Zgemma 9h twin full image backup not working.

I've recently been getting a Zgemma H9 twin. It is a fantastic little box. Very fast and multiboot is great.

However, I cannot get the full image back-up to work. I've tried it with Pure2 6.3, OpenPli 7.1 and OpenATV 6.3 with no success.

I've got a newly installed 300GB HDD with only a few files (movies, recordings etc) on it.

The backup of the system settings to HDD works fine.

However when I elect to do a full image backup to /media/hdd I get this output with Pure2 and OpenPli :-

Create: rootfs.tar.bz2
tar: ./run/avahi-daemon/socket: socket ignored
Almost there...
Now building the Backup Image


Error:
Incorrect command line
_______________________________


Image creation failed
Probably causes could be:
   wrong backup destination
   no space left on backup device
   no writing permission on back-up device


Time required for this process: 0:03:58


Execution finished!!

With OpenATV 6.3 the process gets a bit further:-

Create: rootfs.tar.bz2


Almost there...
Now building the Backup Image


7-Zip (a) [32] 16.02: Copyright 1999-2016
Igor Pavlov : 2016-05-21
p7zip Version 16.02
(locale=C, Utf16=off, HugeFiles=on, 32 bits, 4CPUs LE)


Scanning the drive:
1 folder, 4 files,103916515 bytes ((100MiB)


Creating archive: /media/hdd/openatv-6.3-
zgemmah9twin-backup-20191017_2220_mmc.zip
Items to compress: 5


Files read from disk: 4
Archive size:103542368 bytes (99MiB)
Everything is OK
_____________________________


Image creation failed
Probably causes could be:
  wrong backup destination
  no space left on backup device
  no writing permission on back-up device


Time required for this process: 0:04:05


Execution finished!!

A zip file is created on the HDD. I can then enter recovery mode and flash the backed-up image.

However, when flashing is complete the box does not boot and it just reverts to the recovery mode.

The zip file produced (101,116Kb) contains

unforce_h9combo.txt

h9combo (folder)

force_h9combo_READ.ME

imageversion

rootfs.tar.bz2

There is no "uImage". Should there be?

I've tried backing-up the image in use and also an image in another slot - with the same result.

Am I the only one with this problem? What is the problem? How can I fix it?

The solution for me was to use OpenVIX 5.3. The full image backup and restore works on that image. The only one I've found!

For your problem you could FTP download the created files in h9combo to your PC and zip them there. Then FTP the resulting zip file back to the hdd on your box. Check the restore works on a test to an empty slot before relying on the restore image for real.

I think I have discovered the problem I was having in the PurE2 image. One of the plugins I had added had overwritten the 7za file in /usr/bin

When I replaced the original file the full backup then worked.

I still got the "socket ignored" error and the "Image creation failed" message but a backup zip file was created and I was able to restore it.