If the destination folder appears empty: .

1. Enter your administrator password in the "Global settings" panel. If this solves the problem then you know you need to use your password with backuplist+

2. Be sure the destination drive has enough free space for the backup, otherwise the backup could freeze midway. Many people have said their backup folder was empty because of this!

3. Be sure you have entered the correct destination paths in the "Destination" text field and the "Backup to folder" text field in the "Settings" panel.

4. If you are backing up to an external drive, check the hidden Volumes folder. This is a known problem when copying files to an external disk. Sometimes, if you pull the plug accidentally on a drive, or for no apparent reason, the Volumes folder will contain left over aliases of drives that are no longer present. This can result in data being copied into them instead of your desired disk, thus your hard drive mysteriously fills up with "hidden" backups! To check the folder go to the "Go" menu in the Finder menu bar, select "Go to folder..." and then type "/Volumes" in the search filed. This will bring up the hidden folder. Backuplist+ includes a menu item called "Open Volumes folder" in the "Window" menu, or the "Help" menu if you are in Background mode. see more at the Volumes folder page.

Progress bar issues:

When backing up with rsync, the progress bar may seem to progress very fast at first and then slow down towards the end and the run. You can tell where the backup is by the names of the files being transferred. This is due to incremental recursion which scans files in batches rather than in a progression, saving much memory and time! You can change this to get more accurate bar readings but it will be much slower. I made this the default for obvious reasons!

Error notices about missing disks or problems with the Volumes folder:

See the Volumes folder page and disk errors....

 

Freezes:

If backuplist+ freezes and you can't cancel it, force quit (command -option- esc) or restart computer. You will also need to force quit rsync - Oopen Activity Monitor (in the Utilities folder) and select "All Processes" at the top. Then scroll down to rsync (should be three of them) select each and click "Quit" and then "Force Quit." Backuplist+ launches rsync to copy files and it is a separate process that runs in the background, thus you must use Activity Monitor to Force Quit.

Due to limitations of applescript the cancel feature can get stuck sometimes though we have gone a long way to prevent this. If backuplist+ is in background-only mode, you must open activity monitor and quit rsync and backuplist+ from there, or restart.

If Backuplist+ crashes or you get error messages, you can usually fix the problem by trashing the .plist file. It is a good idea to make a backup of this file any ways, when you have your list and preferences set up, so you can restore your settings if there is a crash. The .plist file is in your Home folder > Library > Preferences folder and is called "com.rdutoit.blist.plist". Just quit backuplist+ app, move this file to trash and restart backuplist+ app. A new .plist file will be generated. You then need to set up your backup sets again.

If you are not the sole user of your Mac, or have not enabled permissions for Read/write of certain folders, you may not be able to back up or copy files in those locations. You can enter the administrator password (OS X 10.4 and above) in the "Global Settings" panel which will allow all files to be copied. Entering your password solves a host of problems. See Mac help about enabling permissions. You should always, however, be able to access your Home Folder or any local disks you have mounted.