last night, the logs show that it woke up at midnight and ran an online backup successfully, and this morning it was back sleeping. "powercfg /requests" reports that nothing is now preventing auto-sleep.

IanPul · 2021-02-20 18:28:48

I'm pretty sure that I now know when/why this issue happens. Last week my NAS was offline for a few days while I was making changes to it, and that caused the scheduled backups to fail on each of those nights. Local backups to the NAS failed entirely obviously, and online backups gave partial failures since they are set to back up some files from it. And after each failure I found my PC awake the next morning with powercfg reporting IDriveService as the culprit. Since I got the NAS back online, all backups have been successful, and the failing to sleep issue has not reoccurred.

So it looks like the problem happens when a backup finishes with a failure status. And this explains why I was previously seeing it always happening, because until I recently found the cause and fixed it I was always getting a failure status from the scheduled backups due to some Linux-like Cygwin sym-links that IDrive couldn't handle (as reported here).

Backup forum

Announcement

#1 2021-01-17 19:15:24

PC won't sleep after an IDrive backup

#2 2021-01-17 20:02:24

Re: PC won't sleep after an IDrive backup

#3 2021-01-18 01:31:21

Re: PC won't sleep after an IDrive backup

#4 2021-01-18 14:17:11

Re: PC won't sleep after an IDrive backup

IanPul wrote:

#5 2021-01-23 18:22:31

Re: PC won't sleep after an IDrive backup

#6 2021-01-26 05:56:13

Re: PC won't sleep after an IDrive backup

#7 2021-01-26 12:39:04

Re: PC won't sleep after an IDrive backup

#8 2021-01-26 16:57:56

Re: PC won't sleep after an IDrive backup

#9 2021-02-20 18:28:48

Re: PC won't sleep after an IDrive backup

Board footer