Problem with Mozy [July 15 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Mozy support finally replied to me on August 1st but there were two conflicting replies from Mozy support. One tells me to try the new version and the other the other instructed me to go into command line and execute the following:

$ cd /Library/Application Support/Mozy
$ sudo rm -f state.db

it is quite obvious the latter was taking the brut force approach to try to solve my long standing problems. It became apparent that “Karl” is the one who is correct, who asked me to try downloading the new version (0.6.2.0 (332))of Mozy for Mac.

I finally had a chance to reinstall Mozy today and now Mozy appears to be doing its thing. I had configured it to backup all my emails, System Preferences and Keychains. This had already cause it to reach the 2.2GB storage limit for a free account.

According to the Mozy Status window it still has another 4 hours to go. It had ran for about 10 minutes thus far, with a bitrate of approximately 80KB/s.

So what I’ve learned is that Mozy for Mac should be classified as an Alpha status software and not as beta.

One should send all technical enquiries relating to the Mozy for Mac to macsupport@mozy.com and not the regular support@mozy.com email address. You should always reply to the macsupport@mozy.com address even though emails from Mozy does not have that as their reply address.

During the backup, I quit most of the running applications, including Apple Mail, as I was asking it to backup all my emails. I wonder what would happen if I continue to use my Mac regularly and Mail keep downloading and deleting emails. Will these actions confuse Mozy backup?

More to report after the backup is complete.

BTW: some of you may notice in the comments of this article, there is a Mac user who had a great deal of problem retrieving the backup (approximately 30GB) from Mozy for a restore. Although, my backup strategy will not require me to have a large backup, but I do have emails dating back a far as 10 years ago in my Mail database. I would be interested in hearing more experience from Mac users who had tried to restore their Mozy backups.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 15 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Mozy support finally replied to me on August 1st but there were two conflicting replies from Mozy support. One tells me to try the new version and the other the other instructed me to go into command line and execute the following:

$ cd /Library/Application Support/Mozy
$ sudo rm -f state.db

it is quite obvious the latter was taking the brut force approach to try to solve my long standing problems. It became apparent that “Karl” is the one who is correct, who asked me to try downloading the new version (0.6.2.0 (332))of Mozy for Mac.

I finally had a chance to reinstall Mozy today and now Mozy appears to be doing its thing. I had configured it to backup all my emails, System Preferences and Keychains. This had already cause it to reach the 2.2GB storage limit for a free account.

According to the Mozy Status window it still has another 4 hours to go. It had ran for about 10 minutes thus far, with a bitrate of approximately 80KB/s.

So what I’ve learned is that Mozy for Mac should be classified as an Alpha status software and not as beta.

One should send all technical enquiries relating to the Mozy for Mac to macsupport@mozy.com and not the regular support@mozy.com email address. You should always reply to the macsupport@mozy.com address even though emails from Mozy does not have that as their reply address.

During the backup, I quit most of the running applications, including Apple Mail, as I was asking it to backup all my emails. I wonder what would happen if I continue to use my Mac regularly and Mail keep downloading and deleting emails. Will these actions confuse Mozy backup?

More to report after the backup is complete.

BTW: some of you may notice in the comments of this article, there is a Mac user who had a great deal of problem retrieving the backup (approximately 30GB) from Mozy for a restore. Although, my backup strategy will not require me to have a large backup, but I do have emails dating back a far as 10 years ago in my Mail database. I would be interested in hearing more experience from Mac users who had tried to restore their Mozy backups.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 6 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Mozy support replies to me asking me to send them the log file. They first tells me to go to “C:”, which was silly as that was terminologies for a Windows OS computer.

I had to send them an email reminding them that I was using Mac OS X. So now they tells me that the Mozy log file can be found within the Mac OS X file system

/var/log/mozy.log

So I quickly found the file and sent it to them.

A few hours later they tell me that i am encountering error “ConnectionError0?. Which I was not surprise, as that was what I told them in my original bug report back in July 1.

In the same email, they tells me that “ConnectionError0? means that Mozy is having problems accessing port 443 and asked me to open this port within my Mac OS X Firewall.

