Backup Files (robocopy) | Error on files in-use

Question

OS: Windows 7 x64 (HomePremium) CMD: >robocopy [source] [destination] -options

$ robocopy "C:\Users\itzme\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\geo2eich.default" "E:\download\internet\firefox\geo2eich.default" /MIR /SEC

I use Robocopy within Windows to backup my files/drives. The problem is that i'm receiving errors for destinations that are currently in-use such as (examples of which files are in-use during scheduled run include):

Foobar2000 (portable): _running-file

Firefox: parent.lock-file

Because I have this task scheduled to run daily I most likely have these programs up and running by the time of the scheduled-run, so it conflicts consistently.

So my question is, is there a way to by-pass files that can't be copied? Because in this particular situation I don't need to backup these 'live-files' they don't contain any significant data that I atleast need anyways.

Answer 1

Be sure to use the /R:<number of retry> and /W:<time before next retry> options. If the destination you are transferring to is on a network or unstable type of storage you can add more retry times and increase the wait. However I have found that the usual /R:1 and /W:1 works fine in most cases. If you don't specify these options the default retry is 1 million and default wait time is 30 seconds (holy cow!)

I would also be very careful of the /MIR option. This will make an exact copy of the source to the destination. If you run this command a second time and the source files have changed it will make another EXACT copy. This becomes a problem if you delete a file from the source and wanted to keep that one on the destination (say a backup history of types), the /MIR option will remove the file from the destination.

A Better way is to use the /E option instead of /MIR. It basically does the same thing but keeps files in the destination unless they are over written.

Since you have also used the /SEC option, this may not actually keep file persmission in tack. In addition I would include /SECFIX. I've used this when migrating users home folders on servers and the permissions kept with /SEC /SECFIX

Lastly you can create a log file to view the results after the command has finished with. First choice, create a new log file /LOG:<filename>, second choice, append to the end of an exisiting log file /LOG+:<filename>

My suggested full command would be

robocopy "C:\Users\itzme\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\geo2eich.default" "E:\download\internet\firefox\geo2eich.default" /E /R:1 /W:1 /SEC /SECFIX /LOG+:"C:\temp\robocopy.log"

Here is a link to the full robocopy documenation from MS: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc733145.aspx

Or at a command line just run robocopy /? and it will output the options. The output looks a bit daunting at first but you will soon see that it is split into sections, ie COPY OPTIONS, RETRY OPTIONS, etc.

Good luck