Hauptwerk not finding its folders after the backup

At the end of the day I shut down Hauptwerk and the computer (a Mac Mini (2018) running MacOS 10.15.7) using the MIDI trigger command (for all organs) "Application: shut computer down". Once every week, when Hauptwerk performs its weekly backup, the shutdown is cancelled and Hauptwerk gives the error code 0657 ("the Hauptwerk folder '/Volumes/Pu/HauptwerkSampleSetsAndComponents' [...] does not exist"). Since the computer is running without a monitor, I noticed the problem only the next morning when trying to start the computer, and erroneously assumed that the file system wasn't ready when Hauptwerk tried to start. But after using Hauptwerk the whole day, this cannot be the case and the cause of the problem must be different (maybe a timing issue with the automatic shutdown?).

The last two messages in the log are:
"
2022-10-07-21-44-22: INF:4104 An automatic backup will be made. (Total number of existing backups found: 117. Most recent existing backup: 2022-09-29-22-58-21. Automatic backup frequency preference: 'Weekly (recommended)'.)

2022-10-07-21-44-22: INF:1009 Starting to create backup '/Users/hansmartin/Hauptwerk/AutomaticBackups/Hauptwerk Backup (2022-10-07-21-44-22).Backup_Hauptwerk_gz'. [Mem. usage stats. MB: Approx. est. of tot. usable phys. mem. remaining: 58339, Approx. est. Hauptwerk sample/obj. mem. (excl. other data): 253 (0 pageable). Approx. pct. phys. mem. used: 0, OS tot. wired: 5020, OS tot. active: 2072, OS tot. inactive: 20444, OS tot. 'free': 37995.]
"
The backup file (size 56.6 MB, last change 2022-10-07-21-45) exists. After closing the error message (and not restarting the computer), Hauptwerk started up without problems.

Any help would be appreciated!
Best regards,
Hansmartin.

[mdyde]

Hello Hansmartin,

My guess would be that the backup is taking some time, and that after a while the OS is timing out and starts shutting devices down anyway, even thought Hauptwerk hasn't finished. If that's the case, in Hauptwerk you could instead set the general preference for backup frequency to the option for only backing up when resetting/etc. Then use "File | Backup ..." manually periodically, whenever convenient.

Hello Martin,

thanks very much for the quick answer! In fact, the 'ls -lT' command gives the following file information:

-rw-rw-rw- 1 hansmartin staff 56377377 7 Okt 21:45:52 2022 Hauptwerk Backup (2022-10-07-21-44-22).Backup_Hauptwerk_gz

Therefore the backup took about 90 seconds and that's probably more than the OS tolerates. Do you think that the backup is complete anyway? I just did a manual backup and the file size is in the same range as the previous weekly backups. This time there was also a log message about the completion of the backup (which didn't appear in my previous weekly backups). Would it be possible in a future version of Hautwerk to halt the system only after the backup is completed?

Best wishes,
Hansmartin.

[micdev]

Hello Hansmartin,

I will forward your request to Martin.

The only way to know if the backup is complete would be to restore it (but I don't recommend that you do it).

You can manually do a backup (File | Backup...), that way you will have a full/complete backup.

Hello François,

thank you very much for suggesting a manual backup. I have done that, also in order to compare the size of the backup files to my previous - possibly incomplete - backups (the sizes were approximately the same), so I am on the safe side.

Best regards,
Hansmartin.

[micdev]

You're welcome.

[mdyde]

You could potentially also use "Help | View/extract contents of a backup or diagnostic file" to test whether any given backup file is valid. (I would expect that to report an error if it isn't.)

Hi Martin,

thanks for the hint about checking the completeness of the backup. I didn't have any problems in opening the archive, so the writing of the file to disk was obviously completed; this is also mentioned in the activity log. I am wondering what Hauptwerk tried to write to HauptwerkSampleSetsAndComponents and couldn't.

Since I turned off the weekly backups, I didn't have any more shut down problems. So thank you very much for the help!

Best regards,
Hansmartin.

[mdyde]

Thanks, Hansmartin. Excellent.