This is the first time I'm making a backup of my site using Cpanel, earlier I used to do it manually using FTP. But my first experience is not very convincing, I should say... Here's what I see when I click on 'Backup' in Cpanel-

QUOTE

Backup

cPanel System Backup is not enabled on this machine. Some other type of backup system may be in place, however downloads cannot be fetched using this module.

Please check this and help me out!

I think I read somewhere at Astahost that they don't do backups, so you have to back up all your files and database (if you have any) manually. It looks like the backup feature for you to get manually will work though. Click on the link to download the backup. It should popup a box asking you where you want to save it.

It gives me a 14 megabyte corrupt tar file. I don't think it is working. I clicked on "Download Today's Back-Up" and it was nothing. Empty 14 meg corrupt tar file... OpaQue will probably need to take care of this. It normally works perfectly.

[N]F

I have always been confused by this, but it hasn't bothered me. Maybe it means that you can't RESTORE a backup by using cPanel.
"Generate full backup" has always worked for me perfectly. After about a minute I would get a confirmation e-mail and than download the backup.

On the other hand, using full backup isn't a must. There are only two pros to this approach:

1) You have a backup in the root folder of your server
2) Your databases get backed up, too

If you eliminate number 1), it is easier to "download today's backup" and each database you have separately.

Unfortunately, nothing in the backup section seems to be working for me! Well, I'd like to give a detailed scenario -

1. I see that error in Cpanel that I mentioned and it drives me nuts!
2. I try to click on 'Generate Full Backup' and 'Download Today's Backup' in 2 tries.
3. Nothing happens, I see a blank page! Nevermind
4. I refresh the page, and my Download Manager takes over. It shows this error-
   
   QUOTE
   
   *** cannot accept 'https://mysitename.astaost.com:2023/cpanel/whatever.tar' as an URL
   (Here *** is my download manager's name)
   
5. Same for the other link. I dunno why I need to refresh the page to get things happening!

Now its about time some Admin looks into this and solve the problem! Also, as nightfox said, I may also be getting a corrupted file header that makes my Download Manager reject it!

You can have a hundred Admins look into this but at the end of the day, this is still just your problem.

The error as you reffer to it is not an error. It is a notice that not all of the features availible for the cPanel backup program are enabled for your hosting account. This only means that your website cannot be restored from the cPanel Backup program nor can you make more advanced backups with the system. We ALL get this warning notice it is absolutely nothing to worry about.

Now it is true that from time to time I have experienced the server hanging when I try to make a backup but it doesn't happen often. This usually only happens when the server is busy doing other things like hosting your FREE web sites. Don't refresh the page after you click the link. What is that about? Why would you even do that? How could refreshing this page help with loading the next page? This is why webmasters always have to put that only click once warning at the bottom of their forms.

Anyhow, my suggestion to you is to try this at a low traffic time. If your sites web pages are loading very quickly and the cPanel is loading very quickly, then the chances are that you'll be in a good position to do your backup.

If you click the "Generate/Download a Full Backup" this will take you to a second page. Selected the fewest options on this page. In fact, just leave whatever options that are there in place and click the button.
The next page will tell you to wait for an email that the backup is done.
You can then download that backup either by clicking the "Generate/Download a Full Backup" link again or by standard FTP or File Manager.

If you click on "Download Today's Backup" then your download manager should open and you can then direct your browser as to where you want to save your backup.

If you are still having trouble, then I suggest that you try a different web browser and/or computer to perform this task.

The corrupt backup files are usually caused by server timeouts. This happens one of two ways. The first way is that you chose to generate a backup during a busy time on the server and the server took too long to generate the backup file so after so much time, the process just ended leaving an unfinish backup file.
The second way is if the backup file was successfully generated but a download timeout occured. Again, this is usually due to high server load resulting in a slower download which has exceeded the maximum amount of time the server allows for a single process. If your website is very large and as a result your backup file is very large, then the file simply may never be small enough to download in the given amount of time. To avoid such a large file, be sure to clean out any unused or unwanted files and databases that you have hanging around on your account. Another way to avoid server timeouts when downloading/uploading is to upgrade your computer and/or internet connection. The server doesn't care why it is taking so long to transfer the file, it will just stop after a certain amount of time. If you system cannot accept the data as fast as the server is sending it for whatever reason, then a timeout may occur.

