Problems with two MyBookLives and Mac files

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
1

Hi there,

my setup is as follows:

Mac → backups wirelessly to first MyBookLive → second MyBookLive makes safepoint of first MyBookLive.

The second backup (the safepoint) often fails:

action_state = FAILED

state = INVALID

While googling for a solution, I stumbled across many people in forums that have the exact same problem. Seemingly, this happens if either in the file name or in the file itself are characters that are causing problems for MyBookLive.

If I move the files that causes the error message into another hierarchy that is not in the automatic backup scheme, the second backup works just fine.

However, that’s highly annoying. Sometimes, I have a couple of files and have to move 10 or 15 files out of the backup hierarchy (which means, I have to backup them manually). Also, I can manually copy those files onto MyBookLive, it’s the automatic safepoint that fails. According to the forum entries I found on that, this problem is going on for more than a year now.

If I turn off the safepoint functionality and use instead a rsync script run by a cronjob, it can update all the data without fail. However, I want the backup to run at night, when my computer is turned off - so I’d prefer to use the safepoint functionality.

Does anyone work on that? Is there an estimated date when this will be fixed?

Thanks!

2

That’s the only solution that I’ve found. Moving the files that is giving me the error manually.

3

So, there are no plans to fix the bug?

4

For everyone who has the same problem: If you can’t use the WD snapshot function and are waiting until they fixed the bug, you can run rsync manually or in a cronjob (if it is available on your system). On a Mac, you should include “–iconv=UTF8-MAC,UTF8” to make sure that special chars in filenames are synced correctly. Once, WD has fixed the bug, don’t forget to turn the script off again. :wink:

5

Since there are many out there who share my problem that the Safepoint function isn’t working properly, I wanted to add another possibility to backup your MBL on another MBL. If you substitute the /UI in the MBL URL with /ssh, you can turn on ssh logins as root. You have to change the password for security reasons after turning it on. Once you’ve done that, you can set up your own backup script via rsync. In my case, it enabled me to run a backup from MBL to another MBL.

I don’t know when or if WD will fix this bug, obviously it’s around or more than a year now. However, since they made it possible to log in as root, you can at least fix it yourself or (in my case) just use your own backup script, that’s worth something.