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Question

Losing System Restore points.

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
September 15, 2013
5 replies
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Adobe Flash Player 11 Active X = 11.8.800.94

Adobe Flash Player 11 Plugin = 11.8.800.94

Firefox 23.0.1

Internet Explorer 9.0.8112.16421 Update Version 9.0.19

Anti-Virus = Avast Free

I've had my Sony Vaio laptop for 2 years: Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1. 64 bit. Intel Core i5.

Recently I discovered that my System Restore points are disappearing.

They create with no problem.

And I tested a restore and it restored me with no problem.

But daily I will check System Restore and I have the Red X telling me that I have no SR points.

I've done:

About 8 different anti-virus/rootkit/boot time scans, and they've turned up nothing.

Did scannow and ckdsk with fix/repairs and they've turned up nothing.

Turned off Sys.Restore, rebooted, turned back on, rebooted, did not solve problem.

Deleted all SR points, completed new ones, did not solve problem.

I uninstalled/rebooted/reinstalled Adobe Flash for IE and Firefox, rebooted. Did not solve problem.

I ran Windows diagnostic on my Memory and Hard Drive, no problems with them.

I have the System Restore set to use 20% of my hard drive. There is an abundance of space for dozens of Restore Points, which it used to hold successfully for the last almost 2 years. This is a recent problem. There is plenty of available space on the hard drive.

Also, since they started disappearing, I never have more than 3 and usually only 1 RP when they disappear.

I am running no cleanup programs like CC Cleaner which may delete Restore Points.

So I kept checking SR after everytime I'd do something or use a program.

It now appears that when I am running a lot of streaming videos at the same time my Memory goes up to as high as about 91%, and sometimes (fairly often) Adobe Flashplayer crashes.

But even if it doesn't, it is then that I lose my SR points.

The RP's disappearance ALWAYS coincides with me using Adobe Flashplayer, but not at all EVERY time I'm using Flash.

It seems to occur especially when my RAM usage is over 70%, especially when it gets to 90% or so which can occur when I have many windows open and am streaming several things.

Also periodically, especially when Flash is using high memory amounts, I get a message: "A script running is causing Shockwave Flash to run slowly." and/or "Shockwave Flash may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the plugin now, or you can continue to see if the plugin will complete."

There is an option to close Flash, or to Continue.

It occurred today, I clicked "Continue" the several times it appeared, and I did not lose my rps today when this occurred.

But this message also seems to appear frequently at the times when I lose my rps,

Losing the rps is not contingent on this message appearing.

UPDATE - I can now replicate the problem, using either Firefox or IE - run a bunch of streaming videos, have the RAM usage reach at least the 60% range but especially over 70% and more so when high 80%s range or 91% or so, and I lose the Restore Point(s).

I've been planning to double my memory anyway from 4 GB to 8GB.

Hopefully that will solve the problem.

But I've had the computer for almost 2 years, and this is a new problem, and I've always streamed a lot of video simultaneously (not all the time but once in awhile) and had Adobe Flash crashes.

But never affecting the SR's until recently.

So I'm not sure if the Memory upgrade will do it, as it's a new problem.

I've already tried all the fixes in : http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/flash-player-games-video-or.html

Just went with Firefox to: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/ and there is message "A plugin is need to display this content. Install plugin...", which is strange, since I also sometimes get the "Shockwave Flash may be busy..." etc. message described above.

Trying to avoid reformatting Windows to a Sony factory restore.

Very scary not having several rp's, let alone not having a single one.

Suggestions?

This topic has been closed for replies.

nexturejohn

Participant

Hi, finally I have found someone who has the same problem as I have been experiencing for the past couple of years. I don't want to get into a philosophical discussion about System Restore, good or bad, but sometimes it is very useful to be able to wind back the system when an installation goes wrong. I too am running Windows 7, and I too had no problems with Restore Points for many years. Then they started disappearing and initially I was unable to discover why.

Recently I had a really bad crash which necessitated reinstalling the original Windows 7 system from scratch. As I gradually rebuilt my system, bringing everything up to date, the Restore Points didn't disappear at all, until the day I re-installed Adobe Photoshop Elements 11. After that, every time I use Photoshop, the Restore Points disappear!

This is a situation that I can reproduce any time.

All my software is now up to date with the latest versions of everything, including Flash, which I hadn't considered as a possible offender. But if I want the restore points to disappear, I know what I have to do!!!

jeromiec83223024

Inspiring

Given the age and drama associated with this thread, I'm going to lock it.

