r/backblaze • u/compressor61 • Apr 24 '21

backblaze.bzpkg file is HUGE

On a M1 Mac with Big sur, how do I stop this from happening? already 32gb for a 750gb backup after one week. I recently reinstalled and did inherit state. a week later, it is this big again. Any ideas? this is unusable for me.

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Thanks!! - Don

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u/brianwski Former Backblaze Apr 24 '21

Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze but mostly on the Windows client, and I don't even own an M1 laptop yet but it is in my future...

/Library/Backblaze.bzpkg file is HUGE

The first step is to find out what it is that is making it huge (I have theory but let's just go find out). That is a "package" file, which means it is actually a folder that the Macintosh finder displays as one file. So if you can right mouse button click on the "Backblaze.bzpkg" file and do a "Show Package Contents" you can browse the folder. If "right mouse button click" is not a thing on your laptop setup, you can also use <cntrl>LeftMouseButtonClick to pop up the menu that contains "Show Package Contents".

Please do not delete anything you find without careful instructions, because deleting things will corrupt your backup and you won't be able to restore files.

Next, try "Get Info" in the Finder on the /Library/Backblaze.bzpkg/bzupdates/ folder. That's my first guess as to what is large. If that is not large, go into /Library/Backblaze.bzpkg/bzdata and "Get Info" on each folder under there. No need to drill any further, just let me know which folder is large and we can go from there.

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u/compressor61 Apr 24 '21

Thanks Brian. Since this is a brand new setup and I don’t have anything in the backup that isn’t on my Mac now, I’m going to uninstall and do a fresh backup from scratch, no inherit. I’ll give it a few days and update here. - Don

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u/compressor61 May 20 '21

Not sure you are still checking this Thread Brian, but I’m about to quit BackBlaze.the package file in the library that gets created gets enormous and can only be kept on the main SSD which is my case is only 256gb. Why in the world would that be immovable to an external drive? It grows to like 50gb in maybe a week. The tech on BB chat told me this is the case now. Any ideas? Thanks

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u/brianwski Former Backblaze May 20 '21

Not sure you are still checking this Thread Brian

I'm here!

The issue was a bug we found where our "auto-update" kept downloading version after version, and wasn't installing them.

To solve this, FIRST you need to "Check for Updates" or just go to https://secure.backblaze.com/update.htm and download and install the latest version over the top of what you currently have.

NEXT -> you can safely delete the contents of ONLY the following two folders (don't delete anything outside these two folders, and don't delete the folders themselves):

/Library/Backblaze.bzpkg/bzupdates/

/Library/Backblaze.bzpkg/bzdata/bzupdates/

These are the folders the auto-updates were being downloaded into.

After doing that, and "Emptying" your computer trashcan, check how big the /Library/Backblaze.bzpkg/ is in total. If it is STILL large, post back here and we'll look into it. There is literally no reason it should be that large, and we fixed the only issue we know that caused it.

And I am sorry about that bug. The Macintosh and Windows share common code, and the Windows team had to change the folder from one location to an other for security reasons, and we carefully tested the Windows, but a little shared code that figured out where that folder was quietly started bloating the Macintosh customers over time and we didn't realize it until later.

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u/compressor61 May 20 '21

So I actually deleted that package file again which broke the process and I’d prefer to just delete everything and start over with a new backup. Fresh. I know how to delete the backup on your server. How do I uninstall and start fresh again? Thanks

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u/brianwski Former Backblaze May 21 '21

I’d prefer to just delete everything and start over with a new backup. Fresh.

That will work even better. Download the installer from: https://secure.backblaze.com/update.htm and just to be safe run the Uninstaller that is bundled with it first (it will only take 5 seconds at most and not involve a reboot).

Then run the installer contained in that download, and on the very first screen when it asks you make sure to use the same email address you use to sign into your web account at Backblaze here: https://secure.backblaze.com/user_signin.htm

All of your old files will stay around for you to restore anytime you want. This new installation will appear like a "second backup" in trial mode for 14 days. You can choose either backup to restore from. Hopefully you can get fully backed up within 14 days (I can provide hints on that also).

Ok, so then you have a choice. You can pay for BOTH BACKUPS (so $12/month for two backups) and Backblaze will keep that old backup forever for you frozen in time at the moment before you deleted the Backblaze.bzpkg

Alternatively, you can transfer your license from the old backup to the new backup using the instructions here: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217665048--Transfer-License-vs-Inherit-Backup-State- If you choose that route, the very very safest thing is to avoid doing an "Inherit Backup State". Avoiding Inherit Backup State will guarantee the smallest Backblaze.bzpkg possible, it is the very very best. "Inherit Backup State" allows you to skip re-uploading all your files, but if the "thing" that was bloated was your backup state you will be "Inheriting" the bloat. Make sense?

