A backup fails, or an off-site copy is not confirmed

What you see

On the site’s Backups tab, a run in the state failed with an error under it, or a successful run whose off-site label is not off-site ✓. The same errors reach you as a notification when a scheduled backup fails. Messages you may read:

“not enough disk space: backup of example.com needs ~N MiB but only M MiB is free on the backup volume — prune old backups or free space first”
“uploaded, but the remote archive is missing or the wrong size” (or “database dump” in place of “archive”)
“no FTP/SFTP off-site target is configured on this node”
“this backup is being removed from local disk right now (it is verified off-site) — restore it from the site’s Off-site panel instead”
“db-only restore requested but this backup has no .sql dump (the hosting may have had no database when it was taken)”
“refusing to delete a backup that is still running. Wait for it to finish (or fail) first.”

Cause

1. The backup volume is full

Before it starts, a backup checks that the volume has room for about the size of the site’s files plus 256 MiB for the database dump. If not, it fails with the “not enough disk space” message and writes nothing.

Check:

df -h /var/lib/hyperion/backups/local

Fix: free space, or lower the retention so old archives go sooner. After each successful backup, archives older than max_age_days (default 30) are deleted, but the newest keep_latest_n (default 5) per site are always kept. Both are on Settings, Backups, Archive retention, see Configuration. Local copies on the same page can delete the local copy once the off-site copy is verified. Delete single backups on the site’s Backups tab.

2. The off-site copy failed verification

After an FTP upload, Hyperion lists the files back and compares sizes. If the remote archive or dump is missing or the wrong size, the run’s off-site state is failed with the message above, and the local copy is kept. A state of ok means the upload returned success and nothing proved otherwise, and verified means the sizes matched.

Check: the target’s free space and quota, the credentials, and the base path under Settings, Backups, FTP / SFTP target.

Fix: correct the target and run the backup again.

3. No off-site target on the node

“no FTP/SFTP off-site target is configured on this node” appears when an action that needs the FTP or SFTP target runs on a node that has none enabled. The target is set per node. On a cluster, set it on that node’s settings page under Nodes.

4. A restore is refused

“this backup is being removed from local disk right now …”: the local copy is being dropped because it is verified off-site. Restore it from the site’s Off-site copies card instead.
“db-only restore requested but this backup has no .sql dump …”: the site had no database when the backup was taken. Restore files and database, or files only.
“archive … is not under an allowed backup root”: the archive is outside the directories a restore may read from, such as /var/lib/hyperion/backups/local.

Fix

Apply the fix for the cause that matched, then click Back up now on the site and wait for the run to end.

Check that it is fixed

The newest entry on the Backups tab shows the state ok, a plausible size and, if you use off-site targets, off-site ✓.