Hi Ken, cron is scheduled to run at 8pm every night, it has been running for a few weeks now and does run as I have checked the log file as you mentioned. I have already altered the automatic backup and cron times to check that it was running as previously it was skipping all the time or erroring so at least now I know it's working.
I've also checked the backup part of several courses from the restore option. I set the number of backups retained to two in the automated backup settings and for all courses I can see two mbz backup files so it is working.
I'm using IIS on server 2008. I assumed you just had to provide a folder location for the backup files, there is no mention of setting permissions and rights access in the documentation.
Are you suggesting to turn debugging on for when the backup is run to see if anything is reported in the log?
thanks in advance,
Michael