Cobian Reflector Help


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Options

General tab


Check for updates - If checked, the program will contact the server several times a week to see if new versions are available.

Log new version as error: If a new version is available, log it as an error to get your attention

Language - Choose the language to use. You can make and use your own translation using the Translator tool.

Hotkey - Select a hotkey to bring the user interface up with a key combination.

Run all tasks when starting up: If checked, all tasks will be executed when the program starts up

Use system's temporary directory: If checked, the temporary directory used by the operative system will be also used by the program

Temporary folder- Directory to be used for zip operations. Warning, if you don't have enough free space in this directory, the compressing or encrypting operations may fail.

Log tab

Log level- Set the level of verbosity for the log file

Create a new log file every day: If checked, a new log file will be created every day

Display the log in real time: If checked, all the events that are being added to the log file, will be shown in the interface in real time.

Log individual files (slow): Every single file operation will be logged. This could slow down your backup significantly!

Delete log files older than...(days): Delete old log files that are older than the number of days indicated here. Enter 0 to avoid deletion

Mail log files - If you are running Cobian Reflector on some remote computer, you may want to get the log file daily in your mail box. Check this option if you want the program to mail the log to you. You need to configure the SMTP server on the Mail tab.

Delete if successfully mailed -  If the mail log is successfully mailed, then delete the log file from the disk.

Only mail if errors are found - If checked, the program will check if the log file has errors operations on it. If errors are found in the log file, the log will be mailed, otherwise it will not be send.

Check for errors in latest file only - If checked, only the latest log file will be searched for errors. If unchecked, all the log files will be searched when counting the errors.

Mail as attachments - If checked, the program will compress and mail the log files as attachments. If unchecked, the content of the files will be presented in the mail body.

When to mail: Select when the mail must be sent: daily, when a task is done or when a backup is completed.

Mail time - Time when you want the log file to be sent is "When to mail" is configured to daily.

Mail

Sender's name - This is the name that will appear on the From field of the mail message.

Subject: Enter the subject to use for your mails.

Sender's mail: The e-mail address of the server. Some SMTP servers verify the sender's e-mail.

Server's host name- Cobian Reflector needs an SMTP server in order to mail you the log file. Enter the server name or IP address here.

Port - The port your SMTP server is using. (Default=25)

Mail recipients - The e-mail addresses where the log file will be sent to. You can enter multiple addresses here.

Secure Sockets Connection -Select the kind of encryption to use when communicating with the server.

Authenticate: Some servers need authentication

User name -If you are using a secure SMTP server, here is where you enter your ID.

Password -If you are using a secure SMTP sever, here is where you enter your SMTP password.

Body text: Enter the text of the body

Ignore certificate warnings: Ignore some certificate warnings like, for example, if the server certificate is old

Authentication encoding: Encoding used when sending the authentication credentials

Use Rfc2047 for attachment file names: For compatibility with some mail clients, encode the file names using the Rfc2047 mechanism

Mail proxy: Configure the proxy server to use

Time out: The time in milliseconds to wait for a connection.

Archive

Zip64 extension: Zip64 is used to be able to compress large archives. Older zip programs may be unable to open such files.

Unicode file names: Use UTF-8 encoding the file names in your archives. Older zip programs could have problems reading UTF-8 file names

Encryption method: Select the encryption method to use. Older zip programs understand only the weak PKZip method

Buffer size: Size of the compression or decompression buffer (in bytes). Changing this option could affect the speed of the compression or decompression for large files.

Uncompressed extensions: The files with the given extensions will only be stored in the archive, without compression

Test the created archives: If checked, the newly created archive will be tested.

Absolute paths even in monolithic archives: If you are using absolute paths and this option is selected, then the directory structure os the source will also be replicated in the archive.

Visuals


Show welcome balloon: Show a balloon with a welcome message when the user interface starts

Show status balloons: Show a balloon with status messages

Show large task icons: If checked the size of the task icons on the main window will be set to "large"

Show a dialog box is a new version is found: If you check for new versions manually, show a dialog box asking to visit the web site if a new version is available

Show the progress in the task bar: If checked, the total backup progress will be also shown in the task bar when the interface is not minimized.

Show text in the progress bar: If checked, the progress will also be shown with text labels on the progress bars.

Log tab capacity: Limit the capacity of the log tab to the given number of lines. The complete log file can be open from the Log menu

Show tabs at bottom: Show the main tabs at the bottom of the tab control

Signalize errors on tray: Errors will be signalized by making the tray icon blink. Just double click the tray icon to make it stop blinking.

Signalize errors on tab: Errors will be signalized by making the log tab bling. Just double click the tab to make it stop blinking.

Confirm when closing the user interface: When the engine is running as a service, ask for a confirmation when the interface is being closed

Clear log tab when backup starts: When a new backup starts, clear the log tab.

Show sizes in the task list.: The total size of the task will be shown in the list. Uncheck this if the system feels skow.

Play a sound when done.: When the backup ends, a sound will be played.

Sound to play.: Select the sound you want to play when a backup ends. Only sounds in the .wav format are supported./p>

Show shadows on main buttons.: If checked, a shadow will be shown behind the main buttons.

Shadows opacity.: If shadoews are being shown, you can control the opacity here.

Customize colors.: Here you can select a color theme for your interface or customize the colors manually.

Log font.: Here you can select the font to use for the log tab. A monospaced font like Consolas or Courier New is recommended.

Functionality

Load full task: When a user creates a new task, the last introduced settings are saved. If this option is selected, the settings in the "Events" and "Special" are also remembered by the program.

Close other instances of the user interface: If some other instance of the user interface is open, close it. If unchecked, the current instance will be closed instead.

