Windows 10: File History Stopped Working...

DaaBoss: Thanks for the post. I checked the Task Scheduler on my system and FileHistory has a Ready status in maintenance mode and last ran when I last turned it back on. I am thinking my problems started when the February Patch Tuesday update was installed and I made things worse by incorrectly swapping drives. As soon as I get the new HDD operational along with the old FH HDD, I'll retry the process of switching drives the right way.

 

Jamis, As I sometimes neglect to do, I didn't read all your posts carefully. Your mention about a bunch of "found.xxx" folders is a real problem. I'd do my best to figure out what those folder names were before they were partially recovered. If any of these had some of the indexes and / or config files, it might be difficult to get everything working again properly with your current backup files. I DO suggest that somehow, you get as clean of a copy of ALL those files and folders copied to a different device that doesn't have errors. Then, you can try different things without destroying the only copy you have.

I didn't get into it, but there are copies of all the files in the data folder. However, they will have a DATE attached to the filename, so you can't just copy the files. Also, if you are looking for any specific file that was in a specific folder, it might not be where you'd think. The FIRST time a new file is encountered by FH, it makes a copy of that file, and it places it into the respective folder that it was in AT THAT FIRST TIME. Then, if you change that file's CONTENTS, it makes more NEW copies of the same file, puts them into the numbered folders and makes some indexed references so FH can get you all of those same file VERSION COPIES.

However, IF you MOVE that file, the old location in FH does NOT CHANGE!! FH changes the INDEXES, but doesn't change the locations. Let's say all your downloads start life in the "download folder" which is constantly once per hour, protected with FH, and then later, you "organize your files" by moving all of those files into sub-folders. If FH was working after download but before you moved them, then ALL your files will only show up in the download folder, and NOT that new sub-folder.

Recovering files --- NONE of the files you thought you had copies of, will show up in Explorer's "Previous Versions" tab, IF you also don't have the BACKUP TARGET drive for file history CONNECTED at the time you are trying to browse or recover files!! It won't show the indexes for these files as you might expect it to. So that's another great reason for getting that error working if you can. Good luck!

 

The found.xxx folders were sequentially numbered from 000 to 027. All were dated right after the February patch Tuesday update. Only folders 000 and 001 had anything in them. The others were empty. I read a MS tech note that said the empty ones could be deleted and did so. I'm not making any other changes to the original FileHistory drive. I feel FH is working properly again as I added a new folder to the include section and it has shown up in the C drive section of the FileHistory drive. Next step is to properly change drives for FileHistory to use.

 

I've just twigged that whatever you put in Settings or Control Panel, FH only runs when you click Run Now in CPanel
The one big benefit of FH design is, er... WAS, the automation of the backup process, and that seems no longer to work

I looked in Task Scheduler, and tho a job is there, there are no triggers and no actions, so I don't know at present, how to re-instate the automation.
I'd be grateful for any help, as I'm under time pressure... (on holiday from the UK in West Australia, and trying to set my cousin up with a proper backup system before I fly off into the sunset).

My ideal policy is take a monthly image by Reflect Free, plus automatic hourly or daily User data backup by FH.
This loss of FH automation has blown my policy out of the window, not only here in WA, but also for ten or a dozen systems in our local village. Bl**dy MS seem to be causing me a lot of work. Until now, I've been singing their praises about FH.

BTW - Does anyone know WHY they have done this?

 

IDK if they have done anything but you should use onedrive sync instead.

"This mission is too important to allow you to jeopardize it"

Open the Pod bay doors, HAL. - YouTube

 

It looks like File History may be on it's way out. The new Timeline feature coming in the next release of Windows 10 may be intended as its replacement. Timeline was originally intended to appear in the Fall Creators Update, but got postponed.

Open and Use Timeline in Windows 10

 

I tried to create a trigger, but the system blocked it due to some sort of "restriction". Can't be passwords as this system does not use them. FileHistory is in "maintenance mode", whatever that means. Curious to know when bld. 17063 (17083?) will be available, as this system is at bld. 16299 and is current according to Windows Update as of this writing. Not sure I'll jump on a new Windows feature right away. Maybe it's time to go third party for file backup/syncing.

