[rdiff-backup-users] Old back-up increments not deleted by rdiff-backup

[Claus C Pörtner]

I have a system which does a nightly back-up to one of two external 
hard-drives. The hard-drives are rotated on a regular basis so I always 
have one in another location. Generally things work well, but I have 
noticed that rdiff-backup does not delete the old increments for one of 
the folders.

This is from the automated response I have set up for rdiff-backup:

Backup began 25-08-2009 at 01.00.03

Backing up /usr/local
Deleting old back ups
No increments older than Wed May 27 01:00:04 2009 found, exiting.

Backing up /etc
Deleting old back ups
Deleting increments at times:
Sun May  3 01:00:03 2009
Mon May  4 01:00:04 2009
Tue May  5 01:00:03 2009
Thu May 21 01:00:03 2009
Fri May 22 01:00:04 2009
...
[more of the same for /var and /home]

The trick is that all the increments on /etc are also on /usr/local, but 
they are clearly not being deleted. I have tried to instruct rdiff to 
delete them using command line and tried to change the request date or 
number, but it still insists that there are no older increments. Short 
of deleting that whole part of the back-up structure is there something 
else I can do?

Claus