Monitor stale backups

Keeping your website backups current is essential for protecting your data. Unfortunately, outdated or stale backups often go unnoticed until a recent backup is needed to recover from a problem.

You can monitor stale backups in Watchful to identify websites that have not been backed up recently. Watchful can notify you when backups become outdated and display warnings before you perform software updates.

Stale backup monitoring works with all of the backup plugins supported by Watchful for WordPress and Joomla.

How stale backup monitoring works

Watchful considers a backup stale when its age exceeds a configurable threshold, measured in days.

For example, if your stale backup threshold is three days, Watchful will flag a website when its most recent backup is older than three days.

Watchful checks backup freshness approximately every three hours as part of its Early Warning Audit.

When a stale backup is detected, Watchful can:

• Display warnings in the Sites Dashboard.
• Send an email notification about the stale backup.
• Display warnings in the Site Updater and Bulk Updater before applying software updates.

Watchful sends only one email notification for each detected stale backup condition, preventing repeated notifications about the same issue.

For websites already managed by Watchful, stale backup notifications must be enabled before monitoring begins.

Configure the default stale backup threshold

The default stale backup threshold determines how old a backup can be before Watchful considers it stale.

To configure the threshold:

1. Log in to your Watchful account.
2. Navigate to Settings > General.
3. Locate the Default stale backup threshold setting.
4. Enter the maximum acceptable backup age in days.
5. Click Save Settings.

Choose a threshold based on your backup schedule. For example, a website backed up daily might use a threshold of two days, while a website backed up weekly might use a threshold of eight days.

This default applies to sites using the global threshold. You can override it for individual websites.

Enable stale backup monitoring for multiple sites

You can enable stale backup notifications for multiple websites simultaneously from the Sites Dashboard.

1. Open the Sites Dashboard.
2. Use the checkboxes beside each website to select the sites you want to monitor.
3. Click Bulk Actions in the dashboard toolbar.
4. Select Enable stale backup notifications.

Watchful enables stale backup monitoring for the selected websites using the default threshold.

To disable monitoring for multiple websites, follow the same steps and select Disable stale backup notifications.

Customize stale backup monitoring for an individual site

Different websites may require different backup schedules. Watchful lets you customize the stale backup threshold for each website independently.

For example, you might want to receive a warning after three days for a frequently updated website, but allow seven days for a less active site.

To configure monitoring for an individual website:

1. Open the Sites Dashboard.
2. Click the website name to open its site drawer.
3. Click Edit to open the site settings.
4. Locate a specific Backup profile in the Backup section.
5. Ensure Disable notifications for stale backups is NOT selected.
6. Enter the maximum acceptable backup age in days.
7. Repeat for any additional backup profiles for this site.
8. Click Save and Close.

The threshold configured for an individual backup profile takes precedence over the default threshold in your settings.

To disable stale backup monitoring for a specific website, select Disable notifications for stale backups and save your changes.

Configure stale backup email notifications

Watchful can send an email when it detects that a website’s backup has become stale.

To receive these notifications, navigate to Settings > Notifications and ensure that stale backup notifications are enabled.

Also verify that the global Disable all notifications setting is disabled. When this setting is enabled, Watchful suppresses email notifications, including stale backup alerts.

Watchful sends one notification for each stale backup condition rather than repeatedly emailing you while the condition remains unresolved.

Warn about stale backups before updating

Updating sites without a recent backup can increase the risk of data loss if an update fails.

Watchful can display a warning when you attempt to update a website whose most recent backup exceeds the configured stale backup threshold.

These warnings are available in both the Site Updater and Bulk Updater.

To enable update warnings:

1. Navigate to Settings > General.
2. Enable Warn about stale backups before updating?.
3. Click Save Settings.

Once enabled, Watchful warns you when attempting to update a website with stale backups.

We recommend creating a fresh backup before proceeding with software updates, especially when performing bulk updates across multiple websites.

Troubleshooting stale backup warnings

If Watchful reports a stale backup even though a recent backup exists, follow these troubleshooting steps.

Create a fresh backup

First, create a new backup from the Sites Dashboard.

After the backup completes successfully, refresh the website’s data in Watchful and check whether the stale backup warning has cleared.

Check the stale backup threshold

Compare the default threshold under Settings > Notifications with the threshold configured in the website’s individual settings.

Remember that the site-specific threshold takes precedence over the global default.

Check Akeeba Backup records

If stale backup warnings persist on a website using Akeeba Backup, outdated backup records may be contributing to the problem.

Akeeba Backup stores backup statistics in a database table named #__ak_stats, where #__ represents your website’s database table prefix.

In some cases, renaming this table to #__ak_stats_old and refreshing the site data in Watchful can resolve incorrect stale backup warnings.

This is an advanced troubleshooting step that modifies your website’s database. Always create a database backup before making changes, and verify that the procedure is appropriate for your installed version of Akeeba Backup.

After completing the change, return to the Sites Dashboard, refresh the website data, and check whether the warning has been resolved.

Best practices for backup monitoring

To make the most of stale backup monitoring in Watchful:

• Schedule regular backups using a supported backup plugin.
• Set backup thresholds that reflect each website’s activity and backup frequency.
• Enable email notifications so you can respond promptly to outdated backups.
• Enable stale backup warnings before performing software updates.
• Create fresh backups before major website maintenance.
• Periodically test your backups to ensure they can be restored successfully.

Monitoring stale backups in Watchful helps you identify backup problems early and reduces the risk of discovering outdated backups when you need them most.