Backups are failing

Backups are failing

What you'll learn: what to check when your scheduled backups stop working.

1. Open the failing backup

Sidebar → System → Backups. Click the failed run. The error message at the top tells you what went wrong — start there.

Common error patterns:

"Out of space at destination"

Your backup target is full. Either:

  • Delete some old backups (the panel can do this automatically — see your retention policy)
  • Add more space at the destination (S3 has no limit; SFTP servers do)
  • Reduce backup frequency or retention

"Connection refused" or "could not connect"

Your destination is unreachable. Check:

  • For S3 — has the access key been rotated or revoked? Try generating a new key.
  • For SFTP — is the destination server up? Try logging in manually with an SFTP client to confirm.

Test the connection from the Backups page (Test connection button on the destination).

"Authentication failed"

Credentials wrong or expired. Re-enter them from the destination's edit page.

"Permission denied"

The user/role can read but not write. For S3, the access key needs s3:PutObject and s3:ListBucket on the bucket. For SFTP, the user needs write access to the target directory.

"Disk full on local server"

The panel needs working space on the local disk while building each backup. If / or /var is full, backups can't run.

df -h

Free up space (old logs, package cache: apt clean).

"Some accounts succeeded, some failed"

A specific customer's data is the problem — usually a corrupted file or a database with lock contention. Open the failed account's details for the specific error and try a manual backup of just that account.

2. Test a one-off backup

After fixing the cause, run a manual backup to confirm it works before relying on the schedule.

3. Set up alerts

In Settings → Notifications, turn on alerts for backup failures so you find out by email instead of by surprise.

If you've tried everything

Contact support with:

  • The exact error message from the failed run
  • The destination type (S3 or SFTP)
  • Roughly when it started failing

Related articles

Need help? Contact support.