Summary: The official backup utility for Liberty5 and LibertyREACT (through at least version 6.0b) appears to have an issue that leads to the automatic backup saying it completed successfully, but no database backup was created. This appears to be triggered by the implementation of the 7Zip compression utilized to compress the backup.
This issue is reproducible on any version of Liberty from Liberty5 through LibertyREACT 6.0b and happens with any store that has one or both of the following:
- A large (2 GB+) database.
- A large image folder.
Summary + Screenshots
The scheduled backup will show it is configured, yet no backups exist:
The Scheduled Task shows The operation completed successfully.
The backup directory will be empty:
Running the backup utility (rwdback.exe) manually reveals the Sevenzip error — Not enough memory resources are available to complete this operation:
If the Liberty database file (RWD_Data.MDF) is large — e.g. 2 GB — it will fail to compress the backup:
Liberty’s legacy backup (rwmaint.exe) can generate a database backup without issue, however Liberty updates remove rwmaint.exe from your system if it’s found:
Using the *latest (tested through LibertyREACT 6.0b) the error is almost the same, with only the sevenzip portion removed:
As you can see, rwdback.exe was still able to generate the actual database backup (RWD.BAK), however it A) never compresses the file, thus B) never moves it to its backup destination, and C) deletes the file after encountering said error.
This error can also appear for stores with larger image folders, which the Liberty image folder can grow to contain hundreds of GB of images, without notice:
The error has nothing to do with physical system memory or resources and appears to be specific to the implementation of the free Sevenzip compression utility used by rwdback.exe. Sevenzip itself is capable of compressing very large files as well, so it doesn’t appear to be specific to just Sevenzip.
We do not have any recommendations or additional comments on Liberty’s backup — if you have any questions, please contact the vendor for that software.
This post is intended to provide information to store owners who might not have a backup, despite thinking one is in place.
Dean
I am a Software Developer, System Administrator, and consignment software specialist. I currently manage hundreds of consignment workstations, point of sale systems, and database servers all across North America and I am the developer of Peeps' Software, Peeps2Go, and Peeps' Consignor Login for iOS and Android. I've been helping consignment & resale store-owners since 2003. I started The Computer Peeps in February of 2010. Peeps' Software launched in 2016 and is now on hundreds of systems all across North America. I have successfully converted dozens of stores from all of the major consignment software systems. After 20 years of working with consignment stores, I understand the unique challenges consignment & resale store-owners face. From electrical issues in old buildings or strip malls, to advocating for them when their old consignment software keeps crashing.