Mozy Backup Service.... Or Should i Say Poor Service

[eenu]

**Mozy have sorted this issue and my final post can be seen in post #46**

I thought i would write a detailed thread for those of you that signed up to Mozy for your backup needs, especially those of you that have used your own encryption key. I had been using Mozy Pro for around 25GB of data using a custom encryption key. After uploading the data the first time i tried to restore a few files to test if it works. Trying to restore failed and it told me that my key was probably incorrect. It definately wasn't. Before i wrote to Mozy i decided to upload it all again with the same key and to try again. I did this and went to test with the same error. I then contacted Mozy, stated my OS, my version number of both OSX and Mozy and explained the procedure i had followed including the decryption process and its error messages to which i recieved the following following reply on the 13th July 2007:

David,

To better resolve your issue, please send the following information to support@mozy.com:

1) Which Operating System do you use? (Such as OS X 10.4.9)
2) Which version of Mozy are you using? (You should see the version at the top of the Mozy status window. For example 0.5.0.0)
3) Do you have any firewalls on your computer?
4) Who is your internet service provider?
5) Do you have any Anti-Virus or Anti-Spyware software?
6) Which error code are you getting? Such as: MozyClientError2, ConnectionError1, etc.
7) Do you have any NTFS volumes? Such as in BootCamp, Parallels, etc.

In addition, will you please include the mozy.log file as an attachment?

I've bolded the obvious auto responses clearly showing they don't read. However, i thought fair enough so i replied with all the info and the log. I then received the following response on the 16th July 2007:

It looks like you've got your computer set up to encrypt with your own symmetric encryption key. You need to download the Mozy Decrypt application and use it to decrypt your files.

You can get it by logging into http://www.mozy.com/login and going to 'Download Mozy.' It'll be listed under the Mozy client.

Thanks,
Martin

Morons! I have already clearly stated i have used that utility and the error message it gave me! I then basically calmly wrote an email displaying their incompetence and inability to read etc to which i recieved an email from some more senior on the 17th July 2007:

David-

Could you reply to my personal address? I'd like to troubleshoot this one personally. My email is *********@mozy.com

I'd like to work through this process, which means that I'd like to use your data and your key. You can specify which files you'd like to to use, but I'd like you to keep in mind that this would constitute a compromise of your encryption key. I'm not going to share it or anything, but it still compromises the key.

If you're willing to do this for me, I'd appreciate it, but understand if you decline. In which case, I'd try with my own key and my own data and see what I can do from there, but I've had it work for me before when I was testing the client initially.

Please let me know what you would like to do.

Thanks,
********

So i thought fair enough i'll give him the key and we can work through this together and i can help these guys fix an issue an then be able to continue with the service. I replied and gave him an example file to try and explained exactly what i had done etc. I then recieved the following response on the 17th July 2007:

'm going to need access to a Mac in order to test this. (Didn't realize that's what you had.) I may not have access until tomorrow, can this wait until then?

He didn't realize i had a dam mac!!!!!!!!! Do these guys read? Anyway i said fair enough.... a day or so passed and i heard nothing so i asked what was going on and i got the following response on the 19th July 2007:

David-

I have my Mac specialist looking into it. He'll get back to you when he finds something conclusive. Probably later today.

Today (the day of this post) is the 28th July 2007 and i have never heard back from this senior guy..... i sent a further two emails in the space of the 19th - 28th firstly saying i hadn't heard from his engineer and could he tell me the progress and secondly (in the later of the two emails) saying that i was going to give him 3 days to respond before i close my account as he has failed to contact me, has my encyption key to my data and i am paying for a service that isn't working.

As a last ditch effort i went on mozy live chat on the 27th and asked if this guy was around or on holiday. I thought it fair to give the benefit of the doubt.... he was in apparently and the agent said he would get him to contact me that day. I said thank you to the agent but told him that if i didnt hear from him today i would close my account. And so today i closed it.

The point of this thread is to highlight the exceptionally poor customer service from Mozy. Secondly to highlight the potential restore issues to those of you that are already using the service. I'd hate for someone to try to restore their data like i did to find it won't work. I am now a happy Amazon S3 customer.

 

[eenu]

interesting that there have been 66 views and not a single 'My restores failed too' or 'actually my restores with my own key worked'.....

 

[Blue Velvet]

Perhaps because it's a very long, detailed and formatted post? However, bumping it because no-one has commented isn't necessary.

 

[Objectivist-C]

I couldn't get the backup function itself to work, never mind the restoring.

 

[eenu]

Perhaps because it's a very long, detailed and formatted post? However, bumping it because no-one has commented isn't necessary.

I wasn't trying to bump i was just making a statment

I couldn't get the backup function itself to work, never mind the restoring.

There are definate issues with this service.... i have seen similar issues like that of my OP from windows users so it appears to be a bigger issue that just a mac one. However i can forgive that with a new service if the customer service is good but..... well.... it was total crap.

 

[mintlivedotcom]

I have the free service on my wife's iBook and I successfully downloaded some files.

Hopefully, I will never need their customer service!

 

[janey]

won't work if you have spotlight disabled.

oh well.

 

[eenu]

won't work if you have spotlight disabled.

oh well.

what do you mean janey?

 

[keirnna]

I'll have to give this service a try. Make sure you make a new key as your is now in the wild.

 

[eenu]

I'll have to give this service a try. Make sure you make a new key as your is now in the wild.

Hey, thanks for the advice and for your IM. I have cancelled my account with them and where that key is used elsewhere it has now been changed

 

[WannaGoMac]

Same Problem With Windows!