It's very unlikely that a software installer or updater is the root cause of a problem with the Windows system restore subsystem. This is one of those "correlation is not causation things". Installer activity tickles the system restore subsystem, which exposes a symptom of an underlying problem. Since we don't write, or have control over the system restore feature of Windows, Microsoft really is in the best position to troubleshoot it.

Microsoft has direct engineering channels to us, in the event that one of our installers was doing something bad; however, the whole point of the operating system's installation infrastructure (at least in modern versions) is to ensure that installers are well-behaved. We work closely with Microsoft (they provide feedback from both telemetry and direct testing), and this is not an issue I've seen come up in discussions, nor is it a widespread problem.

With ~2.5 billion monthly installs, we get a really excellent survey of the entire universe of things that can possibly go wrong; however, this is an exceedingly rare complaint. The rarity also suggests a system in an abnormal state.

That said, if you're actively experiencing a problem with our installer, please start a new thread, and we'll do our best to help.

George in Seattle

Known Participant

I just stumbled on this while searching for something else. This is a late answer and I don't know if you solved it or not, but this might point other people in the right direction at least.

I do know that SR overruns it have nothing to do with memory and everything to do with excessive disk writes to directories and objects SR deems as "system", also disk writes to system objects on extra drives you may be including in SR. The more writes, the faster the allotment % fills up, and the faster restore points will evaporate. I discovered this while using a 3rd party defragmenter which failed to properly inform the OS of what it was doing, so it would quickly overrun all the restore points. There should be event log ("volsnap" I think) entries that you can correlate with the activity and the offending application.

It's not a perfect answer because my memory is faint, but it sounds like what you are talking about.

pwillener

Legend

An interesting case! And you seem to have observed it very carefully, so I do not doubt that there at least "may" be a connection with your Flash usage and the disappearing restore points.

I personally believe that system restore is a very valuable tool, and nothing should just wipe our your restore points.

How exactly are these restore points wiped; what triggers it?

The best way to find out is using a monitoring tool like Process Monitor.

If I were encountering this problem (which I don't, on a very similar system as yours), I would

restart Windows
stop any unnecessary processes
make a note of all available restore points
start Process Monitor
do whatevery causes these to be wiped
stop Process Monitor, then search if anything regarding these lost restore points

The output from Process Monitor will be VERY LARGE! There is no way to browser through it; you will have to search for specifics, e.g. the name of these restore point files.

Axel987Author

Participating Frequently

Pat - Thanks for the attempt to be helpful.

Clicking on the link you provided gives me this:

"Server Error

404 - File or directory not found.

The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."

chris.campbell

Legend

If you haven't already, I would bring this up with Microsoft. Flash Player itself isn't calling any APIs to remove or delete system restore points. Here's a MS KB doc that talks about restore points being deleted on reboot with fragmented drives:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2533911

Maybe something similar is occurring when your ram becomes limited and presumably your disk cache is being hit.

C_F_McBlob

Inspiring

I worked with two MCSEs in 2003 and they BOTH told me the same thing about SR. It's a last resort before a complete format and reinstall. 99 times out of 100 it does as much harm (if not more) than what you were trying to fix. I was new to Windows troubleshooting at the time and another support agent had told me to recommend SR as a "quick fix" to an install problem. One of the MCSEs took me aside and advised me about SR and the other joined us a few minutes later, and bolstered the assertion by pointing out that ANY and ALL documents and changes you make are destroyed in a System restore. If you're editing files and documents all day every day, you risk losing your work and important files when you choose to restore to a previous state. Generally, NO ONE should need more than a day or two at the very most of restore points, and nealry everyone will never need more than the most recent, unless they are doing all kinds of testing and troubleshooting, and "breaking things" that would require "undoing". System restore is extremely overrated.

Windows also has a limited amount of space it can and will allot to "restore point" backups. If it didn't, eventually your hard drive would be so full of "restore point" backups that there would be no room for anything else. When that limit is reached, older restore points will automatically be deleted. Things like Flash data storage for streaming videos can cause restore points to be deleted for the sake of keeping working space available, but you'd have ot be REALLY short on HD space for that to occur.

Additionally, fragmentation can take up plenty of unnecessary space and will also lead to unexpected deletion of restore points.

RAM usage has NO impact at all on restore points because RAM and Hard Drive are two separate entities. Unless you've got some software that SPECIFICALLY allocates hard drive space as RAM (Not likely as NTFS doesn't work that way), and it was pulling restore space to use for that RAM, you could use 100% of your RAM with Flash Videos, and it would have NO effect at all on what your Hard drive has or doesn't have.

