Snapshot fails: top-leveldirectory not found

General Topics
1

Snapshotting my data folder is failing.

I don’t understand if my external SSD is broken or something is broken with my data folder.

Here are the last lines of the log:

14:51:59.364 async write error: unable to write content chunk 6 of FILE:3_41d1e49f-36d8-441d-b886-4f939d534641.xlsx: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found
14:51:59.367 async write error: unable to write content chunk 7 of FILE:3_41d1e49f-36d8-441d-b886-4f939d534641.xlsx: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found
14:51:59.381 async write error: unable to write content chunk 8 of FILE:3_41d1e49f-36d8-441d-b886-4f939d534641.xlsx: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found
14:51:59.385 async write error: unable to write content chunk 9 of FILE:3_41d1e49f-36d8-441d-b886-4f939d534641.xlsx: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found
14:51:59.386 async write error: unable to write content chunk 10 of FILE:3_41d1e49f-36d8-441d-b886-4f939d534641.xlsx: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found
14:51:59.386 snapshotted file {"path":"datasets/2023_DealRoom/3_41d1e49f-36d8-441d-b886-4f939d534641.xlsx","error":"unable to get result: unable to write content chunk 10 of FILE:3_41d1e49f-36d8-441d-b886-4f939d534641.xlsx: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found"}
14:51:59.386 snapshotted directory {"path":"datasets/2023_DealRoom","error":"error writing dir manifest: 2023_DealRoom: unable to write directory: unable to write content chunk 0 of DIR:datasets/2023_DealRoom: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found","dur":"303.276522ms"}
14:51:59.386 snapshotted directory {"path":"datasets","error":"unable to process directory \"2023_DealRoom\": error writing dir manifest: 2023_DealRoom: unable to write directory: unable to write content chunk 0 of DIR:datasets/2023_DealRoom: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found","dur":"303.418183ms"}
14:51:59.386 snapshotted directory {"path":".","error":"unable to process directory \"corsi\": unable to process directory \"Polimi-MSc\": unable to process directory \"ANN_Polimi\": unable to process directory \"Francesco Lattari\": unable to process directory \"AN2DL_Lab1_2019_KerasIntroduction\": unable to process directory \"Lesson1\": error writing dir manifest: Lesson1: unable to write directory: unable to write content chunk 0 of DIR:corsi/Polimi-MSc/ANN_Polimi/Francesco Lattari/AN2DL_Lab1_2019_KerasIntroduction/Lesson1: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found: error writing previously failed pack: error writing pack: can't save pack data blob p45c862e6911f029550f806e4d9f1fe1c-s477aa3f38ca03dc0131: error writing pack file: cannot create temporary file: cannot create directory: can't re-create top-level directory /run/media/raffaele/BACKUP: top-level directory not found","dur":"303.77799ms"}
14:51:59.386 Estimation has been interrupted
2

I conjecture it’s the NTFS file system.

It gave me problems with two different SSD.

I now formatted with BTRFS and it’'s working.

Will retry with the other SSD later

3

Well it finished

At this point I’m pretty sure it was the lack of proper support for the NTFS filesystem on linux

4

I have another SSD in which I took a second backup, and now when I’m trying to mount it it says:

➜  sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/dataext
[sudo] password for USERNAME: 
$MFTMirr does not match $MFT (record 0).
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.

So I’m pretty sure it’s the broken NTFS filesystem drivers on Linux.

So if you are on Linux, don’t keep your backups on a NTFS filesystem.

1 Like
5

I would always recommend people to run a native filesystem for the OS that is meant to do the writing. There is just so many things that can go wrong if you intend to move this ntfs to a windows machine and then attempt to have kopia make restores from this repo hosted on the ntfs, so you could be in for quite some amount of work, compared to just moving a linux file system to another linux box if needed.