Windows 10: File History Stopped Working...

I've searched this site and Google for the error I get and have found nothing that seems to pertain to this issue exactly. I have been using the file history backup function since installing W10 Home right before the free offer expired and it has been working fine. I was using an internal 250GB hard drive for the backup drive and it got fragmented and too full to defrag. I replaced the drive with a new out of the box 1TB internal drive and formatted it. The drive is shown to be healthy in Device Manager and I can access it fine. I've even copied a folder to it with no issues. I ran the file history set up steps to use this drive and there are the usual folders on it now. The Backup Options page in Settings shows the target drive, that there are no files backed up, and that backup has not been run. The When I try to run the backup to backup all of the folders specified in the setup, I get the following error message in a popup window:
"We can't copy files to your file history drive"
"Failed to initiate user data backup"
(error 80070005)
I've tried several things, but nothing seems to work. I'm very ignorant on permissions, but puzzled that this worked fine until I changed drives, but I've obviously missed a step somewhere. Logs don't show anything relative to this issue.

:)

 

File History Has Stopped Working

Ran both of the above - no improvement / or errors found.

Eventually reset Windows 10 (keeping all files) and issue resolved. Not the best solution but it works!

 

File History Has Stopped Working

Hello,

This issue might have occurred due to some corrupted system files on your computer. For us to efficiently assist you, could you tell us if there were any changes made on your computer prior to the issue?

Meanwhile, we advise that you run the System Update Readiness tool to resolve
Windows corruption errors. After running the System Update Readiness tool, we suggest running the
System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files on your
computer.

Keep us posted so that we can further help.

 

I had problems with win backup and had to put the old drive, disable backup on it, and restart with the new one don't know if this is your problem just an idea.

 

Yes, it is a permissions issue, error 80070005 means 'access denied'.

Check the permissions on your file history folder. At a minimum, Authenticated Users should have the permissions as shown in the first screenshot for Option One in this tutorial.

Change Permissions of Objects for Users and Groups in Windows 10

 

OK, I'm still puzzled. The system has four user names: Authenticated Users, SYSTEM, Administrators (JFrye-PC\Administrators), & Users (JFrye-PC\Users), and all four of them have Allow access for all options on the drive. The drive is set to have all folders and subfolders to inherit permissions and SYSTEM has ownership of the drive . I have rebooted the system and still get the same error as detailed in the first post. The recycle bin on this drive keeps coming up as being corrupted. I don't know what that means, but I'm going to full format the drive again, check permissions, and then try to set up the file history backup options again.

 

The recycle bin is probably a permissions issue too. The reformat sounds a good idea. But before you do, you could try copying the History folder from it, then putting it back on the newly formatted drive. When setting up File History again you can point it to the existing folder and it should be able to use your previous history too.

 

I did the full format, checked permissions afterwards and made sure all users had full access to the drive. Permissions are still inherited from the drive for folders, sub-folders, and files. Now when I go to File History page in settings, there is an error message stating that File History doesn't recognize the drive and if I take the option to select another drive, it finds only this new drive as it should. If I select that drive the system comes back stating that "We cannot copy your files to this location", "Your current File History drive is disconnected. Reconnect the drive and try again". I ran diagnostics on the drive and it came up clean. Again, I can access this drive, do a copy/paste of a folder to it with no issues. Previous history is gone with the old drive. Going to bed for now. Thanks Bree.

 

Apparently this is a badly-worded warning that actually means it's still trying to use File History on your old drive. Seems you need to turn off File History completely before you can start it again on a new drive. This has been a problem since Win8, apparently...

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...d6a82d1?page=1

 

I think what I suggested in post #2 is worth a try. (only if nothing else work)

 

I turned off file history, deleted the folders it had created, full formatted the drive again, and uninstalled the drive. I rebooted the system and renamed the drive as I had named it the same as the old file history drive thinking it would make things simpler. I went through the settings to start file history again and verified that the drive, folders, and files all had all of the access settings for all of the users on the system. Still get 80070005 error. File history set up creates the requisite folders on the drive when the setup process is done. I checked filehistory.exe and wbengine.exe for permissions. Both have read/execute and read only for all users, and both are owned by trusted installer which has full control permission. I manually ran filehistory.exe as administrator and it is displaying a message panel that it is saving copies of the files for the first time. I recall that the first time I ran file history, it took several hours to complete, so I will let it run overnight to see what happens. Beginning to suspect there is a registry entry that is missing, or hosed, from the drive swap, but have no idea at this point what it could be.

