by Emma Richardson.
It could just be that the 3 courses are pretty large and take some time to backup. So when cron runs the part to send you the email, the courses are still backing up and show as pending. Later they complete but moodle does not send out another email regarding backup status (which really would be nice if it did!). I have seen this pending status email several times but normally by the time I go in and check the backup has indeed completed.