Vinko’s Thoughts On…

When the set up and scanning of my Mac went some what smoothly I thought Mozy has finally corrected all the problems for this “Alpha class” software for the Mac.

After numerous attempts of the background Mozy application trying to back up my 2.2GB of data to Mozy server. I spent some time looking at the mozy.log (/var/log/) file that Mozy support and pointed me to previously. What I found was very disturbing. I see many many occurance of error:

2007-08-19 05:12:41.651 MozyBackup[7590] (triton) NSCFInputStream error: NSError “POSIX error: Operation timed out” Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=60
2007-08-19 05:12:41.651 MozyBackup[7590] (triton) disconnecting…
2007-08-19 05:12:41.653 MozyBackup[7590] (send) Batch failed: NSError “Error com.berkeleydata.Backup.ErrorDomain -2147483648? Domain=com.berkeleydata.Backup.ErrorDomain Code=-2147483648 UserInfo={
ErrorCodeNameKey = ConnectionError0;
ErrorMessageKey = “Unable to connect to backup servers”;
}

Over the 2 hours that the backup had ran so far, it encountered this error 8 times. The most disturbing part is that after each occurrence the backup would continue from an arbitrary spot.

Although, I have yet to find out from Mozy support what these errors means, but it is not making me feel secure that Mozy is a reliable backup mechanism.

My recommendation is still… DO NOT RELY ON Mozy on the Mac at the current version.

Hopefully more to come after I receive some responds from Mozy support.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

I finally have time to try Mozy again. So I installed it again, followed the setup and allowed it to run in the background. After Mozy ran for 2.5 hours an error dialog appeared with the following message:

Unable to connect to backup server (ConnectionError0)

The dialog has a hyperlink on the error message, when I clicked on it, it brought me to a web page on Mozy’s site telling me that this is a rare error and that I should send the following information to Mozy (supp...@mozy.com):

1. The operating system you use (i.e. Windows XP)
2. The version of Mozy you are using. (Right click on the orange “M” icon in the bottom right by the clock and click “status.” When that window opens you should see a version like 1.8.2.3)
3. Do you have any firewalls on your computer?
4. Who is your Internet service provider?
5. Do you have any anti-virus or spyware software?
6. Which error code is displayed? (i.e. MozyClientError2, ConnectionError1)

Of course I again reported this to Mozy Technical support (macs...@mozy.com). So now I just have to wait for Mozy to reply.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Mozy support finally replied to me on August 1st but there were two conflicting replies from Mozy support. One tells me to try the new version and the other the other instructed me to go into command line and execute the following:

$ cd /Library/Application\ Support/Mozy
$ sudo rm -f state.db

it is quite obvious the latter was taking the brut force approach to try to solve my long standing problems. It became apparent that “Karl” is the one who is correct, who asked me to try downloading the new version (0.6.2.0 (332))of Mozy for Mac.

I finally had a chance to reinstall Mozy today and now Mozy appears to be doing its thing. I had configured it to backup all my emails, System Preferences and Keychains. This had already cause it to reach the 2.2GB storage limit for a free account.

According to the Mozy Status window it still has another 4 hours to go. It had ran for about 10 minutes thus far, with a bitrate of approximately 80KB/s.

So what I’ve learned is that Mozy for Mac should be classified as an Alpha status software and not as beta.

One should send all technical enquiries relating to the Mozy for Mac to macs...@mozy.com and not the regular supp...@mozy.com email address. You should always reply to the macs...@mozy.com address even though emails from Mozy does not have that as their reply address.

During the backup, I quit most of the running applications, including Apple Mail, as I was asking it to backup all my emails. I wonder what would happen if I continue to use my Mac regularly and Mail keep downloading and deleting emails. Will these actions confuse Mozy backup?

More to report after the backup is complete.

BTW: some of you may notice in the comments of this article, there is a Mac user who had a great deal of problem retrieving the backup (approximately 30GB) from Mozy for a restore. Although, my backup strategy will not require me to have a large backup, but I do have emails dating back a far as 10 years ago in my Mail database. I would be interested in hearing more experience from Mac users who had tried to restore their Mozy backups.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Mozy support replies to me asking me to send them the log file. They first tells me to go to “C:\”, which was silly as that was terminologies for a Windows OS computer.

I had to send them an email reminding them that I was using Mac OS X. So now they tells me that the Mozy log file can be found within the Mac OS X file system

/var/log/mozy.log

So I quickly found the file and sent it to them.

A few hours later they tell me that i am encountering error “ConnectionError0?. Which I was not surprise, as that was what I told them in my original bug report back in July 1.

In the same email, they tells me that “ConnectionError0? means that Mozy is having problems accessing port 443 and asked me to open this port within my Mac OS X Firewall.