Update: After 10 hours, nothing has been written to the backup disk, filehistory.exe is still running, but using no CPU cycles. Going to let it run until tonight.

Update2: After 14 hours, the filehistory backup log is empty. The filehistory core log shows multiple informational events (every time I started file history, no matter how) with event code of 100. The log states "File History operational state has changed" and the stateid code varies from 0 to 255. This event code references excessive length path names on internet postings, but I don't know which yet and again, this all worked prior to the hard drive swap. I know there is some sort of work around for excessive path length names, but haven't had time to look into it yet.

 

After 24 hours, I ended FileHistory.exe. It had written nothing to backup drive. I am completely flummoxed by this and at this point, I have no idea what is amiss.

 

I turned FileHistory off, deleted the filehistory folders, and tried to start FileHistory again. Now I get a message that says "File History doesn't recognized this drive" with the "Select another drive" option. I did and still get the 80070005 message. There has to be a registry entry to link FileHistory to this new drive, but I haven't found it yet. Maybe it's not a registry entry, but a file somewhere?

I finally looked at the two configuration files that get built in the FileHistory folder on the backup drive under my ID. Each file contains data from the registry and both files point to the drive I have selected as the backup drive with the proper drive name. HELP!!!!

 

I uninstalled the new FileHistory drive and re-installed the old one. After much digging, I discovered that FileHistory stopped working on 02/16/18 when the last patch Tuesday updates were installed. This was long before I tried to change drives. The permissions on the old drive were also pretty well messed up and I found over two dozen "found.xxx" folders on the File History drive. All but the oldest two were empty and all created right after the update. I was also able to get the old drive defragmented to a degree (it's nearly full), so I've restarted FileHistory with the old drive. I need to get a data cable for the new drive so I can have them both active at the same time and then I'll try to switch which drive is used by FileHistory.

 

I'm still working on this, but here's what I know so far:

First, Creators update turned OFF the SCHEDULER for File History. That means, unless you initiate it manually through their UI, OR by RE-adding that to the task scheduler, you will never get any FH, automatically, once per hour as you have been.

Here's how FH is set up to work: You can easily see the way it works, simply by opening a COPY of the the config files of FH. After syncing, there are two IDENTICAL file folder structures with IDENTICAL Config files.

Your BACKUP FH TARGET drive folders are in THIS format:
External USB or other network drive:\ [H: in example below] FileHistory\CURRENTuserNAME\PCName\Configuration

H:\FileHistory\ME\MY-PC\Configuration\ << inside, you will find Config1.XML and Config2.XML
-- Also, the ..MY-PC\DATA\ folder will have all your stored files.

On your SYSTEM drive, (typically C:\), you also have the identical FOLDERS. After sync, the config files should all be identical with identical dates and times, but the files will NOT be inside the folders. NOTE that when FH is run when your backup drive is NOT available, these drive C: folders ARE USED as the target, until you sync while connected.

Your BACKUP FH CACHE and CONFIGURATION folders are in THIS format:
System Drive:\ [ C: in example below ] User\CURRENTuserNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\Configuration\

C:\User\ME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\Configuration\ << inside, you will find Config1.XML and Config2.XML

If you open one of these config files, you will see all the config settings, which include the active folders and the target drive. Near the end, you will see the targetURL, and the targetVOLUMEpath which is a long string called the GUID. Internally, this is what Windows uses to positively ID your backup device, (and most all storage locations). IF it matches the REAL GUID of that drive, then your backup FH runs. If not, it won't run.

Obviously, you can fix these files, and then FH will work. I won't get into which files you should or shouldn't change, but if you run FH when it is mis-configured, you could lose all your your FH, so KNOW what you are doing and don't open or save the live config files unless you do.

Two rules to remember:
FH will NOT work, unless you are logged in AS that current user, and RUN FH as that user:
FH will LOOK for the TARGET GUID to see if it matches the config, or it won't run or won't COPY files to the target. It SHOULD however, back these files up to the CACHE on drive C:

I'm still really miffed that, instead of finding some way of NOTIFYING any users that have and are using FH, that they just turned FH OFF with Creator's update to Windows... At least it is still there and can be made to be usable. Later, I hope to post how to make it all work again with a single click *Wink