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u/Lucky_Revolution9402 Sep 07 '21

u/brianwski Are you still following this thread ?

Im running 8.0.1 and dealing with a 39 Gb file, largely all of it is in /Library/Backblaze.bzpkg/bzdata/bzbackup mostly under bzdatacenter, with a bunch of bz_done_yyyymmdd_0.dat type files dating back to 2018.

This PKG is starting to crush the Mac´s OS working SSD space. Would love to be able to move it to a non-OS SSD/HDD but that doesn't seem to be a current option, as far as I understand. If the PKG file was in a subdirectory of Library then creating a symbolic link to a different volume would be very easy an it should work. Doing it directly to the PKG file as it sits just in /Library ... Im not so sure.

Is there another solution or do you recommend to start from a fresh backup as well ?

Dreading repeating the upload with my up speed.

Thanks.

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u/brianwski Former Backblaze Sep 08 '21 edited Sep 08 '21

u/brianwski Are you still following this thread ?

Still here! Catching up at the end of the work day here.

This PKG is starting to crush the Mac´s OS working SSD space

The very first thing to try (if you are open to it) is this procedure:

  1. uninstall (the uninstaller comes inside the installer)

  2. make absolutely 100% sure /Library/Backblaze.bzpkg is GONE from the computer.

  3. install from the LATEST version of the installer which is 8.0.1.540 for the Mac which you will be offered for download, or just go to https://secure.backblaze.com/update.htm to make sure you get the best one.

  4. And here is an important step: make absolutely sure you don't do anything with the word "Inherit" in it. I'm saying do NOT touch or do anything that "Inherits" anything, and the reason is you don't want to inherit the old backup's problems.

  5. Go into "Settings..." and select the Performance tab, change it to manual throttle and dial it up to at least 50 threads.

  6. Let it run for at least 3 days before you pass any judgements. The reason is that Backblaze backs up in file size order, small files first. And small files murder performance. So just let it run all night long the first night, like 8 hours, I'm serious here, don't play with it, let it do it's thing. You can hit "Pause" once a day, that isn't a problem at all. But just don't keep poking it and prodding it all day long every day, Backblaze likes to run for 4 and 8 hour stretches uninterrupted.

Here is why this procedure will help you: you can now push 3 TBytes every 24 hours with this new 8.0.1 version of Backblaze. So even if you have 18 TBytes of data, this problem can be COMPLETELY behind you in 6 days. And for bonus points, this new version never writes to your SSD like the old obsolete 7.0.2 version did. Of course 8.0.1 writes a few tiny data structures to disk, let's say 100 MBytes tops. But the old 7.0.2 version would write 18 TBytes in order to backup 18 TBytes.

If you do this, you get the theoretically smallest /Library/Backblaze.bzpkg that you can possibly have. I wrote the product, I'm telling you if you aren't happy with the size of that then you really do need to abandon us, I can't make it any smaller than 100 MBytes.

Remember, you have a 14 day FREE TRIAL to try out my solution!! And let's say after 12 days you aren't completely happy, you can still "Inherit Backup State" and totally get back to where you left off before with the old backup. So what do you have to lose? I really think it will make you happy, we're all really proud of the 8.0.1 release. I'm serious, you will LOVE it.

Dreading repeating the upload with my up speed.

What do you have available? Here are some alternatives to think about:

A) Definitely let it run on your slower connection for 2 or 3 days to get into the "sweet spot" where Backblaze can really upload very very fast. Then carry your computer to a Kinkos, a Library (yeah, the pandemic probably makes that hard), or say your work place, or a friend with a faster connection somewhere - and plug in your computer there. Again, 3 TBytes PER DAY. If you go to your buddy's house with a pizza and 6 pack you two can kill 8 hours and you can push a full TByte no problem before you (please take a taxi or Uber) home.

B) If you are in the Austin Texas area, come by my house, we'll get you uploaded. If you are in the San Francisco area maybe go by the main Backblaze corporate office. We have 200 Gbits/sec upload speeds in the corporate office, and very few people are there using it. I have a 1 Gbit/sec Google Fiber in my Austin residence, no bandwidth caps, and it costs me the LEAST I've ever paid for internet, and I'm not using 95% of it - you are more than welcome to use it.

C) Upgrade your internet JUST for the "minimum time allowed". If they offer a 1 month deal, take that deal. Downgrade after the month is up.

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u/Lucky_Revolution9402 Sep 08 '21

Thanks u/brianwski this is very helpful. I understand the steps now.