So, I replied back to Mozy technical support, asking why does Mozy need to access port 443 and asked whether port 443 is the default port of HTTPS access. Plus none of my other programs have problems accessing ports 443.

Up until now they [Mozy Technical Support] still have not given me any explanations as to why Mozy needs me to open port 443 in my Mac OS X Firewall.

I am guessing that Mozy is setting up a HTTPS server on my Mac to allow Mozy’s own server to retrieve data from my Mac OS X system. Is this a good idea? As I am not a network expert so I cannot tell.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 6 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Mozy support replies to me asking me to send them the log file. They first tells me to go to “C:”, which was silly as that was terminologies for a Windows OS computer.

I had to send them an email reminding them that I was using Mac OS X. So now they tells me that the Mozy log file can be found within the Mac OS X file system

/var/log/mozy.log

So I quickly found the file and sent it to them.

A few hours later they tell me that i am encountering error “ConnectionError0?. Which I was not surprise, as that was what I told them in my original bug report back in July 1.

In the same email, they tells me that “ConnectionError0? means that Mozy is having problems accessing port 443 and asked me to open this port within my Mac OS X Firewall.

So, I replied back to Mozy technical support, asking why does Mozy need to access port 443 and asked whether port 443 is the default port of HTTPS access. Plus none of my other programs have problems accessing ports 443.

Up until now they [Mozy Technical Support] still have not given me any explanations as to why Mozy needs me to open port 443 in my Mac OS X Firewall.

I am guessing that Mozy is setting up a HTTPS server on my Mac to allow Mozy’s own server to retrieve data from my Mac OS X system. Is this a good idea? As I am not a network expert so I cannot tell.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 1 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Now I am running Mozy for Mac OS X version 0.6.0.0. It no longer requires me to be in an account in Mac OS X with administrator rights. As I had pointed out previously that is definitely not a good idea.

Now when I ran Mozy on my Mac, it keeps triggering Little Snitchwanting to contact various servers through port 443. Although, I am uncertain what these servers are; as it only displays the IP addresses of the servers rather than their domains, I still allowed Mozy and MobBackup access.

Shortly after Mozy ran for about 20 minutes it encountered an error “ConnectionError0?. So I reported this to Mozy Support.

Dear Sir/Madam,I had encountered a problem while Mozy was attempting to backup my
Mac.

Mac OS 10.4.10
Mozy v0.6.0.0
Mac OS X’s built in Firewall is turned on
Internet is accessed from a Router (Apple’s Airport Extreme Base
Station) via the ISP, Netviator (a service offered by PCCW in Hong
Kong).
No anti-virus application running other than LittleSnitch, which
had already set to allow Mozy (the entities Mozy and MobBackup)
access to servers/ports that it asked for. Currently ports 443
(https) for the following servers:
66.133.112.13
66.133.112.23
66.133.108.30
66.133.117.214
The error message displayed is “ConnectionError0?

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 1 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Now I am running Mozy for Mac OS X version 0.6.0.0. It no longer requires me to be in an account in Mac OS X with administrator rights. As I had pointed out previously that is definitely not a good idea.

Now when I ran Mozy on my Mac, it keeps triggering Little Snitchwanting to contact various servers through port 443. Although, I am uncertain what these servers are; as it only displays the IP addresses of the servers rather than their domains, I still allowed Mozy and MobBackup access.

Shortly after Mozy ran for about 20 minutes it encountered an error “ConnectionError0?. So I reported this to Mozy Support.

Dear Sir/Madam,I had encountered a problem while Mozy was attempting to backup my
Mac.

Mac OS 10.4.10
Mozy v0.6.0.0
Mac OS X’s built in Firewall is turned on
Internet is accessed from a Router (Apple’s Airport Extreme Base
Station) via the ISP, Netviator (a service offered by PCCW in Hong
Kong).
No anti-virus application running other than LittleSnitch, which
had already set to allow Mozy (the entities Mozy and MobBackup)
access to servers/ports that it asked for. Currently ports 443
(https) for the following servers:
66.133.112.13
66.133.112.23
66.133.108.30
66.133.117.214
The error message displayed is “ConnectionError0?

