Shortly after I acquired my MacBook, I was disappointed to discover that Apple had designed lobotomized Time Machine so it wouldn’t work with generic network storage — e.g., with a NAS.
Much has been written about this elsewhere, so I won’t dwell on it here. Except to say that, contrary to the marketing spin, there’s no good technical reason why Time Machine should require disks formatted in Apple’s HPS+ file system. The file system should, under normal circumstances, be entirely abstract. The only reason for requiring an HPS+ disk on the other end of the wire (or, wireless connection) is for short-term revenue. If you believe anything else, I own a bridge in Brooklyn that I wish to sell you.
So, to my search for new network storage on my home network, I included looking for a Mac backup solution. I wound up buying a 2TB Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo in April, which came with Memeo backup software. Memeo LifeAgent for Mac seemed like a great solution.
A philosophical detour
I prefer scheduled backups (the standard backup paradigm) over backup-as-you-modify (the paradigm of some consumer backup apps, like LifeAgent). I’d rather incur backup overhead at discrete points, amortized over all file changes since the last execution, rather than continuously, with smaller overhead penalties occurring on every change. But I get how laypeople can more easily understand, “it runs all the time and saves every file you modify,” than the configuration steps needed in a standard backup application.
But the consumer backup apps tend to be cheaper, so, I chose to compromise a little bit in order to save a dime.
Back to the story
After setting up the LinkStation Pro Duo, I installed LifeAgent, and applied all the available updates. I then configured it to back up my folders and files to the NAS drive. I set up my account to always connect the NAS drive upon login. Then, I rebooted, logged in, and verified that everything was working as expected. This all went smoothly.
The first backup took a long time, but after that, the client woke up only after a file modification. After a while, I turned off the notification displays. Things were working smoothly, and I began to forget about it…
LifeAgent starts to suck
…Until around the fifth day, when I noticed my system being very sluggish. A quick check of iStat Pro made it clear that some process had gone berserk. 100% CPU utilization on a dual-core 2.6GHz processor is a whole lotta something!
Rebooted, and the same thing happened. Opened a Terminal window and ran top, and I found a process called Memod going bonkers.
Memod would suck up 100% of the CPU for about 20 seconds, then retreat for a short period, and then return to 100%. Because I had just finished using Quicken, I guessed it had something to do with my running Quicken in a VMware Fusion virtual machine. But a backup application should be able to process large files, yes? (When just one virtual file changes, the virtual machine state changes, so LifeAgent must backup the entire umpteen-gigabyte file.)
Memeo has a number of support forums, including one for LifeAgent for Mac. So on May 7 I wrote about this problem. There was a quick initial response from a Memeo admin — which was great! The admin asked for more details, which I supplied, and said they planned “to release an update by the end of the month if not sooner.” Excellent.
LifeAgent support starts to suck
But it’s now June 5, over one month later. And there’s no fix. Worse, there’re no responses from Memeo to questions about the fix’s status.
A couple other LifeAgent users replied in the thread, reporting they had the same problem. One was backing up to an eternal disk via Airport Extreme, and the other to a Time Capsule and two USB drives. While a few of us are reporting this problem, there must be many other affected users who just haven’t spoken up.
Memeo’s Windows’ forums have a fair amount of activity. So, maybe they have a much larger revenue stream from the Windows products, and they give LifeAgent bugs a lower priority. But-but-but this bug makes their product unusable! And folks, it doesn’t just happen on some antiquated disk, or in a corner case. I suspect this bug is central to their application’s design.
That Memo would not fix the bug is bad enough. But to not keep their user base appraised of the fix, and to not post a workaround, rather sucks.
So:
- Memo LifeAgent for Mac has a serious bug that renders it useless for some users.
- After an initial indication they would fix the bug, Memeo has ceased communicating about it.
- If you’re considering Memeo LifeAgent as a backup solution, you should look elsewhere.
12 responses so far ↓
A Review of EMC Retrospect for Macintosh « Seek Nuance // June 8, 2008 at 1:01 PM |
[...] for Macintosh Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: mac — John @ 1:00 pm After my terrible experience with Memeo LifeAgent for Mac, I searched for a better backup application for my MacBook. (By “better,” I mean, [...]
