tgakk's dashboard

Melinda, thanks for the reply. That's too bad it won't be available for 2003. Why did they make that decision? 2003 isn't in extended support yet I don't think. My site is currently being hosted on 2003. Seems like with normal photos I've tried (from various consumer digital cameras) I haven't had the problem. It is only those sample photos that cause the problem.

Just FYI, I finally tried doing the Create method again when it initially erred out and it still failed in my Catch. Too bad. – tgakk, on September 19, 2009 14:07

I was actually barely able to get it to do its initial configuration the first time, meaning that it would ask me for my username and password for a first time config and it would spin and spin and then crash. Finally, after about 5 tries, it was able to populate the initial backup sets. I've never been able to actually select any files since I started having this problem other than what the initial backup sets capture. That's why I'm only able to back up 30 gig (what the backup sets find) of the 500 gig I want to backup.

The configuration has crashed at various points--as I mentioned, it initially took me about 5 times to get past the initial configuration after I installed the latest version. Now it seems to launch into the configuration consistently, but crashes when I click the file system tab. I haven't been able to select anything on that tab. I do have a lot of files on my machine, but it wasn't an issue on Vista with the 1.12 mozy client. It never crashed. It just isn't happy with Windows 7.

Thanks. Just had a thought--Is there an xml file or something that the Config program writes what to back up to? If so, could I possibly manually add what folders to back up to that file and avoid the config program altogether so I can at least see if I can get my backups going again since I can't ever get the config program to work without terminating?

Yes, nothing related to Mozy in the eventvwr. When the configuration does come up, it seems to chug away at trying to bring up the file system for a few minutes, then crashes every time. If you want to have him give me a call sometime on Friday, I can look at whatever he wants with him. I think that is better than emails back and forth because I'm getting responses once a week or less, which isn't really progressing us towards a solution (nearing two months now that this ticket has been open). He should have my contact info. Let me know if he can call me Friday, or what we can do to move this forward faster. I work in IT for a large organization, so I'm very comfortable with assisting in troubleshooting client issues.

Huh, I'll give it a try and see if it fixes it for me. I put a try/catch around it originally, but didn't try to create the dzi again in the catch, so that's a good idea. I'll report back whether or not that fixed it for me. Thanks for the suggestion! – tgakk, on September 15, 2009 15:49

Good info--I'll give it a try. The smaller I can make the file size while maintaining quality, the better. I'll do some testing to see if there is a noticeable difference in quality of the dzi if I lower the image quality. That is good to know on PNG files--I was just looking for a way to increase the quality as it zoomed, but then my file sizes were too large and the only difference I could see was that there was more color. Thanks for the assistance! – tgakk, on September 14, 2009 21:41

Sorry for the late reply. I added c:\program files\mozy to my AV exclusion list and still, every time I go into Mozy Configuration and click on File System with the latest version (as of Sept 3), it crashes. It seems to be able to complete backups with the default backup sets that are created. But without the ability to choose what I want to backup on my system, I can't back up 500 gigs worth of family home videos I have saved, which is a problem. One of the level 2 techs was supposed to get back to me last week with a bat file to gather info about my system (what programs are installed), but I haven't gotten it from him yet. I sure hope I get a refund for the last few months, but surprisingly, no one has offered yet.

When you talk about Mozy not being able to access the database--are you talking about locally on my machine or on your servers? If locally, where is the file located so I can exclude it from my antivirus. I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials for my AV. I had already added exceptions for mozy in the windows firewall.

I did install Mozy by right clicking on the install and saying "Run As Administrator". I did the same when running the configuration and it crashes at various points--sometimes immediately, sometimes when it gets to the filesystem tab, etc.

I turned off UAC and Mozy Configuration still crashes.

I don't see anything in the Mozy.log that is intriguing and nothing in the Eventvwr related to Mozy.

I also requested a supervisor to call me, but that hasn't happened. Seems like the only time I get the escalation team to respond to me is when I get ahold of the tech support in India after 30 minutes on hold and they promise to email the escalation team. I keep telling them "email isn't working--no one is responding to my issue", but can't get a level 2 person to call me or tell me what my dmp files are indicating about my problem... I'll give them another week and if my problem has been addressed/resolved, I'm going to request a full refund and turn folks away from Mozy.