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

My Impressions of Safari 3

On Monday Apple Inc. released the Beta version of the next major version of Safari at the opening keynote of WWDC ’07 (2007 Worldwide Developers Conference). Apple released versions for Mac OS 10.4.x, Mac OS 10.5, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Since my primary system is Mac OS 10.4.9, I only downloaded this version for review and my impressions below are only based on this version.

Before I start I want to give everyone a little background. Last week when a vulnerability was found in both Internet Explorer and Firefox I switch back to Safari 2. It had been almost 4 years since I use Safari as my primary browser, and I was surprised to find that Safari felt faster than FireFox 2 (my previous primary browser). Now with Safari 3, it is even faster. Of course this is non-scientific and it is based on real life usage of it for a week.

I operate an online retail business, Vinko’s Treasures, and the backend system for my operation is completely web based. So I noticed the speed improvements right away only after a few days.

In Safari 3 I did not find too many new features or features that are better than FireFox. Most of the new features in Safari 3 are just catch up features to the default (without any 3rd party Extensions) FireFox 2. These being:

  • Inline search: rather than having a dialog that pops up for the user to enter the search term. Safari 3 now displays a thin bar (“Search Bar”) at top of the browser just below the Tab Bar or Bookmark Bar; depending on what you have visible. After the results are found, Safari will dim the entire page and highlights the found terms on the page. 

    Safari 3 Search



  • Movable Tabs: you can now drag the Tabs back and forth. Rearranging them in any order you like.

    Movable Tabs



The new feature I found so far, is what the user can do with Tabs. They can take a tab like the one above on the right and open it in a new window. This can be accomplished by performing a Control + Click (or right click) on the Tab Label, which brings up a contextual menu. From here you then choose the menu item “Move Tab to New Window”.

The “Mac” way of doing the same thing is just to drag the Tab out of the Tab Bar and let go, like you would with icons on the Dock or Finder Sidebar. Unlike these other User Interface elements, doing so here will cause a miniature version of the Tab window content to show for a second, then a new browser window with the Tab window content will open.

As with Expose activation, holding down the Shift key will cause the animation of this behaviour to be in slow motion.

Tab in New Window



All in all I am fairy happy with Safari 3. It did install a new WebKit so some of the Widget I use in Dashboard no longer works, but that is expected for a “Beta” classification application.

Due to my work, I do use Mail, Dashboard and Safari 18 hours a day. So far I have encountered no crashes; knock on wood.

Safari on Windows

Finally our Windows user friends can have yet another full (W3C) Standards compliant browser to choose from: among the likes of Firefox and Opera.

With Microsoft admitting their mistakes in Internet Explorer over the years and finally began their own compliance to the W3C Standards with the release of IE 7. May be the lazy web developers (specifically ones in the Financial and Real Estate industries), who still code their web sites only for Windows version of Internet Explorer will finally start to recode their web sites with W3C Standards compliance.

One can only hope that this is an indication of a bright new beginning.

read more | digg story

Problem with Mozy [May 7 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Another Mozy technical support reply:

Make sure you’re running it as administrator, and make sure your clients stay up to date. This is most likely a bug, and if so, it should be fixed in the next revision.

You can probably guess what I say to them. How can any software developer / company tells the customers to be running in Administrator mode? Especially when Mozy is suppose to be running at all times in the background. I am starting to be very discourage by this company’s ability to create a good reliable product. The latter is extremely important since we are talking about a Backup Utility.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [May 7 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Another Mozy technical support reply:

Make sure you’re running it as administrator, and make sure your clients stay up to date. This is most likely a bug, and if so, it should be fixed in the next revision.

You can probably guess what I say to them. How can any software developer / company tells the customers to be running in Administrator mode? Especially when Mozy is suppose to be running at all times in the background. I am starting to be very discourage by this company’s ability to create a good reliable product. The latter is extremely important since we are talking about a Backup Utility.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.