Memeo is clueless « Seek Nuance // June 12, 2008 at 7:28 PM |
[...] Memeo is clueless Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: mac — John @ 7:27 pm A follow-up to my earlier post about problems with Memeo LifeAgent for Mac, and Memeo’s sup-optimal customer …. [...]
John // September 28, 2008 at 10:34 PM |
I too have been having trouble with Memeo LifeAgent.
The software was on a LaCie backup harddisk that I bought. At the time I was not sure as to whether it was part of the whole backup system, so I installed it.
That was the start of my troubles on a new iMac dual core cpu Leopard system.
It got the computer backup system tied in knots, to the extent that in desparation I put the software into the “trash bin”.
That was my first wrong move, as I later discovered, as there is a a special piece of software included that will un-install Memeo fully.
Having removed the software I was left with an annoying “Memeo” icon in the top left hand corner of the iMac. AppleCare tried to help me remove it, but with no success.
Later on a forum I discovered how to remove the icon, but for that sesion ONLY, as it turned out. On re-booting the dreaded icon returned.
Another forum told me about the software for fully un-installing Memeo, BUT…. as I had “trashed”it during my initial removal of the software that was of no help. They also told me of another way of removing the the icon, BUT AGAIN only for that session, as on re-booting it returns to haunt one again.
Any ideas anyone how to get rid of ‘Memeo Lifeagent” in it’s entirety ?
Being a Mac novice it’s like jumping in at the deep end to be confronted with questionable software messing up the system.
John // September 29, 2008 at 7:22 AM |
@John: It sounds like the Memeo developers are still selling a very un-Mac mac application. Yikes! You’re supposed to be able to uninstall a Mac app by just deleting its folder.
I found a tutorial about adding icons to your Menu Bar. Check it out – maybe deleting the memeo file from the folder Menu Extras (if it exists there…) would fix your problem.
Another (brute force) option would be to search for files with “memeo” in the filename, and delete them. Then, reboot.
Another suggestion, try posting your question in a Mac user forum, like http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ or http://www.machelpforum.com/index.php.
FWIW, it’s not the Mac that’s the problem here…it’s the Memeo developers.
JLG // October 23, 2008 at 6:59 PM |
Agreed. I have had an ongoing problem with Memeo for the last month. Unanswered requests for support… no customer service phone number… responses are taking more than a week and still don’t resolve anything.
Did you figure out how to uninstall LifeAgent? Were you able to get a refund?
John // October 24, 2008 at 10:23 AM |
@JLG: I didn’t have a problem uninstalling LifeAgent, and I didn’t receive any follow-up from @John. I never bothered trying to get a refund…it was included in my LinkStation purchase, so I considered it as a “life experience.”
Gordo // January 13, 2009 at 4:00 AM |
Just reinstall the memeo lifeagent from the web and then use the uninstall program to get rid of the annoying icon on the menu bar.
A review of EMC Retrospect 8.0 for Macintosh « Seek Nuance // January 17, 2009 at 5:11 PM |
[...] to Macs at home, I looked for a better backup tool, and eventually tried Memeo LifeAgent for Mac. It was terrible. Chastened, I switched back to Retrospect, this time for the Mac (of course). It did the job and [...]
Nathan // February 5, 2009 at 11:30 AM |
@John
It worked, I reinstalled it and just used the uninstall program it had instead of throwing it in the trash like what macs usually do and it went away. thanks
John // February 15, 2009 at 11:52 AM |
This program is like a cancer on my Mac. Thanks for the tips for uninstalling. Selling this kind of product should be illegal.
Richard // February 20, 2009 at 1:01 PM |
Tried re-installing from the web and uninstalling using the memeo uninstaller and it worked perfectly.
Anne // June 4, 2009 at 3:12 PM |
Well, Crap!
I just paid $29.95 for this Memeo.
Trial came with My Book (Western Digital external)
Wish I’d known to read here first!
I’m on a PowerBook G4 – and of course I bought my mac just before they went from 80 GB to 120 BG. I’m contemplating a new iMac, but thought I’d try this first.
Any suggestions. I’m really more interested in external storage to free up the Powerbook than backing up business files,etc. Although I would hate to lose my photos.
TX