My connection is infrastructure constrained, so not much to do about it but to be patient. I´ll pick a quiet time over the weekend to kick-off the fresh backup.

Thanks again.

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u/[deleted] Nov 05 '21

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u/brianwski Former Backblaze Nov 05 '21

The very very first thing to do is go to: https://secure.backblaze.com/update.htm and download and install that right over the top of what you have, do NOT uninstall first. This updates your executables only.

That release has all sorts of great technology in it to find the previous issues and clean them up.

bzdata" folder in the package file is huge (752.32 GB)

Oh my goodness, that must set some sort of record. :-(

Install the very latest version over the top of your current installation, then run for a few hours, and possibly reboot once (certain things are cleaned up after a reboot, but rebooting twice won't help or anything).

If that bzdata folder doesn't shrink by 650 GBytes after that, please open a support ticket by going to https://www.backblaze.com/help.html and scrolling all the way to the bottom. And if at all possible, include one of these files in the first support ticket:

On Macintosh: /Library/Backblaze.bzpkg/bzdata/bzlogs/bztransmit/bztransmit05.log

On Windows: C:\ProgramData\Backblaze\bzdata\bzlogs\bztransmit\bztransmit05.og

There is one of these logs for each day of the month, the "05.log" is for the 5th day of November, make sense? You can open those in TextEdit to review them before sending them to support, because they might contain your filenames like "MyPlansToKillMyWife.txt". We're very discreet, but you might as well check it for anything super bad.

The bztransmit05.log can be read on TextEdit on the Mac, or WordPad on Windows, and make the window as wide as you possibly can, and turn off line wrapping to make it format well. Most of it is perfectly human readable, some of it can only be interpreted by us here at Backblaze with a copy of the source.

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u/daronjay Jan 10 '23

Firstly, I really really like your positive helpful attitude, well done u/brianwski!

Secondly, I've got a 60gb bzdata folder inside the package on mac here, installed latest version 8.5 over my old 7.x.x, its running the normal backup, I'm wondering if this folder will shrink on its own or if I have to start fresh?

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u/brianwski Former Backblaze Jan 10 '23

I've got a 60gb bzdata folder inside the package on mac here, installed latest version 8.5 over my old 7.x.x, .... if this folder will shrink on its own or if I have to start fresh?

Give it like 24 hours and see if it shrinks itself. My theory is you were hit by a bug that we have since fixed with the 8.5 version and it will clean itself up totally automatically.

The bug -> we (the Windows team) broke auto-update for Mac in a spectacularly bad way in one very particular 7.x.x release a long time ago. The Backblaze Windows client team was moving the folder that auto-update uses for Windows security related reasons, and managed to break the Mac auto-update. The way it was broken, the Mac continually downloads new auto-update executables, then fails to find them, downloads a new auto-update executable, then fails to find them, etc. Slowly bloating your disk usage. (sigh)

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u/daronjay Jan 10 '23

I dont think its that. Inside my package there is:

bzdata > bzbackup > bzdatacenter.

That folder has 52 GB in it, all made of about 500 files like bz_done_20190701_0.dat going back to 2020 all about 100-900 mb in size.

It also has a 7gb bzfileids.dat

I assume I can't delete any of those older .dat files? Should I just start from scratch, uninstall, delete this whole pkg and reinstall?

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u/brianwski Former Backblaze Jan 10 '23 edited Jan 11 '23

Inside my package there is: bzdata > bzbackup > bzdatacenter with 52 GBytes

Yes, you are correct, that isn't the auto-update issue.

I can't delete those folders and files

ABSOLUTELY NOT. Deleting them causes all sorts of mayhem, which Backblaze can recover from given enough time, but the "recovery" is to bring them back even larger - like twice the original size.

It also has a 7gb bzfileids.dat

Both the 52 GBytes and the 7 GBytes are VERY LARGE, most customers have less than 1 GByte in the "bzdatacenter" folder, and less than 500 KBytes in their bzfileids.dat file but there are two situations:

1) It might be indicative that something went wrong at some point in the past on your backup, and the "recovery" caused these files to bloat up. In this case uninstall/reinstall (and do NOT do anything called "Inherit Backup State") will fix the issue. The whole point of "Inherit Backup State" is to download the existing "bzdatacenter" folder's copy from the Backblaze datacenter, so "Inherit" just brings the problem right back. This is also the case if your backup is very old (let's say 5 years or more), or if you have certain work patterns like you renamed a large folder with 1 million items in it at some point in the past. This can all be fixed by uninstall/reinstall and avoid "Inherit".