So, I replied back to Mozy technical support, asking why does Mozy need to access port 443 and asked whether port 443 is the default port of HTTPS access. Plus none of my other programs have problems accessing ports 443.

Up until now they [Mozy Technical Support] still have not given me any explanations as to why Mozy needs me to open port 443 in my Mac OS X Firewall.

I am guessing that Mozy is setting up a HTTPS server on my Mac to allow Mozy’s own server to retrieve data from my Mac OS X system. Is this a good idea? As I am not a network expert so I cannot tell.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Now I am running Mozy for Mac OS X version 0.6.0.0. It no longer requires me to be in an account in Mac OS X with administrator rights. As I had pointed out previously that is definitely not a good idea.

Now when I ran Mozy on my Mac, it keeps triggering Little Snitchwanting to contact various servers through port 443. Although, I am uncertain what these servers are; as it only displays the IP addresses of the servers rather than their domains, I still allowed Mozy and MobBackup access.

Shortly after Mozy ran for about 20 minutes it encountered an error “ConnectionError0?. So I reported this to Mozy Support.

Dear Sir/Madam,I had encountered a problem while Mozy was attempting to backup my
Mac.

Mac OS 10.4.10
Mozy v0.6.0.0
Mac OS X’s built in Firewall is turned on
Internet is accessed from a Router (Apple’s Airport Extreme Base
Station) via the ISP, Netviator (a service offered by PCCW in Hong
Kong).
No anti-virus application running other than LittleSnitch, which
had already set to allow Mozy (the entities Mozy and MobBackup)
access to servers/ports that it asked for. Currently ports 443
(https) for the following servers:
66.133.112.13
66.133.112.23
66.133.108.30
66.133.117.214
The error message displayed is “ConnectionError0?

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Being a long time Mac user (23 years) and Macintosh software developer (10 years), I can vouch for most of Scott’s comments and findings.

One thing that many people forget when they compare the cost and speed of a computer is the whole package of what you get when you purchase a computer. What do I mean by this? Please allow me to elaborate.

For the cost, there are the long term cost of maintenance required for your computer. Whether this is for personal use or at a corporate environment. There is the cost of upgrading the software you use regularly as a result of one or more other software you use, which requires you to upgrade. Please allow me to elaborate further on this point.

It is often the case, from experience, while using a computer operating in the Microsoft Windows operating system (OS), if one vendor; may that be Microsoft or one of the other third party upgrade their software, it is often the case that these changes will affect other installed software. Causing these software to misbehave, to a point that these other software vendors will come out with their own upgrades to remedy the problem(s). Depending on the extent of the changes, you can imagine this can easily become a never ending circle of upgrades that end users will have to endure. Unfortunately, this scenario is most evident with Microsoft itself.

I am not saying that the above is always the case, but it is the result of a hands-off approach by Microsoft on third party Windows developers. In such a manner that third party developers will develop their software in almost whatever way they like, and without enough disclosure by Microsoft, these third party developers will not know how to develop their software in such a way to survive the longevity of version upgrades of the Windows OS, and compatibilities with other third party software the users may have running on their computers.

On the other hand, Apple Inc. has a very close hands-on approach on how third party developers create their software for the Macintosh OS. Apple has volumes of manuals explaining to developers how third party software should behave and how to implement every conceivable user interface elements in their software. Most importantly, Apple will guarantee these third party software to work across OS versions as long as the third party developers follow Apple’s directions on software development.

This molded Macintosh users into very demanding end users on third party software. Over the years I had seen software companies come and go in a very short period (three to six months), just because they do not follow Apple’s directions in creating their software.

Now addressing the other point in comparing computers of different OS; the “speed of the computers”. People often compares computers by their technical specifications. Yes, this are valid criterions for computers running the same OS, but when you comparing computers running different OSs; like ones that run Windows OS and Macintosh OS, these criterions are just one part of the criterions in your comparison process. Before I dive into what I mean, I like to bring up the old physic formula: Power = Work / Time.

The power of a computer can be measured the same way. The amount of work achieved over a given amount of time. That is the true power of a computing.

As there are so many factors that affect the speed or power of a particular computer for a given individual, it is not fair or valid to simply compare the

• processor brand/type and speed
• video card brand and speed
• amount of memory or RAM
• size of hard drive

Hopefully after reading this you will see computers differently especially ones that run Windows OS, Mac OS or Linux.

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Another Mozy technical support reply:

Make sure you’re running it as administrator, and make sure your clients stay up to date. This is most likely a bug, and if so, it should be fixed in the next revision.

You can probably guess what I say to them. How can any software developer / company tells the customers to be running in Administrator mode? Especially when Mozy is suppose to be running at all times in the background. I am starting to be very discourage by this company’s ability to create a good reliable product. The latter is extremely important since we are talking about a Backup Utility.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.