Axel987Author

Participating Frequently

C F McBlob - "I worked with two MCSEs in 2003 and they BOTH told me the same thing about SR. It's a last resort before a complete format and reinstall. 99 times out of 100 it does as much harm (if not more) than what you were trying to fix. I was new to Windows troubleshooting at the time and another support agent had told me to recommend SR as a "quick fix" to an install problem. One of the MCSEs took me aside and advised me about SR and the other joined us a few minutes later, and bolstered the assertion by pointing out that ANY and ALL documents and changes you make are destroyed in a System restore. If you're editing files and documents all day every day, you risk losing your work and important files when you choose to restore to a previous state. Generally, NO ONE should need more than a day or two at the very most of restore points, and nealry everyone will never need more than the most recent, unless they are doing all kinds of testing and troubleshooting, and "breaking things" that would require "undoing". System restore is extremely overrated."

1) I've found ever since I've used a computer that System Restore is extremely helpful and effective.

2) Your anecdotal stories do not change my opinion - which is based on years of practical experience - in the least.

3. "99 times out of 100 it does as much harm (if not more) than what you were trying to fix."

I've used it many times over the years and have yet to find this to be the case.

4) "...ANY and ALL documents and changes you make are destroyed in a System restore."

Totally false - a few seconds using DuckDuckGo or any other Search Engine would show you that this is incorrect.

E.g. - "System Restore can make changes to Windows system files, registry settings, and programs installed on your computer. It also can make changes to scripts, batch files, and other types of executable files on your computer. Personal files, such as documents, e‑mail, photos, and music files, are not changed."

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-types-of-files-does-System-Restore-change

5) I choose to keep more than "a day or two" of System Restore points, and have found this extremely useful in the past.

Unfortunately, currently, my computer cannot keep even one.

6) I came here for help in getting System Restore to work properly.

Instead, the gist of your message is how bad System Restore is.

That is not helpful in the least, and is beside the point of my OP. (It is also something I wholeheartedly disagree with, but the whole issue is irrelevant to my concern).

"Windows also has a limited amount of space it can and will allot to "restore point" backups. If it didn't, eventually your hard drive would be so full of "restore point" backups that there would be no room for anything else. When that limit is reached, older restore points will automatically be deleted."

Yes, I am aware of this.

As I stated in the OP,

"I have the System Restore set to use 20% of my hard drive. There is an abundance of space for dozens of Restore Points, which it used to hold successfully for the last almost 2 years. This is a recent problem. There is plenty of available space on the hard drive.

Also, since they started disappearing, I never have more than 3 and usually only 1 RP when they disappear."

so clearly lack of space is not an issue.

My hdd currently has 453 GB free.

I am not interested in learning how System Restore in your opinion is a bad program which I should not use, which is the gist of your message.

(Based on statements you make, you seem to have little familiarity and understanding of this utility, and have gotten incorrect advice from MCSEs 10 years ago which you are eager to pass on).

I am interested in help with getting my computer to not lose Restore points - i.e., for my OS to work properly in this regard, and my losing them is somehow tied in with Adobe Flash.

Can anyone help me with that?

C_F_McBlob

Inspiring

System restore is garbage and a last resort, whether you agree with it or not whether you like it or not. You're WASTING a lot of time and effort over something YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN BE USING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

If you have problems with System Restore (a Microsoft Windows app) you NEED to take it up with Microsoft.

In other words, "physician heal thyself". Your broken OS is NOT Adobe's problem and is ISN'T mine, so have fun with it.

Axel987Author

Participating Frequently

UPDATE - Uninstalled my antivirus Avast Free, installed MSE using it as a real time antivirus (as I did with Avast).

Brought up a bunch of videos which use Flash, lost my restore point within a few minutes.

So it is not antivirus dependent, it is not caused by Avast.

Adobe Flash is undoubtedly causing me to lose my system restore points.

For the last almost 2 years I've run the same amount of Flashplayer videos, and never lost a restore point.

Flashplayer used to crash a lot, but never a problem losing the rp's.

I suppose it's conceivable that a malicious script is triggered when Flash videos play, but I've run 2 different Rootkit scanners - Kaspersky's TDSS and Malwarebytes AntiMalware BETA Rootkit Scanner, as well as about 6 different antivirus scanners and Avast Boot Scan, and nothing has been found.

Help please.

I'm going to have to reformat unless you can help with a cure.

404 - File or directory not found.

The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."

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