In Panther, the well-known backup program Retrospect Express will only run once before generating a fatal error every time it is run (until the computer is restarted).
The error message refers to an error -48 (duplicate name), and says it can't open the "Operations Log" (the main log file for the program) because it is in use by another program. If you fix the Operations Log problem, then it complains of: file error -54 (file is busy/locked) regarding Retro.Express Config (5.0), the main configuration file. When you fix that, it complains about Retro.Icons.
I found, through trial and error, that copying the affected files then overwriting the originals with the copies would fix the problem. Of course, after Retrospect ran once, you would have to do this again. I've written up a little Applescript to automate this workaround (see below).
Here's the Applescript:
--In Panther, Retrospect does not close these files, causing it to
--refuse to run the next time because the files are "in use".
--Copying the files to different names then replacing the
--originals with the copies fixes the problem.
--Pardon the many backslashes.
--Script kludged together by Jesse Weinstein, at 1 AM on 1/6/04.
--Released into the public domain.
do shell script ¬
"cp /Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Retro.Express\\ Config\\ \\(5.0\\) ¬
/Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Retro.Express\\ Config\\ \\(5.0\\)2"
do shell script "mv -f /Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Retro.Express\\ Config\\ \\(5.0\\)2 ¬
/Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Retro.Express\\ Config\\ \\(5.0\\)"
do shell script "cp /Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Retro.Icons\\ \\(5.0\\) ¬
/Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Retro.Icons\\ \\(5.0\\)2"
do shell script "mv -f /Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Retro.Icons\\ \\(5.0\\)2 ¬
/Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Retro.Icons\\ \\(5.0\\)"
do shell script "cp /Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Operations\\ Log ¬
/Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Operations\\ Log2"
do shell script "mv -f /Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Operations\\ Log2 ¬
/Library/Preferences/Retrospect/Operations\\ Log"
[robg adds: I'm pretty sure this script will fail with the "¬" AppleScript line break characters I added to the do shell script lines (to narrow its display width here). If it does, just remove those characters and the line break, leaving just a space between the two parts, and it should work fine.
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040106050650277