HBS3: Automatically Run Content Check After Backup Completion

Feature Request
1

I would like HBS3 to support automatically running a Content Check immediately after a successful backup job.

Background

Currently, a Content Check can only be run manually or scheduled as a separate time-based task. It cannot be automatically started after a backup job completes.

HBS3 already allows backup jobs to be chained together (for example, starting one backup job after another finishes). It would be very useful if a Content Check could also be used as a post-job action.

Requested Feature

Please add an option such as:

:check_box_with_check: Automatically run Content Check after successful backup

The workflow would become:

  1. Backup completes successfully.

  2. HBS3 automatically starts a Content Check.

  3. If the Content Check passes:

    • Mark the job as Verified.

    • Send a success notification indicating both the backup and verification completed successfully.

  4. If the Content Check fails:

    • Mark the job as requiring attention.

    • Send a failure notification.

Benefits

  • Eliminates the need to manually start a Content Check after every backup.

  • Allows users to start backup jobs before leaving work or going to bed and wake up to fully completed and verified backup jobs.

  • Makes backup verification part of the normal workflow instead of a separate manual task.

  • Ensures offline and air-gapped backups are verified before being disconnected and stored.

  • Reduces the need for custom scripts and manual workflows.

  • Provides a complete Backup → Verify → Notify workflow entirely within HBS3.

The backup job should not be considered fully complete until both the backup and the Content Check have completed successfully.

2

Hi,

Thank you for providing your requirements and suggestions. We will pass this on for internal evaluation and arrange the subsequent implementation. Thanks.

3

Hi Jack,

I wanted to add another suggestion related to HBS 3 integrity checks.

I’ve discovered that when an integrity check is running, a scheduled backup can interrupt it and cause the check to fail, particularly with RTRR jobs that don’t use QuDedup.

I’d like to see an option that temporarily prevents scheduled backups from running while an integrity check is active. Once the integrity check completes, backups would resume normally.

For example, I have a backup job that runs every 30 minutes, but an integrity check can take several hours. Currently, this makes it difficult to complete an integrity check without manual intervention.

The only practical workaround is to temporarily extend the backup interval from 30 minutes to something like once per day, manually initiate the integrity check, wait for it to complete, and then restore the original 30-minute schedule. This also makes automatically scheduled integrity checks impractical, since they can be repeatedly interrupted before completion.

Interestingly, HBS already implements half of this behavior in the opposite direction. According to QNAP’s documentation, when a backup job is running, scheduled integrity checks are automatically skipped. However, when an integrity check is already running, HBS prioritizes the next scheduled backup and interrupts the check instead.

I’d suggest making this behavior reciprocal as an optional scheduling policy: whichever operation starts first should be allowed to finish without interruption.

  • Backup running → Skip any scheduled integrity checks until their next scheduled occurrence.

  • Integrity check running → Skip any scheduled backups while the check is active.

  • Neither running → Follow the normal schedules.

I believe this could be a relatively simple solution from a scheduling standpoint: when a scheduled backup is triggered, HBS would first check whether an integrity check is currently running. If so, it would skip that backup rather than interrupting the integrity check.

Essentially: If Integrity Check Running → Skip Scheduled Backup.

Ideally, this could be implemented as a configurable scheduling option with three behaviors:

  1. Prioritize scheduled backups (current default): Maintain the existing behavior, where scheduled backups take priority and may interrupt an active integrity check.

  2. Skip backups until the next scheduled interval: If an integrity check is running, skip scheduled backups and resume at the next scheduled interval after the check completes. This would be ideal for frequently running jobs like my 30-minute backups.

  3. Run a backup immediately after the integrity check: If one or more backups were skipped, automatically run a single catch-up backup as soon as the integrity check completes, then return to the normal schedule. This would be particularly useful for jobs with longer backup intervals, such as daily or weekly backups.

By keeping the current behavior as the default, existing users and their backup workflows would remain completely unaffected. The new options would only apply to users who explicitly enable them.

This would prevent integrity checks from being repeatedly interrupted without requiring users to modify their backup intervals, disable schedules, or manually initiate checks. It would also make automatic integrity-check scheduling practical for frequently running backup jobs while ensuring that less frequent jobs don’t miss an entire backup cycle.

Thanks again for considering these suggestions!