Backups slower and larger

Hi @grammarphobe, please ensure your settings are the same, especially file exclusion settings. There was a bug with file exclusion in 3.4.0, but that was fixed in 3.4.1.

@grammarphobe, are you still experiencing this issue? If not, please mark the topic as resolved.

Yes, I’m still having the problem. The latest backup took about seven minutes. I’ve been busy lately and haven’t had a chance to check my settings. Does BackWPup have a page somewhere with the appropriate basic settings, especially the exclusions? I don’t remember what my original settings were. Thanks.

Hi @grammarphobe, there are really no appropriate settings. It’s just down to what you want to backup or not. Personally I backup pretty much everything.

Hi, Brandon, I just went through all my settings and changed a few things, but the backups are still much slower than they used to be and the size of the backups keeps getting much larger without a good reason. The latest backup had an error message I’ve never seen before:

WARNING: File “/home/content/13/9352413/html/wp-content/wflogs/.nfs0000000003c71117000a1a5c” is not readable!

All things considered, I’d rather not exclude my WordFence logs.

I can’t figure out what’s wrong. Here’s the log of the latest backup:

[INFO] BackWPup 3.4.1; A project of Inpsyde GmbH
[INFO] WordPress 4.8 on https://www.grammarphobia.com/
[INFO] Log Level: Normal
[INFO] BackWPup job: Full Backup
[INFO] Logfile is: backwpup_log_78488e_2017-07-16_13-06-54.html
[INFO] Backup file is: backwpup_78488e01_fe9dc6_2017-07-16_13-06-54.tar.gz
[16-Jul-2017 13:06:54] 1. Try to backup database …
[16-Jul-2017 13:06:55] Connected to database gra1213807530610 on gra1213807530610.db.9352413.hostedresource.com
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:07] Added database dump “backwpup_78488e01_gra1213807530610.sql.gz” with 11.61 MB to backup file list
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:07] Database backup done!
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:07] 1. Trying to make a list of folders to back up …
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:16] Added “wp-config.php” to backup file list
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:16] 484 folders to backup.
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:18] 1. Trying to generate a file with installed plugin names …
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:18] Added plugin list file “backwpup_78488e01_Grammarphobia.pluginlist.2017-07-16.txt” with 1.93 KB to backup file list.
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:18] 1. Trying to generate a manifest file …
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:18] Added manifest.json file with 5.72 KB to backup file list.
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:18] 1. Trying to create backup archive …
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:18] Compressing files as TarGz. Please be patient, this may take a moment.
[16-Jul-2017 13:07:52] WARNING: File “/home/content/13/9352413/html/wp-content/wflogs/.nfs0000000003c71117000a1a5c” is not readable!
[16-Jul-2017 13:09:40] Backup archive created.
[16-Jul-2017 13:09:40] Archive size is 252.18 MB.
[16-Jul-2017 13:09:40] 5295 Files with 473.09 MB in Archive.
[16-Jul-2017 13:09:40] 1. Try to send backup file to Dropbox …
[16-Jul-2017 13:09:41] Authenticated with Dropbox of user: Stewart Kellerman
[16-Jul-2017 13:09:41] Uploading to Dropbox …
[16-Jul-2017 13:09:41] Beginning new file upload session
[16-Jul-2017 13:12:11] Finishing upload session with a total of 252 MB uploaded

Hi @grammarphobe, the warning is pretty much what it sounds like: one of your files is not readable by your account. You can always contact your host about that.

Otherwise I’m not seeing much of a problem. If you want to exclude certain folders, you can do that. My only thought about the increase is perhaps you uploaded a few large files, or something else like that. But everything seems to be backing up okay.

I’d open up one of the recent archives and see if everything is there that you want, or if folders are there that you don’t want to be there.

If you want a detailed list of folders it is backing up, you can enable debug logging in BackWPup > Settings > Logs.

I hope this helps.

Hi, Brandon,

I switched the website from HTTP to HTTPS a few weeks ago. Could that be causing the increased backup size? I haven’t added any significant new data. Another possibility: in the general job settings under Archive Format, there’s this note under Tar BZip2: “Disabled due to missing bzopen() PHP function.” (I’m using Tar GZip.) Finally, I recently added an SSL certificate. Could that be affecting the backups? Thanks for your patience.

Hi @grammarphobe,

None of those would cause the issue.

I would open a recent archive, and compare it to an old archive that was smaller, and see what is different about them.

Hi, Brandon,

I’ve tried all sorts of things, but finally resolved the problem by excluding the WordFence logs and cache, The full backup dropped from 275 to 45 megabytes, and from 723 to 86 seconds. Thanks for your help and patience.