Warn when closing other instances: When closing other user interface instances, show a balloon with information.

Wrap long lines in the log tab: If checked, lines longer than the width of the log document will be wrapped to display without a scroll bar

Convert all paths to UNC: If the program is installed as a service, it can have problems identifying mapped drives. So if you select a mapped drive, it will automatically be converted to a UNC path.

Never ignore empty directories for full backups:If the option Inore empty directories is checked on the task, but the backup is FULL, then no empty directories will be deleted.

Number of history items to display: The number of history items to show at the same time when a task is selected

Run missed backups.: When selected, the engine will periodically check for tasks that were not executed because, for example, the computer was off at the time.

Watch safe mirror size.: Continuously watch the size of the mirror directory and warn if it is getting to big in size.

Minimum size to warn.: Enter the size (in megabytes) as the minimum size at which a warning will be issued for the safe mirror folder.

Engine

First backup full: If this is the first backup for the task, make a full backup for it

Don't add duplicated tasks to the queue: If some task is already present on queue, do not add it to it again

Prevent sleeping: Prevent that the system goes to sleep while a backup is running. Shouldn't be used on laptops because it prevents the system from conserving power by entering true sleep

Execute events in UI context: Execute some events at the user interface context. Some events like closing a program would not work if the program is executing on some other user's context. Checking this box ensures that the events ate always executed by the user interface

Execute at engine if UI is not available: If the event is to be executed at the user interface but the interface is not running, execute he event at the engine.

Cancel if Volume Shadow Copy fails:  If the task is using Volume Shadow Copy and the creation of the image fails, cancel then the task's execution.

Calculate the progress exactly: The engine will count the files before a backup begins. This is used to give you the exact total percent of the backup. If you uncheck this, the total percent of the operation will not be shown.

Low priority copying thread -  If you feel that your computer becomes slow when backup is going on and you don't mind a slower backup, check this to low the priority of the thread. The backups will take a bit longer but the computer will become more responsive.

Do not execute on batteries: If the computer is running on batteries, the tasks won't be executed. Select if you need to save your battery.

Copy file attributes: When a file is copied, the file's attributes are also applied to the destination file.

Copy file timestamps: When a file is copied, the file's timestamp is also applied to the destination file.

Copy NTFS permissions: Copy the NTFS permissions from the source file to the destination file. The engine may need to be running under an account with administrative rights

Don't report failed attribute operations as errors: If checked, a failed operation when copying file attributes, timestamps and permissions won't be reported as errors

Ignore reparse points in directories: If a directory is a junction or other kind of reparse point, ignore its content

Save empty backups: If checked, backups that don't contain any files will be saved in the history database.

Park the first backup: Automatically park the first backup for a task.

Security

Protect the user interface: Protect critical operations of the user interface with a password

Password: Password used to protect some operations in the user interface

Clear the password cache: When protecting the interface, ask for the password again after you minimize the application

Advanced

Timestamp format in file names:  Format to use in the timestamps when they are used in the name of a file or directory
The format can be written using the following variables:

 d	The day of the month, from 1 through 31.
 dd	The day of the month, from 01 through 31.
 ddd	The abbreviated name of the day of the week.
 dddd	The full name of the day of the week.
 f	The tenths of a second in a date and time value.
 ff	The hundredths of a second in a date and time value.
 fff	The milliseconds in a date and time value.
 h	The hour, using a 12-hour clock from 1 to 12.
 hh	The hour, using a 12-hour clock from 01 to 12.
 H	The hour, using a 24-hour clock from 0 to 23.
 HH	The hour, using a 24-hour clock from 00 to 23.
 m	The minute, from 0 through 59.
 mm	The minute, from 00 through 59.
 M	The month, from 1 through 12.
 MM	The month, from 01 through 12.
 MMM	The abbreviated name of the month.
 MMMM	The full name of the month.
 s	The second, from 0 through 59.
 ss	The second, from 00 through 59.
 t	The first character of the AM/PM designator.
 tt	The AM/PM designator.
 y	The year, from 0 to 99.
 yy	The year, from 00 to 99.
 yyy	The year, with a minimum of three digits.
 yyyy	The year as a four-digit number.
 yyyyy	The year as a five-digit number.


Bear in mind that a file name cannot contain symbols as ":\ / | ?" and some other special symbols.

Example: yyyy-MM-dd HHmm will give you 2021-01-16 2241

Alternative date-time format: Alternative date-time format to use with some of the task parameters. Use the same parameters as above.

Process exit timeout (seconds): Timeout when waiting for a process to terminate on a backup event. Enter the timeout in seconds.

Copy large files unbuffered: Large files will be copied unbuffered. This could speed the backup up in systems with low memory.

Reconnect to the remote server if the connection fails: When transfering files via ftp or sftp and an arror arises, retry once with the same file.

Use a safe mirror directory: A mirroring operation is not a backup and it's quite a bad idea to implement in a backup program. That said, people want mirrors, so Cobian Reflector implements them. That means that, if a file is deleted in the source , the same file must be deleted from the destination. In order to somehow mitigate this very dangerous option, when a file is deleted from the destination, it will be temporary stored in the "Save mirror directory" indicated here.

GDI-compatible font metrics: In some high-dpi monitors, small text might seen blurry. Checking this could fix that issue.

Device specific pixel settings: In some high-dpi monitors, this may minimize the atrifacts caused by anti-aliasing.

text rendering mode: Select how the text will be rendered. Automatic will work most of the time.

Use layout rounding: Use entire numbers only when meassuring the elements of the user interface.

High quality bitmap scaling: The images rendered by the program will have marginally better quality, but in older machines, this could affect the performance of the rendering.


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