Knox Backup Problems

Deborah Loth

My main issue today is that last night's Knox back-up failed for some reason. I found that Quicken data files and Quicken backup data files in my only Knox vault were corrupted (but not Excel data files). In the process of trying to recover my data I discovered that Knox has not been backing up the vault every night (per Preferences), but only about once a week. Bummer. The 'Restore' part of the program did not work for recovering the data. In the end I copied the sparseimage of the last backup myself from the backup location. I was able to mount this and work with the files it contained. The original vault now seems to be locked - I cannot write to it. I renamed the backup sparseimage to the name of the original vault, but it is not possible to back this new vault up. (Yes, I re-set the backup preferences for the newly renamed vault.)



Without wanting to worry too much about why the original backup failed, I am wondering:

- Why doesn't Knox back me up every night, per Preferences?

- Why is the original vault which failed to back up now locked? How do I unlock it?

- Why can't I back up the backup sparseimage, which I renamed?

- Why couldn't I restore from the backup using the Knox menu?



Many thanks for any thoughts or assistance on this. I'm seriously wondering about continuing with this software.



D.

khad

Hi Deborah,



I wish your first foray into the forums was under better circumstances. I'm sorry that you are having this problem.



[quote]Why doesn't Knox back me up every night, per Preferences?[/quote]

There are a number of factors which may affect Knox backups. As explained in the Backup preferences: "The computer must be turned on and you need to be logged in at the scheduled backup time. The scheduled backup will be skipped if the vault hasn't changed since the previous backup.



If your Mac is not on, obviously Knox cannot do its job. If the backup destination is on a volume (networked perhaps) that is unavailable, Knox will not be able to backup until it is available. The preference to wait or prompt for backup drive is something to check.



[quote]Why is the original vault which failed to back up now locked? How do I unlock it?[/quote]

Knox backups will have the same password you used to encrypt them. You may have checked the box to "remember" the password which can be found in your OS X keychain. You can view your OS X keychain with Keychain Access (found in /Applications/Utilities). Search for ".sparse" (without the quotes) and you will see a list of all the vaults for which you have saved a password. Double-click one and check "Show password" to reveal your password. Otherwise, there is no way to recover a vault password. For your own security, there is no backdoor. If there was, a thief could use it to steal your data.



[quote]Why can't I back up the backup sparseimage, which I renamed?

Why couldn't I restore from the backup using the Knox menu?[/quote]

Please ensure that Knox is managing the vault by dragging it into the vault listing in Knox (Prefrences > Vaults). If it is already listed, there may be some permissions issues with its location or backup destination.



I hope that helps. Please let me know.



Thanks!