Misterium Macrium

Farvatten said:

Reading this other link I mentioned, I see it's more about a 'Missing Folder' not missing contents, so there's much there that's unnecessary.

If you understand how Thunderbird stores folder data and more importantly where, it can really be as simple as finding that folders 'MBOX' file, the file with the same name as the your folder but WITHOUT an extension, at which point you just replace it with the one you culled from your mounted Macrium backup. Then remove it's corresponding *.msf file, so when you start Thunderbird it can rebuild the index with these new contents.

Of course having a recent Macrium backup as your fall back option is important.

At the risk of being argumentative, and given that I am, as previously stated, quite confused, one of the folders in question is missing most of its data, but has the two most recent entries.

As far as having a recent Macrium backup, that too is problematic: For reasons that I have NO comprehension about, even though Macrium sends me notifications every day, there is a massive gap in what the file manager shows, starting with 6March2021, and resuming with 10May2021. At least I do have a full backup from 5March, as well as one from 10May. However, the 10May full backup shows that most of the Thunderbird empty folders have no data at all. Why Macrium started to save backups yesterday is a conundrum unto itself.

Thus, I have two major difficulties about which I have little, if any comprehension, and they are related: I need Macrium backups that apparently don't exist, and if I do find any data in the March backup, I need to learn how to transfer that to Thunderbird. There are links to the later in this thread, which I've not found time to read.

Mega Sigh encapsulates my status.

If you have missing backups, the Reflect log may shed some light on what happened on those occasions.

mngerhold said:

If you have missing backups, the Reflect log may shed some light on what happened on those occasions.

Good suggestion, but I don't see anything there that might show what happened. The last backups before the problem(s) started were all on 03Mar2021. There was a full backup at 0744 Local, as expected, and also an interim backup at 1714 Local. Neither those backups, nor the scheduled backups for 04Mar2021 are in the log files, which start on 05Mar2021.

The Macrium schedule shows that the C:\ drive incrementals ran properly, after the full backup last Monday. Why they stopped for two months, at least as far as I can determine as there are no file manager entries for them, then started again, is truly weird.

I am now officially perplexed: I have opened the Monday 10May2021 full backup in G:\, but there is NO log entry for it. I selected All Logs, but the only logs that I see are for the D:\ drive folders/files backups. I just did a search in the Macrium help files about this, which did not help me find the C:\ backup logs.

I think I may go back to my former simpler life of teaching and coaching at college prep schools, and starting fire departments....

Not Myself said:

... I selected All Logs, but the only logs that I see are for the D:\ drive folders/files backups.

In case we are talking about different things, this is what I see under the Reflect 'logs' tab:

I see no way to 'select' logs, only the option to expand the list - so perhaps you are looking at log files elsewhere?

Separately, I was going to ask if you were making partition images and/or file-folder backups, as the treatment in respect of recovery is different, but now you mention D:\ drive folders/files, so I take that to mean you are doing f-f backups - have I got that right?

mngerhold said:

In case we are talking about different things, this is what I see under the Reflect 'logs' tab:

I see no way to 'select' logs, only the option to expand the list - so perhaps you are looking at log files elsewhere?

Separately, I was going to ask if you were making partition images and/or file-folder backups, as the treatment in respect of recovery is different, but now you mention D:\ drive folders/files, so I take that to mean you are doing f-f backups - have I got that right?

That is where I am looking at logs, at least the ones I can see. I just don't understand why Macrium is doing what is doing. Why it would show two full backups months apart, stopping and starting doing such (assuming that the file manager is reporting correctly), but no logs even for those backups? I have to wonder if it treats ssd drives differently from conventional hard disks, but even were that so, why the gap?

C:\ is the ssd boot drive, so I do partition backups of that, and, yes D:\, being folders and files such as Documents, Pictures, even the codes for Macrium scheduled backups, that is set for f-f backups.

Something else just occurred to me: The motherboard and ssd were replaced a few months ago, but as there is now no data in the Thunderbird Dell folder, I don't have a date for that. I doubt that this would have caused Macrium to stop working for two months and then suddenly resume backing up the ssd, but weird things do happen.

- - - Updated - - -

Some progress to report: I have found, sort of, the logs of the backups of the C:\boot drive. Those backups are images, and their logs are found by clicking on Log\Image in Macrium Reflect. The "sort of" is that the logs indicate that all of the backups that are missing from file managers were actually run successfully. which does not explain why those backups can not be found to use in restoring.

Thanks to a sysop on mozillaZine, I also sort of have found out how to use Reflect data that I can access to restore Thunderbird folders. In this case, the "sort of" is that I have encountered a problem where the first set of data that I copied to the desktop from Macrium, when copied into Tb in a new folder cannot be transferred into the existing folder. I've posted about that, expecting further assistance.

Bree said:

What retention rules have you set for this backup plan? Your retention rules may have purged those backups.

Full: 8 weeks Incremental: 30 days

For example, backups as recent as 9May2021 are missing from the file manager, while the log shows that it was completed successfully, with the same language as the more recent backups which also show in the file manage.

Bree said:

The purges only apply to backups made by your current backup plan. The older files that remain may have been made under a previous backup plan.

Personally I turn off all retention rules and manually delete images I no longer want to keep. Makes it simpler to keep track of what is kept.

Backup Start Date for both Image and File/Folders is 3/5/2021 File Manager for Image Backups shows backups done 3/5/21, and then not again until 5/10/2021. I had not opened Macrium, except for the most recent update, when it decided on its own to start creating backup files 5/10/2021; thus, I claim no responsibility for the sudden return to creating visible backup files.

Thanks to some excellent assistance from a mozillaZine sysop, I have finally managed to restore most of my Thunderbird folders. His advice on how to do this using Macrium Reflect was correct, but was failing to work despite a number of tries.

That being the case, the first step was to remove and reinstall Thunderbird, keeping its profiles; this did not help. The second step was the solution: I created a new Thunderbird profile; that done, I copied one of my Tb folders from the last Macrium full backup before it stopped entering the files in the external hard disk. I copied the backup to the desktop, added BAK in front of its name, and pasted that into the profile. Tb restarted, I found that now I could copy or move the material in the BAK* folders into the original (non-BAD) folders.

I am quite certain that I will never know what caused my in-use Tb profile to go bad; I can only assume that one part of whatever it was caused some folders to lose their data; that this did not happen to all folders just adds to the mystery. Likewise, why Macrium ran apparently successful backups every day but somehow did not enter the filenames into the external hard disk is an unknown.