Borgbackup plugin compact pop out message window output location?

While running a Borgbackup repository "Compact" option, the process begins and shows a starting message in the "pop out" message window on the OMV admin web page. This process takes a long time. After navigating away from the OMV web page to do other things and eat lunch upon returning, the admin account session has idle-timed out. After reconnecting, there is no longer a "pop out" message, so no way to inspect the results of the compact operation. (I looked at Syslog and Messages logs, did not see anything indicating compact when I filtered containing "borg".)

In the borg documentation, under logging, there are CLI options to send the output of an operation to a file. Should I do compact as a cron job and capture the results to a file? I would like an e-mail on that cron job as well, is there a suggested syntax I can use?

Also can you say if maybe this question's answer might generalily apply for stdout and stderr for any running process "pop out" message window that otherwise disappears because the admin session times out?

Thank you.

I am attempting to use the Scheduled Tasks to run a borgbackup compact operation once a month. To see how it will work, I scheduled it for a few minutes into the future and then looked for the email. But no email arrived. [Yes I checked spam filters.]

And, I have been successfully receiving emails generated in the OMV > System > Notification > Settings. I also get emails from the Borgbackup plugin when my scheduled backup jobs run.)

If the command in Scheduled Tasks is has an error, will an e-mail be sent containing the error? Since there is no interactive way to test the syntax, I'm in the dark in case of a syntax snafu. For example, do I need to use sudo? Is the path (copied from the repo's share) in the correct format?

See screenshot below of the OMV > System > Scheduled Task item below. See the syslog entry at the time the cron fired (below). See the contents of the cron file (below).

What else can I look at to determine why I get no email?

2/3/2026, 4:28:01 PM
CRON[2615143]: (root) CMD (/var/lib/openmediavault/cron.d/userdefined-8d8d60af-e493-4be9-bd17-8a58bc21b333 2>&1 | mail -E -s "Cron" -a "From: Cron Daemon <root>" root >/dev/null 2>&1)

rasproot@MAINFRAME:~ $
rasproot@MAINFRAME:~ $ cd /var/lib/openmediavault/cron.d
rasproot@MAINFRAME:/var/lib/openmediavault/cron.d $ cat userdefined-8d8d60af-e493-4be9-bd17-8a58bc21b333
#!/bin/sh -l
# This file is auto-generated by openmediavault (https://www.openmediavault.org)
# WARNING: Do not edit this file, your changes will get lost.
borg compact /srv/dev-disk-by-uuid-2602bb14-2801-4226-b3eb-817478e4022d/borgbackup_repository/
rasproot@MAINFRAME:/var/lib/openmediavault/cron.d $

I realized I should try something a bit simpler. So I scheduled an echo "hello world" and that Scheduled Task e-mail came through.

So It is definitely something unique to the borg compact CLI.

I just tried this at the SSH console, there is no error and no output. The shell prompt returns immediately. What am I doing wrong?

Last login: Tue Feb  3 16:54:10 2026 from 192.168.1.58
rasproot@MAINFRAME:~ $ Last login: Tue Feb  3 16:54:10 2026 from 192.168.1.58
rasproot@MAINFRAME:~ $ sudo borg compact /srv/dev-disk-by-uuid-2602bb14-2801-4226-b3eb-817478e4022d/borgbackup_repository/
rasproot@MAINFRAME:~ $

Quote from ryecoaaron

Again, why you don't want to check the compact checkbox in the archive?

Becuz "<The user can choose when to run the compaction, it should be done periodically, but not necessarily after each backup.>"

Quote from ryecoaaron

You need the --progress flag to show output. https://github.com/OpenMediaVa…d/rpc/borgbackup.inc#L589

Thank you for providing that additional command option. When I include --process flag I get email as follows:

From: Cron Daemon
Subject: [MAINFRAME] Cron - Borgbackup Compact
Compacting segments   0% Compacting segments   4% Compacting segments   7% Compacting segments  11% Compacting segments  14% Compacting segments  18% Compacting segments  21% Compacting segments  25% Compacting segments  29% Compacting segments  32% Compacting segments  36% Compacting segments  39% Compacting segments  43% Compacting segments  46% Compacting segments  50% Compacting segments  54% Compacting segments  57% Compacting segments  61% Compacting segments  64% Compacting segments  68% Compacting segments  71% Compacting segments  75% Compacting segments  79% Compacting segments  82% Compacting segments  86% Compacting segments  89% Compacting segments  93% Compacting segments  96%

Which is rather useless. At least it did generate an email and gave me the clues needed to find other more useful borg command options.

So, for the benefit of anyone else reading this, here is my proposed answer to this question:

borg compact /srv/dev-disk-by-uuid-2602bb14-2801-4226-b3eb-817478e4022d/borgbackup_repository/ --verbose --show-version --show-rc 

I recommend including "--verbose --show-version --show-rc" flags, since this has the advantage of also sending an e-mail even if there is an error encountered. I also found in a different forum thread that the Tags option in Scheduled Tasks is the way to provide values to the Subject: of the email received.