 

Version 1709, build 16299.248 is the latest public version.

The Insider builds are now being named as version 1803, this version is expected to be released to the public as the Spring Creators Update around mid-April.

 

Is there a description of Timeline posted anywhere? It would be helpful to know where MS are going with this. IMO OneDrive is useless for saving a terabyte of backup.

 

The tutorial Open and Use Timeline in Windows 10 gives a guide to its use. Bear in mind it is subject to change/development while it is an Insider build. That's what Insiders are for, after all *Smile

 

I've run out of patience with this issue regarding FileHistory. I'm just going to use this new $50 TB drive for system backup and just run it at night when no one is using the system. I do System Images to a pair of father/son external drives prior to Windows Updates, so I guess I'll be safe until something better comes along or I find something to replace FileHistory.

Well, I get "status wait 80070002" when I try to set up a system backup from the settings pages. Found a web post that stated MS is "decontenting" these backup offerings in W10 and suggests users going to a third party backup offering.

 

Last night, I started hunting around in the FH backup folder, and I noticed that I got a bunch of NEW copies of my MAIN.DB, which holds all my Skype history. ONE NEW COPY, PER HOUR!

So, FH IS NOW working again!, and it has been since I first ran it manually on February 25th. *Cool*Party Here's what I discovered this AM:

The (Maintenance) note in the task scheduler is the SAME as it was BEFORE creator's update!! Before I allowed the update, I copied ALL files that were held in C:\Windows.OLD\ which included all the old task scheduler files. It also had all the old DLLs from FH that were in the \system32\ folder.

Task manager ran only ONCE for me on the 25th, and FH has been working ever since. I JUST checked since I am offsite and away from my target drive, and the files and now being cached on drive C:, until I reconnect to my target, as I explained in my earlier post. Once per hour, the XML configs are rewritten.

Task manager calls one of the 12-13 DLLs in system 32, and the old files are named identically -- i.e., (MAINTENANCE!). When I first ran it, my guess is that, the only thing it did was to START the FILE HISTORY SERVICE. Once that was done, then FH worked, and continued to work. Before creator's, it worked the SAME WAY. Many of the task manager jobs are NOT rerun BY TASK-MANAGER, so they won't show up. I will bet that if someone has creators, HAD FH working, they can go to SERVICES, and see FH is turned OFF. Try to JUST start that service, and I will bet it will WORK.

This isn't going to help the guy with the FOUND.xxx folders probably, but it should work for everyone else. I've got a few other PCs around here I will test this out. Let us know if this works for you.

 

I appreciate the update. I checked FileHistory in Services and it was running but with a start type of "manual trigger". I changed it to Auotmatic and it now shows Automatic (trigger start). I wonder what constitutes a trigger start? I created an Excel file and will see if that "triggers" something. The files in the found.xxx folders are all dated prior to the February Patch Tuesday updates and FH quit working after that. Still "Moderately Confused" (a comic strip I read).

 

FYI, I've just checked my File History Service (which I've never changed, so presumably is 'default'). It was set to 'Automatic (Delayed Start)' and shows in the Startup Type column as 'Automatic (Delayed Start, Trigger Start)'.

Edit: According to the tutorial Restore Default Services in Windows 10 the default is 'Manual (Trigger Start)'.

 

Still confused with this issue. I created a Task Schedule for FileHistory with a trigger for 11:00:00 AM to repeat every hour indefinitely. After boot up this morning at about 9:30 AM, the status for fhsvc in Task Manager shows it to be running. The Services display shows FileHistory running with a status of Automatic (delayed start, trigger start). The history log for FH in Task Scheduler shows that FH was not triggered after 11 AM today. As of 4:22 PM, I can see no updated files on the HDD that is set up for File History. The Excel file I created yesterday has not been copied to the File history drive. The Settings display shows File History is turned on, but the files have not been backed up. The Event Viewer shows no history log for FileHistory-Engine. The FileHistory-Core shows the WHC log having all activities as the operational state being changed and all entries are dated from 02/23/18 thru 02/27/18. 02/22/18 was the date FH stopped working. I'm sort of at a loss as to what to do next. I'm thinking of stopping the use of the old File History drive and starting it back up using the new drive. If that works, great, if not ????????