{"id":18874401,"date":"2026-04-07T21:06:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T21:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/topic\/missing-files-in-backup-2\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T21:06:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T21:06:53","slug":"missing-files-in-backup-2","status":"publish","type":"topic","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/topic\/missing-files-in-backup-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing files in backup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve been using version 5.6 for a while now. I have a slow-moving site that I backup to the site’s server. I then have an automated procedure that downloads the backup file and stores it offline. My process includes two integrity checks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. The downloaded backup file must be a valid zip archive<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Its size must be greater than a value I provide.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Last night’s backup passed the zip check but failed the size check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I have backup logs going back to 20th March and they all show the backup zip to be 61.4 Mb – that’s the same size as my saved copies. Last night’s backup was recorded in the BackWPUp log as 48.99Mb but the saved copy was just 12.4Mb!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The log of the most recent successful backup shows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    [INFO] BackWPup 5.6.7; A project of WP Media
    [INFO] WordPress 6.9.4 on https:\/\/haylingcycleride.org.uk\/
    [INFO] Log Level: Debug (translated)
    [INFO] BackWPup job: Files & Database; FILE+DBDUMP+WPPLUGIN
    [INFO] Runs with user: (0)
    [INFO] BackWPup job start with link is active
    [INFO] BackWPup job started from external URL
    [INFO] PHP ver.: 8.3.30 (64bit); cgi-fcgi; Linux
    [INFO] Maximum PHP script execution time is 30 seconds
    [INFO] Script restart time is configured to 45 seconds
    [INFO] MySQL ver.: 5.7.42
    [INFO] Web Server: Apache
    [INFO] cURL ver.: 7.74.0; OpenSSL\/1.1.1w
    Folder list appears here<\/em>
    [06-Apr-2026 02:07:19] Backup archive created.
    [06-Apr-2026 02:07:19] Archive size is 61.48 MB.
    [06-Apr-2026 02:07:19] 2853 Files with 109.24 MB in Archive.
    [06-Apr-2026 02:07:19] Restart after 15 seconds.
    [06-Apr-2026 02:07:20] 1 old log deleted
    [06-Apr-2026 02:07:20] Job done in 327 seconds.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    The log of the problem backup shows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    [INFO] BackWPup 5.6.7; A project of WP Media
    [INFO] WordPress 6.9.4 on https:\/\/haylingcycleride.org.uk\/
    [INFO] Log Level: Debug (translated)
    [INFO] BackWPup job: Files & Database; FILE+DBDUMP+WPPLUGIN
    [INFO] Runs with user: (0)
    [INFO] BackWPup job start with link is active
    [INFO] BackWPup job started from external URL
    [INFO] PHP ver.: 8.3.30 (64bit); cgi-fcgi; Linux
    [INFO] Maximum PHP script execution time is 30 seconds
    [INFO] Script restart time is configured to 45 seconds
    [INFO] MySQL ver.: 5.7.42
    [INFO] Web Server: Apache
    [INFO] cURL ver.: 7.74.0; OpenSSL\/1.1.1w
    Folder list appears here<\/em>
    [07-Apr-2026 03:18:48] Backup archive created.
    [07-Apr-2026 03:18:48] Archive size is 48.99 MB.
    [07-Apr-2026 03:18:49] 2853 Files with 109.24 MB in Archive.
    [07-Apr-2026 03:18:49] Restart after 14 seconds.
    [07-Apr-2026 03:29:04] 1 old log deleted
    [07-Apr-2026 03:29:04] Job done in 5231 seconds.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    Note Both backups show the same number of files with the same file size, but the zipped file sizes are different. The only clue I can see is that the run time for recent backups has consistently been around 320-330 seconds, but the problem backup appeared to take 5231 seconds. Both logs show restarts after 43\/44 seconds in virtually the same places, but there’s big time jumps between some of the restarts in the log of the problem backup including the final restart as shown above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The site’s error log is empty. In the UK we activated daylight saving on Sunday 5th, going from GMT to GMT+1 but we’ve had two successful backups since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    It looks like BackWPUp saved the database and plugins to the zip but then failed to write the files section without throwing an error. But that doesn’t explain why BackWPUp thought the zip size was 48.99 Mb – that’s neither the expected size (61.5Mb) nor the actual size (12.4Mb).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    I’ve since re-run the backup using the normal procedure and it went as expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    I hope that’s of use,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Andy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-18874401","topic","type-topic","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic\/18874401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/topic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic\/18874401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18874401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}