Remember that two computers using the same internet connection type will transfer data at different rates due to CPU speed, system memory, cache memory, hard drive speed, system buss, modem model, neetwork setup and equipement, etc...

Always keep in mind when you are reporting a problem that you may be the only person experiencing the malfunction. At the very least, safely shut down your computer and unplug it for one minute. Plug it back in and turn it on if it isn't already booting. Sometimes your computer gets acalculation going that for whatever reason it won't let go of and it eats up your system resources. These errors can usually be terminated by depriving your system of electricity for a minute. The problem may return if you fail to find the cause (virus, trojan, worm, spyware, adware, OS bug, software bug, any or all of the above together).
Also, instead of trying to refresh, just click the link again.

If none of my suggestions for you help, then please reply and give external variables to the problem such as and mostimportantly the time of day (GMT), general computer specifications, OS, and of course the web browser you are using.

I'm sure we can find a solution for you but you have to work with us a little here. It is hard to say what the problem is since the rest of us don't have the same issue and we don't have access to your computer.

Hope This Helps.

vujsa

Yes, vujsa, that post was really informative and help a lot too! Here's what I discovered-

• My download manager cannot accept connection from a specific port (Other than port 80), hence it rejects the connection from https://mysite.astahost.com:2023 , so that turns out to be a problem with my download manager.
• When I tried that backup, I think I was experiencing double-peak hours! The Astahost server was busy and loaded, so was my ISP - resulting into low speeds (say around 200-256 kbps as to normal rate of 512 kbps) and frequent timeouts! Obviously, I could not transfer huge chunks of data successfully at such times!

So, basically the problem was with my ISP and the Astahost server overload. So I cannot blame either party for this! I found my solution in a peaceful environment-

• Getting down to work at absolutely unearthy hours like 3 am or so, my ISP got me perfectly 512 kbps of speed, and the Astahost server running fast too! And guess what? I successfully downloaded the huge chink of backup bypassing my download manager , but getting through at least! The only thing that was working a bit slow at that time must have been my sleepish brain!

So now, I should apologize for dragging the Admins into this and bothering them with what not! Many thanks to vujsa for explaining me my problem! I still wonder what went wrong with nightfox...

Glad I could help. No apologies needed. The server Admin doesn't get bothered by requests for assistance. He's a pretty nice guy, gives us all free web hosting. But doesn't usually jump right into these kind of problems since there is usually a good chance that the server is running fine and if there is a larger problem, it only impacts a certain non-critical feature. Since users can backup their files manually, the backup feature is kind of a low priority feature. Of course, if there was a problem with the backup system then it would have been fixed as soon as possible but not at the expence of another more critical system or another server. The Admin also operates paid hosting services which have a higher priority than the free hosting services since the paid services help offset the cost of the free services.

Wow, a 512kbps connection! Your service provider must have been out of teletype machines. Well, glad to hear that you isolated the problem and have found a solution to the issue. As for nightfox, the problem probably occurs due to a download timeout. I haven't encountered this problem with the download today's backup. I've had problems with database downloads since they can get pretty large and the server has to compress them which uses a lot of server resources or if you don't compress it, sometimes it takes too long to transfer to your system.

Keep in mind, website backup files even when compressed can be very large and the bandwidth used to tdownload such a large file does count against your monthly allocation. SO doing a full site backup every day or even every week may not be such a good idea.

vujsa

perhaps this overloading is also the cause why i got kick up from the ftp server when snding files.. due to time difference.. the time i was on the peak of sending files is perhaps the time that the astahost is busy.. though when the astahost server seems less loaded was also the time that access on the net in our country goes high.

thanks to people hosting torrents and private download servers at home.. the backbone of my wireless ISP got clogged up a few times for 3sec - 2mins low connection in high peak hours..

Is there a way to find out how slow/fast Astahost's server is running. I remember once in the shoutbox, I think it was, someone said something about a site for Xisto where you could tell if the server was up or not. I was wondering if anyone knew that address, and knew if it show how well the server was running?