I tried Mozy as well on my windows computers. As a test, I backed-up my desktop, and then to replicate a catastrophic failure I tried restoring to my laptop. Result? Could NOT get any files to restore to my laptop, but I could get them to restore to my existing desktop. The files would download from Mozy, but they were never usable (I think the decryption just doesn't work). Hardly useful as backups go, and I would NOT trust Mozy as your sole backup solution at all.

I therefore uninstalled Mozy and stopped using it...

Regarding Amazon S3, do they have a simple backup application like Mozy et al. services?

 

[eenu]

I tried Mozy as well on my windows computers. As a test, I backed-up my desktop, and then to replicate a catastrophic failure I tried restoring to my laptop. Result? Could NOT get any files to restore to my laptop, but I could get them to restore to my existing desktop. The files would download from Mozy, but they were never usable (I think the decryption just doesn't work). Hardly useful as backups go, and I would NOT trust Mozy as your sole backup solution at all.

I therefore uninstalled Mozy and stopped using it...

Regarding Amazon S3, do they have a simple backup application like Mozy et al. services?

You can use Jungle Disk on all platforms...... i don't think it is as easy as Mozys client but its not hard and it works

 

[WannaGoMac]

You can use Jungle Disk on all platforms...... i don't think it is as easy as Mozys client but its not hard and it works

Thanks. It's too bad Mozy is so bad. I don't understand how they can let their software just not work? I am using Windows computers and having the backup / restore fail under my simple scenario (i tried for days to get it to work right) is crazy! How did it get past their Q/A process!?

 

[eenu]

Thanks. It's too bad Mozy is so bad. I don't understand how they can let their software just not work? I am using Windows computers and having the backup / restore fail under my simple scenario (i tried for days to get it to work right) is crazy! How did it get past their Q/A process!?

No idea but it my long crappy customer service saga i started searching the internet and it appears loads of windows AND mac users are having the same issue.

Some people have bitched at me about making this thread but i really want to make as many people aware that its an issue and to ensure their data can be restored so that they dont get to the point where they need it and its gone forever.

 

[MBHockey]

That's interesting. I have always had exceptional customer service from Mozy. I have 41 GB backed up to their servers. I have never tried a large restore but I will try that now. Also, I do not use a custom encryption key. I will try to restore my music library (~10 GB) now and get back to you with the results.

 

[eenu]

That's interesting. I have always had exceptional customer service from Mozy. I have 41 GB backed up to their servers. I have never tried a large restore but I will try that now. Also, I do not use a custom encryption key. I will try to restore my music library (~10 GB) now and get back to you with the results.

That would be great thanks. When i used to use their key it worked. As soon as i used a personal key it didn't.

Unfortunately i want the extra piece of mind that even they can't view my data.... so i have to use my own key. You don't need ot try and restore it all just try a few files so its quicker.... anyway let us know

 

[Maui]

I use Mozy to backup 2 Macs and 2 PCs. I did a very large test restore when I first started to use Mozy, last year, and it worked fine. I just did a test restore of about 1 GB of files on my Mac Pro -- worked fine.

But, I use Mozy's encryption key, not a custom key. Sounds like that might be the issue.

 

[WannaGoMac]

That's interesting. I have always had exceptional customer service from Mozy. I have 41 GB backed up to their servers. I have never tried a large restore but I will try that now. Also, I do not use a custom encryption key. I will try to restore my music library (~10 GB) now and get back to you with the results.

I did this with a small amount of test data. I just tried to restore a single MS Word document to my 2nd computer. Please be sure to try the restore on a different computer. thanks!

 

[WannaGoMac]

I use Mozy to backup 2 Macs and 2 PCs. I did a very large test restore when I first started to use Mozy, last year, and it worked fine. I just did a test restore of about 1 GB of files on my Mac Pro -- worked fine.

But, I use Mozy's encryption key, not a custom key. Sounds like that might be the issue.

Yep, and without a custom key, the service is useless to me

 

[eenu]

I did this with a small amount of test data. I just tried to restore a single MS Word document to my 2nd computer. Please be sure to try the restore on a different computer. thanks!

mine wont restore on the registered machine let alone a different one....

 

[janey]

what do you mean janey?

mozy doesn't work if you have spotlight disabled.

i was trying to figure out why it wouldn't work...mozy support was useless. i don't think spotlight is listed as a requirement anywhere. i figured out it was spotlight (or lack thereof) from the crash logs.

 

[MBHockey]

My restore went without a hiccup (I use their key).

What is all this talk about a custom key? Why is that necessary?

janey, yes mozy requires Spotlight to work.

 

[Maui]

My restore went without a hiccup (I use their key).

Same here. I just restored 5 GBs to the same machine and to a different machine. Both worked (using Mozy's key).

What is all this talk about a custom key? Why is that necessary?

Depends on how much security you need. Since Mozy knows their key, if you use it, someone at Mozy could look at your stuff. Since I backup mainly photos, video and music, they can look all they want.

Mozy, of course, says that will never happen.

 

[MBHockey]

I understand.

Hmm, sounds like a good idea. But I don't think that there is much of interest to them in my emails

Mostly forum reply notifications

 

[janey]

janey, yes mozy requires Spotlight to work.

Lovely how that's not listed as a requirement anywhere on Mozy's site, except in links to external reviews mentioning it. The support people never got back to me, all they wanted was my logs. The support people never mentioned Spotlight as a requirement for mozy. The support people are awful douchebags. The support people thought I was running Windows.

In fact, they don't tell you at all. All they make you do without realizing is re-enabling spotlight as a fix for when Mozy crashes. They don't even so much as mention spotlight being necessary, they just tell you to reenable it.

Stupid.

You need a machine running Mac OS X 10.4 or higher and a Mozy account.

Guess that needs to be changed.