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Searching for a file or files in backup history
  • Art Vandelay
    0
    Maybe I'm missing something obvious but I'm having trouble getting results with MSP360 Backup's search function trying to locate files in the backup history. MSP360 is version 7.3.0.321 . Backend storage is Backblaze B2.

    Selecting the "Search" icon in MSP360 brings up the "Backup Storage" section and a search box with a "Start" button. Entering, say, *.qbw to search for Quickbooks company files (there are many in the backup) and hitting the Start button, a brief message saying "Retrieving data..." pops up for a fraction of a second and nothing else happens - no results. Same if I specify a specific filename with or without the complete path. On the other hand, the files are available if manually found and selected while specifying a restore plan.

    Ideally the result of the search would be a list of the files with versions available in the backup history to select from. Is there a way to get this to work?
    Art Vandelay Options
  • David Gugick
    118
    ↪Art Vandelay
    I m not having trouble searching on that version. Can you elaborate on the type of backups you are running? I know there was an issue searching with early 7.0 releases, but this was addressed and I can search for exact file names or use wildcards.
    David Gugick Options
  • Steve Putnam
    36
    This has been broken for years.
    Multiple tickets submitted and it STILL does not work the way we want it to.
    Only way that I know see file level backup history is to go to RMM, Plan list, Legacy Plan list page and select Backup history, but the Search function DOES NOT WORK! It only works if you provide the entire path of a particular file.
    How can we get a list of *.pst files that got backed up from a particular device over the past week? - Answer me that!
    Steve Putnam Options
  • Steve Putnam
    36
    BTW - Would love you to prove me wrong!
    Steve Putnam Options
  • David Gugick
    118
    ↪Steve Putnam
    It seems to be working for me. I don't know what the difference is, but I can search and use wildcards. This post was for stand-alone. Possibly there are some issues with Managed. Maybe the OP posted in the wrong section.
    David Gugick Options
  • Steve Putnam
    36
    I will test. Thanks.
    Steve Putnam Options
  • Art Vandelay
    0
    ↪Art Vandelay
    I m not having trouble searching on that version. Can you elaborate on the type of backups you are running? I know there was an issue searching with early 7.0 releases, but this was addressed and I can search for exact file names or use wildcards.     — David Gugick

    We're running synthetic full backups every 30 days with incremental backups every 2 hours during working hours between the full backups. Is there a specific option that needs to be set for search to work? As mentioned, back end storage is Backblaze B2. We're not running RMM, this is standalone MSP360 Ultimate. Obviously without the search function working it can be pretty difficult to find specific files to restore.
    Art Vandelay Options
  • David Gugick
    118
    ↪Art Vandelay
    Are you running image backups? If so, I'm not certain we ever supported searching with that backup type. I'd have to check but image backups do not back up files and because of that there is no real time inventory. But I've been wrong before...
    David Gugick Options
  • Art Vandelay
    0
    They are file-based backups, not image-based. I just tried another search with the same result, "Retrieving data" message pops up for a fraction of a second and no files are listed. (I tried searching for *.docx files, I know there are a huge number of those. No problem seeing them when restoring, just a chore to find specific files with no search results.)
    Art Vandelay Options
  • David Gugick
    118
    ↪Art Vandelay
    and this is using the stand-alone CloudBerry product and not Managed Backup, correct?
    David Gugick Options
  • Art Vandelay
    0
    ↪David Gugick
    Yes, it is the standalone MSP360.
    Art Vandelay Options
  • David Gugick
    118
    ↪Art Vandelay
    I’ll have to ask Support. There are no specific settings.
    David Gugick Options
  • Art Vandelay
    0
    I’ll have to ask Support. There are no specific settings. — David Gugick

    Thanks, let me know if they have any suggestions. I can't be the only one having this problem.
    Art Vandelay Options
  • David Gugick
    118
    ↪Art Vandelay
    My understanding from the team is that Searching is not yet supported when using the new backup format for file backups. We could have done a better job communicating this in the UI. There is a feature request in the system already, but I don’t have a date at this time for when it might be released.
    David Gugick Options
  • Steve Putnam
    36
    Look. It does not, and has not, worked in the portal. It is important that MSP360 understands that when you have hundreds of clients you can’t log into their servers to look things up. The portal should be able to use a basic wildcard search function to find out what files got backed up and which files had a problem. Shouldn’t be rocket science, especially after seven+ years.
    Steve Putnam Options
  • David Gugick
    118
    ↪Steve Putnam
    Well... moving all the metadata for every backup to the portal would be a complex process with security implications. We could have search in the portal at the endpoint level though. But moving details for hundreds of millions of files to the portal and securely managing that data would be a big undertaking, despite the flexibility it might offer.
    David Gugick Options
  • Steve Putnam
    36
    Ok. Take away the search bar. Don’t tease us.
    Steve Putnam Options
  • Art Vandelay
    0
    My understanding from the team is that Searching is not yet supported when using the new backup format for file backups. We could have done a better job communicating this in the UI. There is a feature request in the system already, but I don’t have a date at this time for when it might be released. — David Gugick

    OK, that's definitely a pain but hopefully search will be implemented in the not too distant future since the feature request is in. I believe that the new format is needed for the synthetic backup feature, which is what makes it really feasible to do more frequent full backups in a reasonable amount of time without chewing up massive amounts of storage, so we'd like to keep that.

    This is not a deal breaker but lack of a working search function is definitely a major annoyance which makes finding and restoring files more difficult than it should be.
    Art Vandelay Options
  • David Gugick
    118
    ↪Art Vandelay
    if you're only doing file backups, then the legacy format would work for you. There's no such thing as a full backup when doing file backups with the legacy format other than the initial full. Everything is incremental forever. You'd miss out on some of the newer features like GFS immutability client side duplication automatic consistency checking etc. But some customers find the legacy format works just fine for them for file-based backups.
    David Gugick Options
  • Yuri Alexandrov
    1
    ↪David Gugick

    I will come back to this question.

    Now I tried it on MSP360 Desktop Edition - still no possibility to search files in backups.

    Do I understand correctly that for THREE YEARS the issue of searching files in backups of the new format has not been solved? Or am I doing something wrong?

    (version 8.0.2.42).
    Yuri Alexandrov Options
  • salomegomez
    0
    ↪Yuri Alexandrov
    It’s really surprising this still isn’t fixed after almost 3 years. I’m also not seeing any proper search function in the new backup format (using 8.0.2.42). Are we missing something, or is this just still not supported?
    salomegomez Options
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