Why is Carbonite paused and how do I activate it?

Posted by kent on December 22nd, 2009

The following post in our Reader Question series is an actual user submitted question.

Q: I have a message that my Carbonite is paused. It gives me two choices.Dismiss or unpause. I click on unpause with no results. Why is it paused & how do I activate it?

A: We're not entirely sure why this is happening. Pausing is generally a user-activated function, and done for a designated period of time. While we can answer questions about our experiences with the service in general, we suggest that you contact Carbonite customer support for specific technical or account issues, as they have more experience with individual trouble shooting.

Updated 12/29: In our comments section, a reader suggested the following fix:

Carbonite may also be paused if you've set up a backup schedule. You can check this by right-clicking on your Carbonite lock icon in the system tray and selecting "Options…", then clicking the "Backup Schedule" tab.

If you select the first option, "Update my backup automatically", Carbonite should unpause and start backing up again.