Have you tried using the desktop as destination for your backup? Then copy from desktop to external drive. Then go back and restore from external drive to make sure it restores successfully

You may have extra files in the program data directory.  What was the file size of your last successful backup?

The place that you are backing up to could be on a computer where the Connection Manager is not running.   The error message means that the program could not verify that the backup was successful.   In Sage-ean logic, not verified successful == failure.  

Yes I did, on the Desktop and  I also tried to create a folder in My Documents and same message will appear

What should I do to fix it then? Please help!

Hi,

Look in File | Properties.   What is the size of the data file?

Your 'company file' is actually stored on the computer as multiple files that together hold the data for the company.  

If you company file is SmurfCo, you will have a file  Smurfco.SAI    and a folder Smurfco.SAJ

In Windows Explorer, locate, and then right click on the folder, and select the Properties tab.   What is the total size of the folder?

Does the backup create a backup file?  

Does  the error message appear instantly, or more like about the same time that a backup used to take?

Has anything else changed on the computer, since your backups worked?

Try opening the Sample Data and backing that up.  If it works, then the problem is specific to the company data.  If not, then you may have to reinstall the Sage software.

Size: 731 MB

No, it does not create a back up file. I locate the main file on the computer, then copy it, and paste it on the  external drive, that is how i have being doing my back ups...

It takes a while for the message to appear

No that i can think of, nothing has changed.

Where do i locate the Sample Data to test that one?

Thanks for your time and help

Re Size: 731 MB, was that an answer to question 1 or 4 ?   I just did some checking and see that the answer in the 2014 release might be the same, and it might not help.  Instead, how many files are in the Company File folder that has the .SAJ extension? 

In the Company File folder with the .SAJ extension, there will be 400 or so files in all the folders, but three main files that store the actual data.  These are:

ib_logfile0, ib_logfile1, and ibdata1.   (there are no file extensions, these are MySQL database files).   The two 'Log Files' are usually 2,048 KB.  What is the size of the main database file 'ibdata1'?

Does File | Save a Copy work?    This will save a copy of the open database.   The default name is 'NEW.SAI', so you can type overtop of it.   If there are extra files stuck in the folder, it will unfortunately also copy them as well, but it would be interesting to know if this works.

The default after installing Sage 50 / Simply Accounting, is that a screen displays with several choices, such as 'last file', recently opened files', etc.   The first choice on that list is 'Open Sample Company'.  The sample company files are usually placed in the 'Public' or 'Shared Documents' folder.

I agree with Randy... IF the ibdata1 is bigger than a GIG (1000 megs) then chances are the backup will fail. You will have to find a consultant to dump and load the file. Check the errorlog.txt file if there is hundreds of lines like this then you have bloated data

081017 11:59:04  InnoDB: Warning: purge reached the head of the history list,

InnoDB: but its length is still reported as 23165! Make a detailed bug

GwG, Possibly there's an ultimate time-out where the backup fails if it takes a certain amount of time that's causing problems you're seeing with files over 1 GB in size.  

I work regularly with a client file that' has an ibdata1 file size of 859,832,320 bytes.  The backup takes about 6 minutes over a network.  The total folder size is 881,517,629 bytes, the difference being database schema and support files.   CAB compression stuffs this into 168,486,189 bytes.  

I asked about the specific file sizes because, if there was a big difference, I would think that probably there's a .CAB backup, inside the .SAJ folder, maybe even a series of a backup of a backup of a backup

The Sage 50 backup and copy routines look like the product of fear of missing a file, or maybe just epic laziness of not backing up a filtered list of only / exactly the files needed.  Allowing a backup target that's inside the backup source in a commercial product is just amazing.  Not fixing it immediately, and letting their Support deal with the resulting mess, is the epic laziness part.  

Google found me an MSDN post that claims that 2000 MB of uncompressed data in one folder, or of compressed data output, is the maximum size limit for CAB files.   a 700 MB file should work.

1000 MB is not any kind of a workout for the MySQL back end.  the file is named ibdata1, because when the size gets to 2,000,000 MB it will create an ibdata2, and so on.  

So, I'm thinking that file size is not the cause of the Original Poster's problem.  Possibly it could be security software, malware, hardware, operating system, or even the software installation itself.  Running the Advanced Database Check should have ruled out a data problem. 

The OP hasn't responded on whether a backup of the sample data was successful.  I'm not sure whether the Sage 50 program uses compiled in code or a Windows external DLL to make CAB files.  Either way, if it works on the sample but not on the main file, that would be good to know.

The OP also hasn't mentioned whether the copy worked from inside the software.   A problem there might indicate a User Access Control-type issue.

I hope that helps the Original Poster, and anyone else who finds this message in a bottle...

Randy

In my opinion, unless you need your old data to be inaccessible, spending time and money to purge and compact the database is a double waste.  The couple of seconds it shaves off operations is better gained by fast hardware, proper configuration, and plenty of RAM. 

Instead I would just write into my backup script or batch file, a check for the PID file in the database folder, If it's there, it contains the process ID of the MySQL database daemon.  If it's not there, no-one is accessing the data.  Alternatively I would check the server process list for the MySQL daemon, but 'if exist' is easy peasy.  

Hi!

EXTERNAL DRIVE.

My external drive (Passport) which does the backup automatically gave me a backup error this afternoon.

I had to remove it from my computer to make a correct backup. The fact that the passport is trying to save my data at the same time as the backup is being done creates a problem. This might be the same for you.

Randy

In GENERAL i make sure my client's data are all under a GiG. The backup could fail start to fail if the data is over this amount PLUS the errorlog has a "purge history warning" as indicated in the last post. Been my experience that GiG plus backup do fail especially backing up on OR over a network.

BUT with the new 5.6 mysql upgrade it will be interesting to see how GiG plus data performs. Unfortunatly I do not have any clients with any ibdata approaching that size. Seems as you do have a client coming up to a GiG ... so with 5.6  there should not be any latency problems let alone backup issues. If interested check out the great improvements with multi-threading that comes with the 5.6