Question Macrium Reflect 7- shared folder not accessible when remote target PC wakes

[CrispyBytes]

Hi,
I have Macrium Reflect 7 running on Windows 10 Home PC, backing up to a shared folder on a Windows 10 Pro PC.

I originally had the common problem of manually initiated backups working, but automated backups failing because they could not access the shared folder. I figured out that it was the credentials being used by the scheduler and so I updated those to "LOCAL_MACHINE\LOCAL_USER" in "Edit Defaults->Schedule" and automated backups are now working fine.

However, I am now getting a problem with the target Win 10 Pro PC sleeps. I have Macrium running on that PC too. It is set to wake the PC at 7am and run an incremental backup (which takes a couple of minutes). The Win 10 Home PC does not sleep, but is set to perform an incremental backup at 7.30am, writing to the shared folder on the Win 10 Pro PC.

The backup fails with the following error:

Attempting to connect to: "\\TARGET_PC\Shared_Folder"
Failure: User - No user - The network was not found.

If I then:

1. edit the backup definition
2. add a one time incremental backup for a few minutes later
3. click finish
4. click cancel on the dialog that comes up saying that it is connecting to the shared folder

the newly scheduled backup works

So, it seems that editing the backup definition, and having the PC try to connect to the shared folder, is somehow enabling the scheduler to then access that folder, but that access is then being lost again when the target PC sleeps and wakes again.

I have looked at the network adaptor on the target Win 10 Pro PC and in power management "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" is not checked,

Does anybody have any ideas how I can resolve this, please?

 

[Ralston18]

Is the Win 10 Pro PC going back to sleep after it finishes its own backup?

What is the Sleep time setting on the Windows 10 Pro PC?

"WIN" + "I" > System > Power & sleep > Sleep.

Additional configuration setting over to the right.

 

[CrispyBytes]

Is the Win 10 Pro PC going back to sleep after it finishes its own backup?

Hi.

No, the Win 10 Pro PC is set to never sleep, I just sleep it manually when I go to bed.

Screen is set to switch off after 30 mins, but the PC sleep is set to "Never", and Macrium is also configured not to shutdown, hibernate or suspend after the backup.

 

[Ralston18]

What process/procedure do you use when you manually put the PC to sleep?

Is Wake on LAN configured?

https://www.groovypost.com/howto/enable-wake-on-lan-windows-10/

 

[CrispyBytes]

Hi Ralston.

Thank you very much, I have now managed to get it to work.

It seems that you were correct in identifying that the Win 10 Pro PC was sleeping after the backup (even though the PC is not configured to sleep and Macrium is not configured to trigger sleep after the local backup).

So, I set it to wake on LAN on the Win 10 Pro PC, as you advised.

That didn't completely fix the problem, because Macrium trying to access the remote folder was not triggering the Wake on LAN (I tried both with and without "magic packet").

So, as a final step, I created a job in the task scheduler on the local Win 10 Home PC to run file explorer and try to open the remote folder, and set that to run 30 seconds before the Macrium backup was due. The task just runs a .bat file with the following script

%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe "\\TARGET_PC\Shared_Folder"

That script does successfully wake the remote PC, and therefore allows the Macrium backup to run 30 seconds later (wake on LAN is set with "magic packet" unchecked).

Thank you very much for your help with this.