Backup WordPress sort of stopped working

Hey there Steve –

Sorry for the trouble you’re having.

It sounds like the backup is starting but then failing to complete. This can happen for a number of reasons, but much of the time it has something to do with the hosting environment.

Try following some of these tips to see if we can help isolate the issue you’re having:

• can you run a database-only backup manually?
• try to exclude your /wp-content/uploads folder, then run a manual backup. Does this work?
• try disabling all other plugins, and switch to a default theme if possible as plugin conflicts can occur. Does that help?

Let me know what you find out and we can troubleshoot from there,

Kat

Thanks for your reply.

Backup always seems to work when triggered manually so I can’t actually do the second and third steps.

Do the odd extra file extensions give a clue to how far the process got?

Not really – those names are just created as temporary names while the backup is computing. Since you’re running alternate cron and this is generally happening during the scheduled backups, I’m wondering if it is somehow related to the wp-cron.

I’m not sure if you have looked here already or not, but as it is likely related to the cron not working correctly, maybe following some of the links in this support doc will help you in troubleshooting the issue further?

https://bwp.hmn.md/support-center/troubleshooting/wp-cron/

Kat

Hey there Steve –

I’ve done a bit more research and then also spoke with another support team member. What we’re wondering is if your server load is perhaps high when your schedules are running. To test this out, try setting up an alternative backup schedule to run at a different time/day and see if that works?

Kat

OK – thanks,

The previous schedule was only once per week. I’ve shifted the time and set it to each day to see what happens.

Regards
Steve

I’ll be curious to see what happens. Thanks for keeping us updated, Steve!

Kat

Backups worked as expected on 25/26/27/28/29th November but there is a temporary file (.zip.x2ceTC) with the same timestamp as that for the 29th Nov .zip file.

No backups have been made since.

Could it be that failure to delete this temporary file prevents further backups from being made?

Steve – I’ve passed this on to the developers to have them weigh in and will let you know what I find out.
Kat

Steve –

I’m sorry for the continued issues you’re having. I’ve spoken with one of the developers and we’d like to try doing a little more trouble-shooting. Would it be possible for you to enable support within your admin area? Here’s a guide on how to do that, just in case: https://bwp.hmn.md/support-center/enable-support/

Again, I’m sorry and we would appreciate the chance to troubleshoot this further with you!

Kat

No problem with doing that but I don’t have such a button. I wasn’t on the latest release so I updated but there’s still no tab to the right of + add schedule.

There’s a big “Support” link in blue after the page header but when I click this I just get a sidebar that says: “Hi there,
Glad to hear it.
Let me know if I can help you with anything else,
Cheers!
Owain”, apparently in answer to a 9 week old question about wordpressbackup/cron.

Yes – that’s right. You’d just click the “Support” link and include a note on the sidebar reminding me about the issue and I will be able to see some additional data about your site that way. That other note is likely from an older back-and-forth with support.

Thanks again!
Kat

This is partially resolved. Any similar tickets, please open a new ticket of your own! ??

Kat