Well, what shall i suggest if you don't even know what happened to the system. 
And your puzzle pieces are not really helpful. But if the OS files are really 
incomplete, how do you expect dependent programs to run?

 - First i would look whether other applications are running fine. 
 - Then, if you still can, look at the OS logfiles.
 - Next, try to run backups from the client first before you start with an 
automatic backup.
        Use the command line and add verbosity-
        And do not use "savefs -p" but "savegrp -p"

Good luck.

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