Hi Doug,



The databases are only backed up using Firebird gback.



Symantec is not touching the database partition. It only backs up the partition that stores the backed up file.



Cheers,



Calin Pirtea



From: Doug Chamberlin







Calin Pirtea wrote:

> I checked with the customer and he is using Symantec Backup. This worked fine for 3 years using Firebird 1.5.
>
> All the tests we’ve done have included Symantec Backup so I asked the customer to uninstall it and we’ll see how it goes next week. Meanwhile the database will be backed up to a shared folder.

I wouldn't expect a backup program to modify the database but *any*
access of the database files by a process other than Firebird is suspect
as a possible source of data corruption.

Symantec Backup, which used to be Backup Exec, is a capable program.
Back when it was Backup Exec I used it a bunch and I remember it had
plug-ins to handle specific databases. The plug-in would communicate
with the database server and coordinate the server activity to allow the
backup operation to take place safely. However, I doubt they have a
backup plug-in for Firebird.

In any case, no matter what backup system is being used, the only proper
way to perform a backup of a Firebird database is to use the Firebird
backup utility to make a backup copy of the database and then have the
backup system operate on that copy. The backup system must be instructed
to NOT TOUCH the Firebird databases themselves.

So, I suspect they can just configure the program to avoid backing up
any of the Firebird database files and that would remove the backup
system from consideration as the source of the problem. Of course,
uninstalling also accomplishes the same thing.

Good luck with it!



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]