Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Re: Too many recent increments

[Maarten Bezemer]

On Thu, 7 May 2009, Jon Dye wrote:

> > I've been using rdiff-backup for 6 months or so with no problems but
> > recently my backup is failing with the error "AssertionError: Too many
> > recent increments".
> >
> > I get this error whether I'm doing a backup or --check-destination-dir.
>
> I guess no-one has any suggestions on what I can do to fix this (or
> what it might be)?

Skimming over the sources, this error suggests that, while trying to 
remove an increment, it found more than one. I guess that could mean it 
found an increment file without the corresponding mirror_metadata tree.
If that's true, you most likely have a corrupted backup tree and 
continuing to use it would not be very wise. (Meaning: you can use the 
current state as a basis to start a new tree, loosing the history).

Could you run rdiff-backup --check-destination-dir with a higher verbosity 
level (say -v7) and paste the entire output, including a couple of lines 
before the backtrace starts? That could point us to one specific location 
and might help with 'fixing' the problem.


> So trying to tackle the problem a different way, can anyone tell me if
> it is possible to manually rollback the backup?  i.e. I want to remove
> the last few backups I made and see if that will let me continue to
> backup.

Usually: no. If the increments are broken, there's no way to get back to 
the state of a few backups ago. As the error message mentions too many 
recent increments and not too many ancient increments, the problem seems 
to be in your last few backups. Anyway, more debug will shed a better 
light on this.

Regards,
 Maarten