- Overview
- Progress
- Result
Overview
Every time Macrium Reflect LTSC performs an action, whether this is backing up files and folders, creating a disk image, cloning a disk, or performing a restore, a log file will be created. These log files provide a detailed view of the action that took place and will assist with troubleshooting if an error occurs.
Understanding the Logs Page
The 'Logs' page of Macrium Reflect LTSC will show a complete list of the available logs:
The columns on this page can be sorted, and filters can be applied at the top of the 'Logs' page to make finding a particular log easier.
Once a log has been selected, click 'View' to open the detailed HTML log view in a new tab.
Multiple log view tabs can be opened to make switching between multiple logs easier:
If VSS was used in the creation of the backup, a nested 'VSS' tab will also be opened, showing detailed information about the VSS snapshot creation:
The following action buttons are available while viewing the logs:
| Option | Description |
| Events |
This option will open a Windows Event Viewer window, which can be used to view the Windows events that were created during the backup:
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| Delete | Delete the selected log file. |
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Display options to email the selected log file or submit the selected log file to Macrium Support using a case number.
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| Save | This option will save another copy of the log file to a user-specified location. |
| Browser | This will open the HTML log in the default browser. |
| Open a print dialogue, enabling the log file to be easily printed. | |
| Copy | This option is displayed while the VSS log is selected and becomes active when text has been highlighted in the VSS log. This option will copy the highlighted text to the clipboard. |
Understanding Log Files
Log files can be broken down into three key areas; understanding these areas can assist when troubleshooting errors:
Imaging Summary
The top of the log file contains a summary of the operation that is about to be performed, including the definition file that is being run, the options contained in the definition file, the destination of the operation, and the operations that will be performed:
VSS Snapshot Creation
For the majority of backup operations, the Volume Shadow Service (VSS) is used. Essentially, this is used to create a consistent point in time for the backup creation. Read more about VSS here. VSS is a Microsoft component and can occasionally experience errors for a variety of reasons. If a VSS error is experienced, the backup will fail here. If the VSS snapshot is created successfully, 'Volume Snapshots Created' will be displayed in the log:
Progress
Once the VSS snapshot has been created, the backup proper will start (VSS is not used when performing a restore). The progress of the backup, restore, or clone is listed for each partition that was included in the operation:
If a read error is experienced, for example, 'Cluster Run Error. Unused cluster found in cluster run - Error code = 10. Please run 'chkdsk /r'', the partition that is shown last before the error occurred may be the partition that is experiencing the error.
'New File: XX.XX GB' indicates that the backup has been created successfully.
Retention Rules
Finally, retention rules will be applied to the destination folder, the retention rules contained in the definition, the number of backups found in the destination, and the action performed by the retention rules is shown here. In the example below, the retention rules are configured to retain 10 incremental backups, and 9 incremental backups exist in the destination, meaning that no retention rules are applied, and 'Nothing to delete' is shown in the log:
Result
At the bottom of the log, the result of the backup is shown. If the backup, clone, or restore completed successfully, the amount of time the operation took is also displayed:
If an error occurred during the backup, an error message will be displayed to assist with troubleshooting:
Some common errors are described in the 'Troubleshooting' section of this knowledge base for further assistance.