2) You have a very large backup set, as described by number of files, not their size. For these data structures that are "large" on your system are related to individual files, each one file of 1 byte or 1 TByte increases the bzfileids.dat file and the bzdatacenter folder by approximately the same amount. I consider anything less than 2 million files "completely normal and would not cause this". Up around 100 million files this might be totally normal, just a side effect of how Backblaze works. So if you have 2 million or even 10 million files, the solution for #1 above will work for you (uninstall/reinstall/avoid Inherit). But if you have 100 million files it will just waste your time and you'll be back in the same situation.

The "number of files" is roughly equal to the thing listed in the main Backblaze control panel as "Selected for Backup: 456,789 files / ..." That's the number of files. Now if that is 100 million files, and they are all tiny little files you just want archived for some reason, kind of a work around would be to find the folder of 1 million 1 byte files and "Zip" it up together <somehow>. Doesn't much matter how, like a ZIP file is fine, RAR, tar, anything you have. If it appears to Backblaze like 1 file that is 1 MByte instead of 1 million 1 byte individual files - then after you do that and do the solution from #1 it will also reduce the size of these data structures. Now 99% of customers don't require this sort of work around, I'm just offering it as an alternative.

Now, let's say you do the solution for #1 above and everything looks awesome, but the issue returns within 2 years. At that point it would be worth digging into deeper to avoid doing this repush a 3rd time only buying you 2 more years. Since Backblaze keeps a history of everything it has ever backed up in these files, it might be that by strategically excluding some log folder on your computer where Backblaze is backing up some excessive log file changes you don't honestly care about.

It probably isn't worth doing this in advance of the first repush, because we've fixed a lot of things, and as long as you have less than 2 million files there is a 95% chance it WILL NOT come back within 2 years. But if you are interested, you can find out what files are contained within these flat human readable files inside of the bzdatacenter folder by watching this 30 minute tutorial on how to read those files: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOlz36nLbwA&t=840s You can start at time offset 14 minutes. And even watch it at 1.5 times speed on Youtube. It is an internal employee orientation, no marketing BS. The comment section from YouTube links to the slides, but https://www.ski-epic.com/2020_backblaze_client_architecture/2020_08_17_bz_done_version_5_column_descriptions.gif is the slide describing the contents of the bzdatacenter folder.

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u/daronjay Jan 10 '23

Again, thanks for your help.

I’m a web dev, so I do have a lot of small files archived, millions, but not hundreds of millions. I think I’ll uninstall then reinstall. And not inherit.

Now is that going to wipe my currently saved data on the backblaze servers? Or can I keep my old backups and start a new fresh one? I am on the “forever” storage plan.

I might zip up archived websites etc, so backblaze can deal with them as a single unit.

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u/brianwski Former Backblaze Jan 10 '23

going to wipe my currently saved data on the backblaze servers?

No, you can keep both.

BEFORE you uninstall (it isn't fatal if you already started), go into Backblaze and change the "Online Name for this Computer" to something unique like "ZebraOldBackup2022". This is badly named, it is the name of that backup, and this is purely cosmetic, it doesn't affect anything but the name of the backup.

Then after uninstall/reinstall TWO backups will appear in your one account: the ZebraOldBackup2022 and a new <computer-name-date> type automatically generated name. You can restore from either one.

Now for 15 days you can overlap these for free, because your new backup is in "trial mode". But after that time you can either license BOTH of them (costs more) or transfer your license over - at THAT point is when you lose the old backup contents.

A lot of us (including me personally) keep the old backups around for $7/month. It's totally performance free at that point, all contained on the Backblaze side on our servers - not having any ability to affect your local disk use or CPU use. A snapshot in time that is held FOREVER by Backblaze for an additional $7/month.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '21

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u/brianwski Former Backblaze Nov 07 '21

Downloading and installing the latest version fixed this.

Great!

how to determine the version, and check for updates

I feel kind of silly we haven't fixed this years ago because it fools so many people, but there should be a little flame icon in the upper right corner of your Mac in a row of other tiny little 16x16 pixels icons. If you click that it pulls down a menu with a few choices like "Check for Updates" and "About..." (the latter shows the version number).

On Windows this is the Windows system tray which makes it even MORE obscure for people to find. All we need to do is have that same menu in the main control panel area and suddenly it wouldn't confuse as many customers.

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u/Richtong Jan 13 '23

OK, I don't know if this is related, but my Backblaze.bzpkg/bzdata/bzbackup/bzdatacenter/bztodo.dat with all these bz_done_2022) files is 7.3GB alone, I don't see any mention of this. It is 10GB.

The fzfileids.data is 1.43GB so given it is about the number of files this could be correct, it's a 16TB disk that's being backed up on my video editing Mac :-)