How to: Prevent CrashPlan Pro from shutting down abruptly

How to: Prevent CrashPlan Pro from shutting down abruptly

We’ve been using CrashPlan Pro as our backup solution for offsite backups. Because of the time it takes to upload the files over the internet we have been doing backups of different folders based on their importance. Recently we ran into the issue that when performing a backup the Crashplan application would just close itself. When launched it would remain open anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. Obviously we didn’t experience this behavior since day 1. All the backups were performed as expected but we started having issues once we started programming those larger backups with big VHDs files. So something with the larger backup was causing CrashPlan to terminate abruptly. The CrashPlan service would still be running but the backup jobs would actually be stopped potentially creating the issue that if left unattended no backups would be performed.

The cause

After reaching out to CrashPlan support their agent was very polite and in a few minutes of troubleshooting suggested that the memory allocated for the CrashPlan Backup application was not enough. Their recommendation is about 1gb of RAM per terabyte of storage backup you need. With 3.5 TB needed to be backed up I guess it was obvious what the issue was here.

The solution

Running Notepad or any other text-editor as an Admin, edit the CrashPlan engine’s CrashPlanService.ini file to allow it to use more java memory:

1. Stop the backup engine: http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/how_to/stop_and_start_engine

2. Locate the Notepad program, right-click and Launch as Administrator

3. Go to File > Open, and navigate to C:\Program Files\CrashPlan\CrashPlanService.ini (note that you will have to change the option from .txt files to all files in the file selection screen in order to see the CrashPlanService.ini)

4. Find the following line in the file:

-Xmx512m

1. Edit to something larger such as 640, 768, 896, or 1024. E.g.:

-Xmx1024m

This sets the maximum amount of memory that CrashPlan can use. CrashPlan will not use that much until it needs it. I would recommend starting out setting it to 1024, and go higher only if you continue experiencing problems. You can set it as high as 2048 on 32-bit systems, or even higher on 64-bit systems.

1. Start the backup engine.

Other Platforms

Maybe you are using Linux or Mac with Crashplan and you are encountering the same behavior. After some research, here is the information on where the configuration file lies on those operating systems:

The configuration file is located at:

• C:\Program Files\CrashPlan\CrashPlanService.ini « Windows
• /library/launchdaemons/com.crashplan.engine.plist « Mac
• /usr/local/crashplan/bin/run.conf « Ubuntu · Linux · Debian

It is VERY IMPORTANT you make sure you don’t go over your physical memory size AND that you leave enough free memory for the rest of the applications.

Windows

1. Stop the CrashPlan service. On most Windows computers this is in the „Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services”
2. Open Windows Explorer and browse to C:\Program Files\CrashPlan and double-click the CrashPlanService.ini file
3. Look for the following setting: -Xmx512m
4. Change “-Xmx512m” to -Xmx1024m or an amount higher if you have bigger backups. Make sure you don’t run out of physical memory
   
5. Save the file
6. Start the CrashPlan service

Mac & you get the idea for other Linux distributions

1. Launch a terminal window
2. Shutdown the CrashPlan daemon:
   $ sudo launchctl unload /library/launchdaemons/com.crashplan.engine.plist
   You will be asked for your admin password.
3. Now edit the plist file using a text editor, for example:
   $ sudo nano /library/launchdaemons/com.crashplan.engine.plist
4. Find -Xmx512m, for example by using Ctrl+W.
5. Change the value to -Xmx1024m.
   This will allocate 1024MB of memory instead of the default 512MB.
6. Save the file, in nano with Ctrl+O
7. Exit nano by using Ctrl+X
8. Relaunch the CrashPlan daemon
   $ sudo launchctl load /library/launchdaemons/com.crashplan.engine.plist