Hi,
Can I delete the jobs.xxxx.xxxx.xml files in the directory c:\Program Files (x86)\VisualCron\settings

These multiple files are created each day (see the uploaded screen capture).

What triggers the creation of these files?

Looks odd, we don't have thos files. Are you sure you don't have an export settings task running somewhere ?

Hi,
The time stamp on the file (data and time), specifically the hour/minute are not "similar" from day to day. I am running the "backup settings" job which does export the settings. This is the job that is created by default when VisualCron is installed. This job runs at defined times (11:59am and 11:00pm). The jobs.xxxx.xxxx.xml files seem to be created at "random" times during the day. I'm running VisualCron version 9.0.0 Pro. I only discovered this behaviour a couple a days ago. The ...\settings directory has jobs.xxxx.xxxx.xml dating back to over 2 years. Can't recall what version was installed 2 years ago. I routinely do an upgrade of the VisualCron version ("in place upgrade" and not an uninstall and then an install). I'm always a couple of versions behind the most recent version.

I want to delete these files to recover disk space and to "stop" these files from being created.

Hi,

I looked at this folder also. Looks like some sort of backup of the jobs.xml
In my folder I had 2 extra jobs.xxxxx.xxx.xml files, but after a while one was gone. I still have one from 4 months ago..
Looks like some internal process of Visualcron is doing this as this is its own settings folder.
I renamed the last one (added a '_' in front) just to see what will happen, for now, it looks all good.
Just don't delete the jobs.xml file!

Regards,
Erik

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Could it be the "event" trigger? Disabling 3 jobs where I am using an event trigger.

Visualcron support, what do you think?

I disabled the jobs using event triggers. Problem still persists. The jobs.xxxx.xxxx.xml files are still being created.

Solution?

This is what one of the jobs.xxxx.xxxx.xml files looks like (contents).
  job.xxxx.xxxx.xml.jpg (350kb) downloaded 23 time(s).





Definitely not an XML file (the normal jobs.xml file is a structured XML file).

Can someone from VisualCron support, provide a comment. What is creating these files?

I also notice the size of this file fluctuates. Its as if VisualCron is doing some sort of "clean up" routine for the jobs.xml file.

The jobs.xml file contains xml tag information about the status of the job too ? And for whatever reason the byte size of the jobs.xml file increases. And perhaps this mystery file which is being created is a "clean up" routine?

If this is the case, then there needs to be a routine to remove the jobs.xxxx.xxxx.xml files which are being created.

My jobs.xml file are anywhere from 25 MB to 40MB in size.

Okay, not certain why I didnt do this earlier. I checked the visualcron server log file.

This is the error message recorded in the log file when one of these jobs.xxxx.xxxx.xml files is created


8/19/2020 4:07:18 PM Err JobAPI->Save->Error saving jobfile: System.IO.IOException: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.

at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.File.InternalMove(String sourceFileName, String destFileName, Boolean checkHost)
at VisualCronService.JobAPI.Save(String strSpecialPath, List`1 lstIncludeOnly, Boolean bolIncludeAll, Boolean InShutDown) in C:\git\code\VisualCronService\Jobs\apiJob.vb:line 255

I suspect the code is trying to update the jobs.xml file and fails. This is looking like a bug with the VisualCron code.

Hi,

I looked at this folder also. Looks like some sort of backup of the jobs.xml
In my folder I had 2 extra jobs.xxxxx.xxx.xml files, but after a while one was gone. I still have one from 4 months ago..
Looks like some internal process of Visualcron is doing this as this is its own settings folder.
I renamed the last one (added a '_' in front) just to see what will happen, for now, it looks all good.
Just don't delete the jobs.xml file!

Regards,
Erik

Hi Erik,
The PC/server where you see this file created, is it a physical or virtual machine?