System tray menu item to stop *ALL* backups from starting

[aigomorlaz]

I'm requesting that a system tray menu item be added to stop *ALL* backups from starting.

Right now there is only 1 option to stop only background backups from starting which does nothing for scheduled backups.

It would be useful to have an easy access way of stopping all backups. The only way I know of do this currently is to:

1) click tray icon to show program
2) select all profiles
3) right click
4) select disable

And then do same steps to enable later on.

A simple tray menu item would be much better.

[Dave Wilkins]

One simple method is Exit...

But nothing you do in the foreground instance will stop Scheduled profiles from starting, because it's not that instance of SE/Pro that is running the profiles. Scheduled Tasks start, use and close a separate background* instance of SE/Pro to run each profile (or Group). Bear in mind there may not be any existing instance (you may not even be logged in).

You would need to Disable any Scheduled Tasks (from the Windows Scheduler UI) to stop those running. Or, select all profiles, and right-click > Disable. Note that Disable doesn't work for Groups, only individual profiles, so you'd need to expand the groups so the profiles inside can be selected/Disabled


* and in Vista and later, invisible by default

[hayejin]

+1 for this feature. The long description of a workaround just goes to show the benefit this feature would bring.

For me the experience is even worse because I use groups and you can't just disable a group like you would think would be possible. No, you have to select all profiles within the group and disable them all which is a convoluted thing for users to always do. A simple tray menu to disable all backups would be ideal.

[Dave Wilkins]

Disabling the Group wouldn't stop the profiles inside being run individually. For example, we know of one user who has a Group of profiles scheduled to run daily, but has also scheduled one of the profiles individually to also run daily (but offset by 12 hours). He thus gets the 12-hour frequency he wants for that profile and the 24-hr frequency he wants for the others. Simply disabling the Group wouldn't stop the other Schedule. And so on.

I've already passed on the suggestion for a Disable All, but it is a bit of a 'bullet-hole in foot' support-wise (people who select it, then forget...and/or, don't tell their colleagues, and so on). Whether it gets added, time will tell.

[ckasprzak97]

I want this idea added to SyncBack.

Arguing not to add it because users might forget to enable it back is odd considering that SyncBack already has the option to stop background backups. The same argument can be made against that option but developers decided that was okay to make available.

SyncBack has many advanced options already which have the potential for users to "bullet hole themselves in the foot"

[michael.kenward]

Yes. And it could easily be tweaked to deal with any objections.

I generally find it hard to work out how to stop backups, especially when run as a group.

[Dave Wilkins]

* If you have the Preferences menu option set not to show profiles individually if they are in a Group (top option), turn it off
* Ctrl-A (to Select All)
* right-click the selection > Disable

Note that if you have a lot, it will take a little while - don't interfere / start clicking things

When you're ready to reverse it

* if they are still selected, right-click selection > Enable (if not, re-select them first)
* Ctrl-U to Unselect All
* reset Preferences menu option re Groups if applicable

Bear in mind that if you have profiles Scheduled and they trigger in the down period, you will get errors reported back by the disabled profile to the Scheduler, which will log those errors. These will show up in Last Scheduled Run Error column ('The profile is disabled'). The only way to prevent that is to disable the Schedules (manually). But if you leave it alone, the Errors will self-clear next Scheduled run for that profile (all else being equal)


If you have other processes (scripts, batch files, etc) that call the profiles via command-line while they are disabled, you may get unexpected results. Nothing we can do about that.

[Dave Wilkins]

Incidentally, if you have a profile Disabled anyway (that you want to stay that way), this method (and any other method...) would re-Enable it during the 'reset'. You would then need to (remember to) manually re-Disable it. Another nasty case of real life spoiling things

[ducktownhusker]

When I first started using syncback I sometimes enabled the 'Stop background backups from starting' expecting no backups to start. The natural way to interpret that option is that background backups are those which aren't initiated manually by user, ie don't automatically start any backups. Of course backups still started so I then had to research the limitations of that confusing option which only stops some types of backups from starting. An option to 'Stop all backups from starting' would be much better and not require users to dig through help files to understand.

[Dave Wilkins]

Background backups are those which run in the background while SE/Pro are running (and stop - or no longer start - when it closes).

Scheduled backups are initiated by another external process (something else starts SE/Pro, apart from you).

This is covered by the section Automating SyncBackSE/Pro in the Help and also in this FAQ

http://www.2brightsparks.com/help/index ... article=10

As you can tell by the article number, it's been around for quite a while...

Bear in mind an external call can be the result of a Scheduled Task (or CRON, etc) starting a batch file which starts a script which calls SE/Pro. It's also possible to have multiple Scheduled Tasks for the same profile (though SE/Pro will only link to one of them). It's thus not feasible to suppress all means of externally calling SE/Pro, so we don't try

[ducktownhusker]

It's thus not feasible to suppress all means of externally calling SE/Pro, so we don't try

It's possible for person to disable profiles as you've suggested as a workaround.

The request I'm making, and i think everyone else is in agreement, is that SyncBack adds a tray icon menu option that is the equivalent of disable all profiles.

For example person has 3 profiles:
Profile1: enabled, scheduled daily
Profile2: enabled, scheduled daily
Profile3: disabled, scheduled daily


When the new menu option is checked it will change 3 profiles to:
Profile1: disabled, scheduled daily
Profile2: disabled, scheduled daily
Profile3: disabled, scheduled daily

Later when the new menu option is unchecked it will change 3 profiles to:
Profile1: enabled, scheduled daily
Profile2: enabled, scheduled daily
Profile3: disabled, scheduled daily


Doing your workaround is no good because profile3 won't go back to original state.

And the whole point of this request is to NOT have to go through some workaround and instead have a simple option...

[alexroycewicz]

Shouldn't this thread be moved to SyncBackPro forum?

I too would like this to be added but Dave Wilkins seems very resistant to the idea. In response to the technical issues raised, a solution might be to just add scheduling option to SyncBackPro instead of relying on windows task scheduler. Then people could use the existing option of stop background backups and it would work as everyone wants it to work.

[Dave Wilkins]

@alexroycewicz

I'm not resistant to the idea (I think it would be a neat addition, and have forwarded it to the development team already, if you check back in this thread), just trying to point out that it's not as straightforward as it might at first seem. For example, to be able to remember (and re-set) the state of profiles that are already disabled (because obviously simple 'toggling' is not the answer) would require extra parameters to be stored either in each profile or in a central table of profiles. Neither currently exists.

Adding an internal Scheduler to SyncBackPro would require Pro to be always running? Not ideal for servers...and in any case, it would not stop people actually using the Windows Scheduler, CRON jobs, batch files, scripts, desktop shortcuts, remote triggering using PsExec (etc) - or any other form of external CLI triggering. I assure you we have users using all of these.

Re 'which forum', yes, I thought of that, but as it's a subject common to both Pro and SE, where would you put it? So I left it here.

@ducktownhusker - see above re some form of 'state memory' being required to be inaugurated

There may be other issues that mean this does not get added - I have no idea at this stage. But there are workarounds, as discussed. Let's wait and see.

[cullenfan]

Posting to voice my support for such a feature. I hope developers decide to tackle this feature because i'm sure any technical hurdles can be overcome by them if they decide to pursue it.

[amjptcev]

I would find this feature useful