Can I use scheduled backups on FREE version?
Automatic backup is a PRO feature added on Prime Mover version 2.0.0+. So you need to purchase a license before you can use this feature.
Can you show me a guide on how to get started using scheduled backups?
Sure, please check out this tutorial.
Do you support setting custom schedules for my backups?
Yes, you can set custom schedules for your automatic backups. Please read this tutorial.
My backup doesn’t fire or is very slow to complete. Do you have any advice?
Prime Mover PRO automatic backups use WordPress cron. WordPress cron only fires when someone visits your site.
If you don’t have enough traffic, your schedules won’t fire either. We recommend using an external cron service to fix this problem. If you have a dedicated or VPS server, you can use the native Linux cron to replace the default WordPress cron functionality. Both of these solutions will make sure that your backups will run on time. You can also turn on turbo mode if your host supports it.
My scheduled backup appears to be stuck and not running anymore; what would I do?
You can try restarting the scheduled backup process. And try to evenly distribute your server resources if you are running too many backups at once.
What makes Prime Mover PRO’s scheduled backup feature unique to other backup solutions?
It is one of the most versatile automated backup solutions. It will allow you to:
- Create scheduled backups for a WordPress single site whether local or remotely hosted.
- Full WordPress multisite subsite automated backup support.
- Create encrypted backups for security. All data, including user information, database, media files, and plugins and themes, is encrypted.
- You can store these backups to Google Drive and DropBox remote cloud storage.
- Decide on any schedule on when you want the backups to run.
- It doesn’t use PHP shell functions (
exec,shell_exec, etc). This makes the implementation more friendly and secure. You can run automatic backup on any host, even shared hosts. - You can set a custom timeout that depends on your server timeout. Your backup will run even if your hosting timeout is very low. Simply set a low timeout values (lower than your hosts) and you are good to go.
- When the backup runs – it is a pure standalone process. So once the backup is running – Prime Mover disables the executions of all third-party plugins/ hooks/calls or custom code on the background (while not affecting any user in your site or your site front end/ back end operations). This drastically lowers the memory and CPU usage footprint every time the backup process is running. This makes it very efficient in terms of performance usage.
- It is designed to be as easy to use as possible, without having to mess up with server settings or command lines. All options are intuitively accessible to an average website administrator, including non-coders with average WordPress experience.
If my Prime Mover PRO license expires, will automatic backups stop?
Since this is a PRO feature, you will need an active license to have the backups continuously run on your site. If your license expires, your scheduled backup will not also be executed. To prevent this kind of issue, it is recommended that you refrain from canceling the automatic renewal within your Freemius account. After purchase, automatic renewal is automatically enabled.
This is to make sure your license is always working (and renewing it when it’s almost over). If you want to stop the automatic renewal for some reason, put a reminder in your calendar to renew it manually.
Do you support email notifications when an automatic backup is made?
To follow our GDPR policies. We decided to delay this privacy-sensitive feature. There are many free plugins that can do this. For example, this one hasn’t been tested yet. You can try it out to see if it works in your case. It will send emails on cron failures or updates.
Since Prime Mover PRO uses WordPress cron, you can use third-party plugins to monitor it as well.
Do you support automatically deleting old backups after a specified number of months?
For us, it is a dangerous task to delete backups automatically, even if they are old. We believe that backups should be reviewed personally by the administrators/network administrators before you hit the delete button (which is found in Prime Mover PRO -> Packages) This will prevent accidental deletion of important backups.
You must review the backups or test them as often (in your local maybe or other site) and then decide if you don’t need that one – simply delete it. It is up to you to determine which backups should remain in your package manager.
How do I know if my scheduled backup has been added correctly?
You can go to Prime Mover PRO -> Event Viewer. For every site with active automatic backup schedule, you should see two cron events.
- The main schedule event (this will cause the backup task to be fired according to the schedule).
- In case of a retry timeout, the Retry event will trigger the event to continue the pending backup process.
The schedule backup is correctly added and queued for execution as long as you see these two events.
Can an ongoing scheduled backup process be canceled, and if so, how?
It’s as easy as disabling the automatic backup to end an ongoing backup process. This procedure assumes that an ongoing backup process is running (you can see a progress percentage on the Event Viewer)
The following steps are necessary for best results and correctness.
If it’s single site:
- Login as site administrator.
- Go to Prime Mover PRO -> Settings -> Backup management -> Automatic backup.
- Unchecked “Enable automatic backup” checkbox.
- Save it.
- Go to Prime Mover PRO -> Packages.
- In the package manager page of the site – click “Refresh packages” button. This will clear and delete any artifacts or incomplete packages.
If it’s multisite
- Login as network administrator.
- Go to Prime Mover PRO -> Toolbox.
- Enter the blog ID of the site where you need to cancel and ongoing scheduled backup process.
- Unchecked “Enable automatic backup” checkbox. This disables the automatic backup process for this sub-site only (not to other sites).
- Go to Prime Mover PRO -> Packages.
- Enter the blog ID of the sub-site where the automatic backup is now cancelled.
- In the package manager page of the site – click “Refresh packages” button. This will clear and delete any artifacts or incomplete packages.
How can I restore my automatic backup package to another site/domain or even different hosting?
If the environment is identical to the original site where the backup was initially created. For example, if you create an automatic backup package in a WordPress single-site environment, you can only restore it to another single-site environment. This is true regardless of the domain names, URLs, or even hosting. It will work as long as the site is still a WordPress single site.
But it is not possible to restore a single-site package to any multisite multisite. Or the opposite way around – you cannot restore a multisite package to a WordPress single site. Another example is that a multisite package can only be restored to another multisite provided that the blog ID matches. For example, if a package was created automatically for blog ID 3 in the origin site. It can be restored to any multisite, as long as the target blog ID is also 3. Therefore, you will not be able to restore the multisite backup package to another multisite if there is a mismatch with the blog ID.
How many licenses do I need to use automatic backups for multisite?
It depends on the site you use. If you only want to schedule backups on one site in your multisite (like the main website), then a single site license plan is enough.
But if you want all the sites in your multisite to have scheduled backups, you need to buy a license plan that covers them all. It depends on how many sites are included in your multisite. If your multisite only has 4 sites, a 4-site license plan is OK. If you have more than 10 sites, you should buy an unlimited license plan.
Do I need to manually clean up some of the backup logs?
No and yes. Backup logs are cleaned periodically by its own routine maintenance. So old logs are removed because they are now outdated. Cleaning the logs regularly keeps them from taking up too much space on your server.
You can clear the automatic backup logs manually by going to Prime Mover PRO -> Toolbox and clicking the Clear log button.
Can I try out the automatic backup feature for 14 days?
Yes, but only for fourteen days in a row. You can test all of it’s features/settings as long as the trial is valid. You can test shorter schedules, like daily executions, to see if it works. You can also set custom schedules to test that are in your trial period.
The trial only lasts for 14 days, so you can’t try it out for a whole month.