When I first started with them, I didn't have any problems and it seemed like a good service so I referred a few family and friends to them. But now after dealing with support and not having a successful backup in almost 2 months, I'm done and will have my friends switch to a different service.

With my issue, I was told that they don't really have many Windows 7 resources right now. Really? You realize Windows 7 is going to be available in about 45 days and you're not ready? That is pretty scary. Hope Mozy is listening because I'd like to not lose the data I've already backed up, but they have A LOT of work to do to win me back. Hopefully the countless posts about poor support and people not being able to backup their data will force them to change and address the issues.

Mozy, your product is supposed to backup my data. That is what I'm paying you for. However, your product is not backing up my data and hasn't for some time. We have a problem... I've sent you all the information about my machine and all the data/log files I can. Please let me know what is being done to fix it.

Sincerely,
A soon to be former Mozy customer. – tgakk, on September 08, 2009 19:05

I have been having similar experiences with Mozy and am extremely disappointed in the support I've been receiving (or not receiving as the case may be). I have sent countless emails with log files and dmp files since I've had this issue for over 45 days. My ticket was escalated about 3 weeks ago and in that time, I've only gotten two or three responses after a lot of emails from me to the "level 2 team". I am using Windows 7, but experiencing similar issues. My backups were stalling constantly and never finishing. I've tried the 1.12, 1.14, and 1.16 versions of the client. Last Sunday I updated to the RTM version of Windows 7 and installed the latest 1.16 Mozy client to see if maybe it was an issue with the Windows 7 RC code. Now, every time I try to get into the configuration to choose what to backup, it "terminates unexpectedly". However, I had the same unexpected termination codes with all previous versions of the Mozy client as well on Windows 7. I've installed it as administrator and try to run the configuration as administrator. Rebooted multiple times. Still crashes.

I can't believe that for a ticket that has been escalated for 3 weeks, I've only heard from them about 3 times after badgering them constantly. What does escalation mean???? I'd expect them to be in constant contact with me. In the last email I got from them on Friday, the support technician stated that he had installed Windows 7 on a clean machine and Mozy worked fine. He didn't indicate if he was using RC or RTM. However, he went on to inform me that I had installed programs that had "tweaked the registry" and had thus broken the Mozy Home agreement. I responded and said, perhaps I'm misinterpreting here, but let me get this straight, because I installed programs on my machine (I'm talking any program like Office, Firefox, etc since they all touch the registry), I've broken the support agreement??? You've just alienated all of your clients with that statement as no one will install just the bare OS and Mozy on their machines. I haven't heard back (no surprise).

If Windows 7 is not supported, I am shocked. Windows 7 RC has been out since March and RTM has been out since July. It goes to GA in a little over a month and you don't have a client that works with it yet? I have read that some other people aren't having a problem with Windows 7 and Mozy, but then why am I? Aren't my DMP files and log files indicating what the problem is? I can't even launch the configuration program without it crashing on a brand new Windows 7 RTM build with mainly Microsoft only products installed.

If this is the level of support I get trying to back up my software (45 days with little response and no resolution), what kind of a response will I get if I really need to restore my data and have a problem? I would have cancelled already, but I have 500 gb of stuff backed up (I hope anyway) and don't want to start over if I can avoid it.

Will someone at Mozy please pick up the ball and address our issues? This is completely unacceptable.

Based on your response above about it being an issue with Server 2008, I asked my shared hosting company if there was the possibility that I could move to Server 2003. They said I was already on Server 2003 and IIS 6. Can you confirm if this issue with WIC is also on Server 2003? If it isn't a confirmed issue on Server 2003, is there anything we can do to investigate further to find a solution?

Interesting... That one does it for me too. But I get the same thing on the Koala sample photo in Win7 as well. But I've tried about 60 different photos from my camera and some from the web and they work fine.

So this isn't an issue that you are aware of in Win2k3 server? Maybe I'll see if my host has that option available to see if it resolves it until the patch comes out.

