Backup taking very long

[Blaze613]

It might be a common problem but i can not find any posts relating to my problem, I have done a backup with the magento backup tab and i have been unable to log on again, it has been 6 hours now. I am getting Error 503: service unavailable The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later. The site is also down.

A backup has never been done before and as I have taken over from someone else felt it needed to be done, I am not familiar with Magento`s backup system and would like to know if this is normal and is there anyway to get back in or stop the backup? Any advice would be appreciated.

[Sinisa · Accepted solution]

You've either killed your apache2, in which case you should just restart apache. Other reason can be file "maintenance.flag" which is created by Magento during the backup process. Just remove that file, and you'll be alright.

In general, do not use Magento's default backup functionality. It works well only for small databases. The best practice is to do that from command line or by some automated tools which your hosting provider offers.

[Blaze613]

Thanks, I did rename the maintenance.flag and that did work. I eventually got the details to get in the backend. Been new to magento i did not know about the poor backup system, and won`t use it again.

[hristo_peev]

Hello,

Can you recommend any tools making backups, other than the Magento default one?

We do not use maintance.flag and we have scheduled backup and the site is practically unaccessible while the backup is running. 

Errors like those are constantly appearing:

[2002] No such file or directory";i:1;s:2818:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Zend/Db/Adapter/Pdo/Mysql.php(111): Zend_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Abstract->_connect()
----
Communication link failure: 1053 Server shutdown in progress, query was: UPDATE `catalogsearch_query` SET `query_text` = ?, `num_results` = ?, `popularity` = ?, `redirect` = ?, `synonym_for` = ?, `store_id` = ?, `display_in_terms` = ?, `is_active` = ?, `is_processed` = ?, `updated_at` = '2018-05-28 15:14:22' WHERE (query_id='5360')";i:1;s:1845:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
Communication link failure: 1053 Server shutdown in progress, query was: UPDATE `cron_schedule` SET `job_code` = ?, `status` = ?, `messages` = ?, `created_at` = '2018-05-28 14:52:02', `scheduled_at` = '2018-05-28 15:10:00', `executed_at` = ?, `finished_at` = ? WHERE (schedule_id='1198038')";i:1;s:1780:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
----
General error: 1205 Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction, query was: UPDATE `catalogsearch_query` SET `query_text` = ?, `num_results` = ?, `popularity` = ?, `redirect` = ?, `synonym_for` = ?, `store_id` = ?, `display_in_terms` = ?, `is_active` = ?, `is_processed` = ?, `updated_at` = '2018-05-28 15:09:55' WHERE (query_id='5360')";i:1;s:1845:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
General error: 1205 Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction, query was: UPDATE `catalogsearch_query` SET `query_text` = ?, `num_results` = ?, `popularity` = ?, `redirect` = ?, `synonym_for` = ?, `store_id` = ?, `display_in_terms` = ?, `is_active` = ?, `is_processed` = ?, `updated_at` = '2018-05-28 15:10:49' WHERE (query_id='5360')";i:1;s:1845:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
General error: 1205 Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction, query was: UPDATE `catalogsearch_query` SET `query_text` = ?, `num_results` = ?, `popularity` = ?, `redirect` = ?, `synonym_for` = ?, `store_id` = ?, `display_in_terms` = ?, `is_active` = ?, `is_processed` = ?, `updated_at` = '2018-05-28 15:11:42' WHERE (query_id='5360')";i:1;s:1845:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
General error: 1205 Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction, query was: UPDATE `catalogsearch_query` SET `query_text` = ?, `num_results` = ?, `popularity` = ?, `redirect` = ?, `synonym_for` = ?, `store_id` = ?, `display_in_terms` = ?, `is_active` = ?, `is_processed` = ?, `updated_at` = '2018-05-28 15:12:35' WHERE (query_id='5360')";i:1;s:1845:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
General error: 1205 Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction, query was: UPDATE `catalogsearch_query` SET `query_text` = ?, `num_results` = ?, `popularity` = ?, `redirect` = ?, `synonym_for` = ?, `store_id` = ?, `display_in_terms` = ?, `is_active` = ?, `is_processed` = ?, `updated_at` = '2018-05-28 15:13:29' WHERE (query_id='5360')";i:1;s:1845:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
General error: 1205 Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction, query was: UPDATE `cron_schedule` SET `job_code` = ?, `status` = ?, `messages` = ?, `created_at` = '2018-05-28 14:52:02', `scheduled_at` = '2018-05-28 15:10:00', `executed_at` = ?, `finished_at` = ? WHERE (schedule_id='1198038')";i:1;s:1780:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
----
General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away";i:1;s:1337:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Zend/Db/Adapter/Pdo/Abstract.php(307): PDO->beginTransaction()
General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away, query was: SELECT `main_table`.* FROM `design_change` AS `main_table` WHERE (store_id = :store_id) AND (date_from = :required_date or date_to IS NULL)";i:1;s:2366:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away, query was: UPDATE `cron_schedule` SET `job_code` = ?, `status` = ?, `messages` = ?, `created_at` = '2018-05-28 15:07:02', `scheduled_at` = '2018-05-28 15:08:00', `executed_at` = '2018-05-28 15:08:01', `finished_at` = '2018-05-28 15:14:42' WHERE (schedule_id='1198104')";i:1;s:1780:"#0 /var/www/example/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)

Any recommendations for speeding up and improving the backup process will be highly appreciated.

Thanks!