Error 123 with anything beyond a simple backup path

Server
1

I’ve set up a backup system for a number of computers, using a server and urBackup. The clients are installed and doing image backups just fine.
However, since there are the image backups, and some machines are offsite, I don’t want to do full file backups of the entire drive. I just want to backup up User profile Documents/Pictures/Videos/Downloads, etc. You get the idea.
When I set the backup path as C:, everything works fine. When I set it to something like C:\Users:\Documents, to back up every profile’s Documents folder, I get

Cannot access path to backup: “\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy95\Users:\Documents*” Errorcode: 123 - The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

in the logs.
According to the built in help, under “How to include files”, I should be able to use a colon : as a wildcard to do every user folder. I tried replacing the colon with an asterisk, and got the same error, but with the same replacement in the path of the error.

I thought I’d try removing the drive letter, since it also has a colon in it, and then I got a similar error, but the path was:

“\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy98\ers:\Documents”

The “Us” was missing from the beginning of Users, but it was definitely there in the settings.

I’m running server 2.5.33, and clients are 2.5.25.

Am I reading this documentation wrong, or is this a bug of some sort?

Editing to add requested info from sticky post:

The clients are running on Windows 10, for the most part, and the server is running on the latest Devuan (a systemd-free Debian derivative), with RAID and ext4 filesystems.

2

One other piece of info:

There’s a warning in the logs:

Hint: Directory to backup (“C:\Users:\Documents”) does not exist. It may have been deleted or renamed. Set the “optional” directory flag if you do not want backups to fail if directories are missing.

I’m going to try setting the optional flag, just to see what happens.

3

You need another slash in there. C:\Users\:\Documents Although maybe you have it and its just the forums formatting that removed it. Also you need to set the backup directory to c:\ and the included directories to C:\Users\:\Documents etc.

4

I’ve used the following successfully for several years:

Included files (with wildcards): Users\:\Desktop\*;Users\:\Documents\*;Users\:\Downloads\*;Users\:\Pictures\*
  Default directories to backup: C:\Users

Note the backslash after Users in the Included files setting. The colon matches everything except slashes or backslashes, so you still need the ones on either side of the user name you’re matching.

In my example I set C:\Users as a default directory, causing UrBackup to create a Users backup point which can then be referenced in the excluded or included files. You’ll see this in the organization of the files in the Backups tab after successful backups.

I’m also including only the four subdirectories our users are allowed to keep their files in, automatically excluding all the hidden app folders that tend to get very large and slow down backups. You may want to add or remove directories to suit your needs.

5

Yeah…the extra slash is there in my settings, and when I paste it in the forum here. I’m assuming it’s the BBcode that’s removing it for some reason.

However, I think I’ve figured it out.

Thanks.

6

Thanks for the response. I’d actually experimented with this exact configuration this afternoon, and it seems to be working. I’ve got a bunch of people out of the office for the weekend, so I’ll know for sure on Monday, and hopefully see everything go green on the status page.

The included files setting can use wildcards, but it seems like the default backup directories setting can’t. That’s where I was initially putting my paths with the : in them.

Probably the documentation could be clearer on that, or maybe it’s just me.

Thanks.

7

This did it.

The default directories option doesn’t take wildcards. I’ve got everything backing up as I wanted now that I’ve moved the wildcards to the included files option.