Anxiously awaiting the patch and thanks for the assistance,
Lance

Thanks for the reply. So is there any eta on the patch? Will it be available via windows update or is it just a hotfix that needs to be downloaded from Microsoft Connect? I'm using shared hosting, but I'd like to be able to provide them with information on how to patch it (if they will). I'm sure you are extremely busy, but would you mind posting back her when the patch is released so that I know (and posterity) that this patch resolves the issue?

Also, what scenarios cause this error? Like I said, it seems to work with 99% of all of the pictures I've tried to upload and so far just seems to be failing on those sample images for some reason. I just want to determine if it is something that will affect me frequently, or if I can say that certain types of images might cause it to fail more than others (maybe it is a certain resolution, dpi, or something else). Or is it completely random?

Thanks again for the reply!
Lance

Any thoughts on this guys? I'm a little nervous about using this if I get the above error on some images I try to upload and not others.

So I tried it with imageformat.png and it doubled the size of the deepzoom image files on disk and essentially just added more color to it. I couldn't see any real difference in quality.

Thanks for the reply. Maybe for the tileformat I'll try using ImageFormat.png and see if that is any better as the users are uploading jpg files only, not png files.

I'm using tilesize = 254 as opposed to 256 at the recommendation of another individual in another forum. I was having a problem with lines between the tiles when I'd create the deepzoom images dynamically with deepzoomtools.dll. It looked really bad as you zoomed in because you could see all of the square tiles. When I changed it to 254, they went away. Now, there could have been a few more variables as well as a new version of deepzoomtools came out, but I think I tested it on the original version of deepzoomtools that was having the problem and it fixed it. Then I upgraded to the latest version of the dll.

He said:
In order to get rid of the seams (lines) between the tiles you should set tileOverlap to something bigger than 0, ideally 1:

Dim
ic As
New
ImageCreator()

ic.TileSize = 254

ic.TileFormat = ImageFormat.Jpg

ic.ImageQuality = 1

ic.TileOverlap = 1

It can also be beneficial to set TileSize to 254 so the resulting tiles will not exceed 256x256 and therefore have better performance characteristics due to texture buffering.

I had tried tileoverlap set to 1 in the past and it hadn't fixed it, but changing to 254 and tileoverlap one did get rid of the seams.

I'll write back if saving the uploaded jpg to png format gives better image quality in the final dzi.

Here is my code if it lets me post it:
Public Shared Sub makeDZI(ByVal thePath As String)
Dim target As String = ""
Dim imagepath As String = ""
Dim fileexists As Boolean = False
Try

imagepath = thePath
Dim ic As New ImageCreator()
ic.TileSize = 254
ic.TileFormat = ImageFormat.Jpg
ic.ImageQuality = 1
ic.TileOverlap = 1

target = System.IO.Path.ChangeExtension(imagepath, "dzi").Replace("UploadedImages\", "zoom\")
If System.IO.File.Exists(target) = False And System.IO.File.Exists(thePath) = True Then
fileexists = True
ic.Create(imagepath, target)
End If
Catch ex As Exception

End Try
End Sub

So this is weird. I'm trying to upload different jpg photos to see if deepzoom images are created from any of them. Some pictures are creating deepzoom images successfully and some aren't. For example, the pictures found in C:\users\Public\Pictures\Sample Pictures on Windows 7 RC fail every time on my host with the second error I listed above. However, most of the pictures I've tried from my camera seem to work ok. I'm going to try more photos from my camera and see if I can figure out if there is any rhyme or reason to which photos it likes and which ones it doesn't. With the pictures in the Sample Pictures folder, in my dev environment, the deepzoom images create fine, so I'm still not clear why on my host I can create deepzoom images from some jpg images I upload and why I can't create deepzoom images from others. If it was a problem with deepzoomtools not being able to handle specific sizes or dpi or whatever with various jpg images, I'd reason that those same images that were failing in my hosted environment would fail locally in my dev environment too but they aren't. Any picture I upload uses the same code to create the deepzoom image (same code I listed in my first post).

Any thoughts?