Acronis True Image Nonstop Backup Is Stopped - Solved
April 8, 2018
If you are a user of Acronis True Image Home 2018, for Windows, you may have tried to enable non-stop backups for folders you frequently work on. Perhaps you've encountered an error message in your System Tray saying: "Nonstop backup is stopped." If so, read on about how I solved this very problem on my own PC.
I have been using Acronis True Image for almost a decade and currently run version 2018, which I just upgraded from version 2017 (learn more about Acronis True Image on my affiliate page). My new computer is self-built (as they always have been), so I had to setup all new backups and settings. One option I decided to try out is called nonstop backups. This feature has been around for a few years, but I never explored it before.
Non-stop backups watch for changes made in your primary Documents and Pictures folders, plus a few more default folders. You can also add custom locations to monitor for changes. The Acronis nonstop backup engine checks for changed files every 5 minutes or so and saves those changes to a special folder that is saved to a drive of your choice. It is mostly useful to Webmasters, authors, tax preparers and accountants who make frequent changes/edits to files. If a protected file gets screwed up or accidentally deleted, a very recent copy can be restored very quickly via the Acronis True Image program interface. It's free with the program, so consider it another layer of backups.
After setting up my preferred folders to monitor, I selected my external USB 3.0 "My Passport" drive as the destination and enabled the feature. At first it appeared to be working, having created a hidden folder on the external drive. But, a day later, when I checked the icons in my Windows 10 System Tray (a.k.a: Systray, which contains important icons normally hidden behind an up pointing arrow, on the right side of the Windows Taskbar, near the system clock.), the icon informed me that "Nonstop Backup is Stopped." This led me into an online searching frenzy where I finally found the golden words that led to a solution to this mystery.
Acronis True Image is loved by some and hated by others. I learned to use it to the best of my abilities and get the most out of it, like many other programs I've followed down the Yellow Brick Road. If you have Acronis and encounter a serious operational error, there is plenty of help to be had. If your program is still under warranty, you can call on the phone, or start a trouble ticket online. You can even do a live chat with a trained technician. They may even assist you in a chat if the product is a previous version (my recent online Acronis chat covered versions 2017 and 2018).
Although I am entitled to free support for these versions, I chose to troubleshoot it myself. So, I read through a bunch of forum posts that dealt with the Acronis nonstop backups failing to start (stopped) and found the solution buried inside an FAQ that was buried inside an older topic about this matter.
It appears that in order to perform real time file backups, Acronis needs to write to a very fast drive and connection. Apparently, most USB drives don't meet that requirement. My USB 3.0 Passport external drive certainly doesn't write fast enough to keep up. So, Acronis stopped the nonstop service to prevent data corruption. There was no warning and I saw nothing during the setup procedure that gave any hint that you shouldn't backup to a USB disk. Just the title on hovering over an Acronis Systray icon that "Nonstop Backup is Stopped!"
I decided to test this out and reconfigured the nonstop backups to write to an internal 7200 rpm SATA III WD Black disk drive (I use an SSD system drive and a mechanical disk drive in my self-built computers). As soon as the new destination was saved I clicked on "Backup Now" - for the new nonstop backup. It proceeded flawlessly and completed without a hitch! Best of all, days later, the Systray icon still says that Nonstop Backup is started and is working as expected. I have concluded that Acronis definitely needs to write nonstop (real time) backups to a fast local drive, most likely an internal one on a fast SATA or eSATA bus, not a USB, cloud, or a slower than gigabit networked SATA drive or array.
If you have the problem of the nonstop backup is stopped and fix it by using an internal drive, you may want to delete any failed or orphaned nonstop backups that occurred before the stoppage set in. You cannot delete these files if Acronis is still active because it protects them from Ransomware and other Malware. So, you'll need to close the features that are protecting the nonstop backups folder. Here's how...
First, open the Systray icons via the up arrow and stop Active Protection (if it was enabled). Do this by right clicking on the Active Protection shield shaped icon and left-selecting "Turn off Acronis Active Protection."
Next, right click on Nonstop Backup icon (a square overlapping another square with the infinity symbol inside them) and left-select the option: "Stop." Right click again on that icon and select "Turn off Nonstop Backup."
Next, close the Acronis True Image program graphical interface if it was open. Use File Explorer, or the "This PC" desktop icon to navigate to the external drive that contains the previous nonstop back folder. The name of the folder you are looking for is "Time Explorer Storage," which is normally hidden. You may need to unhide hidden files to see this folder.
Once you are able to see the Time Explorer Storage folder on the external drive, with the above listed Acronis components stopped and closed, highlight the folder and either press the Delete key, or use the right-click option to delete it. You may need to accept the administrator UAC prompt to delete this protected folder. If it is too big to fit in the Recycle Bin, accept permanently deleting it off the disk. This may free up many gigabytes of now useless data.
Once I have time to test other types of backup locations for viability with nonstop backups, I'll write an update at the end of this post.
UPDATE
April 25, 2018
After 10 days the non-stop backups stopped again. All settings were still intact and were targeting an internal hard drive. So, I put in some serious brain cells trying to figure out what was causing the failure of Acronis nonstop backups to stop on their own. My investigation included looking over the Windows Event Log for the days and times when I tried to restart the service.
One entry in the Event Log caught my attention and eventually led to a solution. It was a critical error that mentioned a lack of privileges to initiate an action at the time and date when the nonstop backup failed to restart. This lit a bulb in my brain. I am a Windows standard user, not an administrator! This is how I've operated every version of Windows I've owned since late 2001, when I started using Windows 2000.
Acronis True Image requires administrator privileges to operate at all. Every backup task I have created requires admin credentials, which is done by clicking on Yes in a UAC challenge in an Administrator account. However, if a backup is changed or initiated while I am operating in my standard, less privileged account, my Administrator account password is also needed.
Using this as a starting point, I opened the backups disk in Explorer and right-clicked on the "Time Explorer Storage" folder, opened its "Properties" and left-clicked on its "Security" tab. There, I found a list of groups that had been granted access to that folder. My standard user account name was not listed. So I added my name and granted it everything but full control (a safety choice). When I clicked on the Apply button I was presented with a UAC challenge. I inputted my administrator password and the new privileges took effect. I clicked OK to close the properties box and tried to restart nonstop backups ... and it worked!
Curious to see if the same fix would take on my external USB Passport drive, I moved the target to that drive (from my Administrator account). This was where the failure had first appeared, which was why I wrote this article. I then added my standard user account name and privileges to the list of approved users and saved the task. I initiated the nonstop backup by pressing the Backup Now button on the lower right of the Acronis True Image interface and watched in glee as it started up and ran a new backup. The System Tray icon showed that nonstop backups is started.
After rebooting and logging into my standard account, the nonstop backups continued to start and stay that way. That was done a week ago and the nonstop backups have not stopped on their own. I have started and shut down the PC every day and this has not changed or failed.
If you, like me, operate your Windows computer with reduced privileges and are having problems with Acronis nonstop backups stopping on their own, try assigning your user account everything other than full control on the "Time Explorer Storage" folder.
