Troubleshooting

Use the symptom that matches what you see, then check the named file or command on the agent machine.

Agent shows offline

An agent appears offline when it has not checked in recently, and its backups pause until it reconnects. Confirm the server is running, outbound HTTPS access to vectaapp.com works, /etc/cron.d/vecta contains the scheduled entry, and /var/log/vecta-agent.log is changing. The cron entry should invoke the agent every couple of minutes. If the file is missing or the log stops changing, repair the installation or run the agent's manual command described in Agents.

Job is running or has a stalled badge

Check whether the machine slept or the agent stopped, then inspect /var/log/vecta-agent.log. If the process is no longer making progress, use Stop. If the agent is unreachable or Stop is not enough, use Mark as failed, then Run now after the agent returns.

Backup fails with an authentication-style error

Read the failure dialog or email for the agent's message tail. The usual cause is missing or stale destination credentials. Re-run setup on the agent:

sudo vecta-agent setup <JOB_ID>

Replace <JOB_ID> with the job ID. Run setup again after changing a destination because credentials are keyed to the destination string.

SFTP backup fails

SFTP uses SSH keys only; password authentication is not supported. Check the user, host, path, and port in the job. Confirm that the agent user's public key is authorized on the destination host. Setup probes the connection and prints ssh-keygen and ssh-copy-id commands when it finds a key problem.

Job succeeded with a warning

warning means a snapshot was created but zero files were processed. Check the source path on the agent machine for a typo, an empty directory, or a path that the agent cannot read. This is not a failed run, but it may not contain the data you intended to back up.

Run now did not start anything

Run now flags the job; it does not start a process in the dashboard. The agent sees the flag at its next check-in, usually within about two minutes. If the agent is offline, fix that first.

Registration token expired or was already used

Create a new registration token. Tokens are valid for 24 hours and can be used once.

Verification or password-reset email is missing

Check spam and search for mail from Vecta. Resend from the verification gate or login screen. If the message still does not arrive, contact support@vectaapp.com.

Schedule runs at the wrong time

Schedules use UTC and do not have a timezone setting. Convert the intended local time to UTC, edit the job, and wait for the next check-in after the schedule takes effect.

Repository password or API key is lost

The repository password is unrecoverable; data in that repository cannot be read without it. See Your repository password. The agent API key is also shown once; delete the agent and register it again. See Your agent API key.

Backups are slower or larger than expected

The first run transfers the source data. Later runs are deduplicated, so transferred can be much lower than processed. A very large first run may reach the maximum duration of roughly half a day. Split the source into multiple jobs if one run cannot finish within that window.

What's next

Check Current Limitations for known beta behavior, or use Reference for paths and commands.