Backup fails, but doesn't actually fail.

[Richard18]

Plesk 11.0.9 #45
Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS

For the last few weeks I've been getting an email every day, a "Backup/Restore task notification". It says:

Backup task finished.

Task was created by with guid (d9d69264-07f7-4464-8126-04f34ef74d23)

Creation date is: 2013-Apr-xx xx:xx:xx
Task status is: error

Dump full name is:

Our server is configured to do a full FTP backup every day to a remote server, when I log into the remote server, all the backups are there, I can download the tar files and open them, they're complete and not corrupt in any way, so the backup is in fact working as far as I can see. But Plesk doesn't think it is.

Attached to the email I get a "migration.result" file, with this inside it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<execution-result status="error" log-location="/opt/psa/PMM/sessions/2013-04-16-033802.139/migration.result">
<message id="56f5575e-7950-4cba-8d29-9a63d534b278" severity="error" code="fatal">
<description>Runtime error</description>
</message>
<message id="06371fb7-a7f0-4747-8ff9-355503bd4e2c" severity="error" code="ExportFailed">
<description>The dump have been made successfully but can not be imported to FTP due to errors.
The dump 'backup_info_1304160338.xml' have been leaved at repository '/opt/psa/PMM/tmp/backupRx7MUS'. Please export it manually</description>
</message>
<message id="95d7d451-64e5-4337-8d76-fc8a1609aa73" severity="error" code="FtpError">
<description>Can't upload file '/opt/psa/PMM/tmp/backupRx7MUS/backup_info_1304160338.xml.tar' to ftp: Connecting to port 38413
</description>
</message>
</execution-result>

So I can see that it says it can't upload the file, but the files are definitely being uploaded!

Any ideas on what I can try to sort this out?

 

[IgorG]

Connecting to port 38413

I think that problem is here. What is this port? For what purpose? Have you checked it?

 

[Richard18]

No idea, I've not configured it, might it be because it's using active FTP? I could try ticking the "Use passive mode" box in "Personal FTP Repository Settings"?

 

[IgorG]

Have you tried to check ftp server logs? And try to ask person who has configured it what is the port 38413?

 

[Richard18]

As far as I can tell, port 38413 is the port it's opening for the active FTP connection. Every day in the "migration.results" file is a different port number, all >1024 which is how active FTP works.

I changed the settings in Plesk yesterday to use passive FTP, I got an error email this morning with the following in the "migration.results".

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<execution-result status="error" log-location="/opt/psa/PMM/sessions/2013-04-17-033803.470/migration.result">
<message id="177701ed-6797-4020-81e4-38249fc219bc" severity="error" code="fatal">
<description>Runtime error</description>
</message>
<message id="f50392a8-99fb-404b-882a-97a6bd81ec9c" severity="error" code="ExportFailed">
<description>The dump have been made successfully but can not be imported to FTP due to errors.
The dump 'backup_info_1304170338.xml' have been leaved at repository '/opt/psa/PMM/tmp/backupWRLHzp'. Please export it manually</description>
</message>
<message id="9c0690b6-5ea8-47b1-8d53-ade8e8ba4ed1" severity="error" code="FtpError">
<description>Can't upload file '/opt/psa/PMM/tmp/backupWRLHzp/backup_info_1304170338.xml.tar' to ftp: Accepted data connection
</description>
</message>
</execution-result>

Googling "ftp Accepted data connection" brings back results that seem to indicate a bug with PHP, we run 5.3.2 so I'll update PHP first and see if the error still happens.

https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=46531

https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=60183

Does Plesk use it's own install of PHP or just whatever is installed on the server?

 

[Richard18]

PHP 5.3.2 is the latest version for Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS, so without me compiling from source I can't upgrade, I don't want to risk breaking other things on the server for the sake of an error message once a day.

Is there something you could do with Plesk to handle this error more gracefully? Can I turn off the emails?

 

[Richard18]

Updated and almost fixed.

I couldn't update PHP as there isn't a newer version for my distro and I didn't want to compile it myself.

To stop the error messages, in 'Scheduled Backup Settings' I enabled 'Create multivolume backup' and split each volume into 1024MB chunks.

I've had no errors since and the files are being FTPd across to the other server as before.