Symptom
"Service is unavailable" message is shown in the right bottom part of the screen when Acronis tray monitor is unable to connect to Acronis Active Protection background service.
The message "Acronis Active Protection is inactive" is displayed when placing the mouse cursor over the grayed out tray icon:
Cause
The service may not be running or there may be another reason for preventing successfull connection between the tray monitor and Acronis Active Protection service.
Troubleshooting
Computer has just booted up
If the computer has just started up, not all background processes and services may have been fully initialized yet. Wait about ten minutes, then check the icon of Active Protection in the notification area. If the shield icon becomes colored, it indicates that Acronis tray monitor has successfully connected to the Active Protection service and it is working correctly:
Active Protection service is stopped
If the tray icon remains grey and the status message "Acronis Active Protection is inactive" stays, check the service status and start it, if it is not running as explained below.
Press the key combination Ctrl+Shift+Esc on the keyboard to open Windows Task Manager:
Click on the Services tab and click on the Description column's title, sort services' descriptions in ascending order:
Locate Acronis Active Protection service in the list and note its status:
If it is Stopped, right-click it and select Start:
The service status should change to Running:
"Acronis Active Protection is inactive" and "Service is unavailable" messages should disappear and the tray icon turn blue in the notification area, indicating that Active Protection is running correctly.
Windows 7: a problem with Windows Update causes Acronis Active Protection service to stop
Users of Windows 7 may be affected by a problem with Windows Update, which technically includes "Cryptographic Services" Windows service stopping. Acronis Active Protection service depends on Cryptographic Services and stops as well. Follow instructions from this article to fix Windows Update, then reboot. Acronis Active Protection service should be running correctly then.
Acronis Active Protection is unvailable after Windows update
If you use Acronis True Image 2017 New Generation or an early build of Acronis True Image 2018, you can face an issue where Acronis Active Protection service is unvailable after installing Windows updates. The issue is due to the specifics of tcipip.sys driver from one of the Windows updates: Acronis Active Protection service may malfunction in case of rapid connection reopen through this driver.
To resolve the issue, update to the latest build of Acronis True Image 2018 (see this article for instructions). If you use Windows 10, also install Windows update from KB4345421
A temporary issue with Acronis Active Protection service
If Acronis Active Protection service is running, but the messages "Acronis Active Protection is inactive" and "Service is unavailable" still remain, follow the instructions from the previous step, but instead of Start, select the Restart option to restart the service:
Damaged/corrupted installation
If the problem persists, Acronis True Image files and settings may have become damaged or were not installed correctly. To address the issue, run repair installation as explained below.
Get the installation file for Acronis True Image. If you do not have one, open https://account.acronis.com in a web browser, sign into your Acronis account and click Downloads under Acronis True Image section. The Installation file link will point to the latest build of Acronis True Image. Download and run the installation file:
If the build that you currently have is older, you will see the Update button. Click it to update to the latest build. If it is the same version as you currently have installed on the computer, click Repair:
Reboot the computer after that, even if not prompted for that by the installer.
Checking Active Protection logs
You can check Active Protection detailed activity log to try to figure out what could have gone wrong in your particular case. See here for where to find Active Protection logs.
Checking the tray monitor's logs
If Acronis Active Protection service is shown as Running in Windows Task manager, "Acronis Active Protection is inactive" and "Service is unavailable" messages might be a false alarm. The problem might be with the tray monitor component that displays them, being unable to connect to the Active Protection service for any reason. You can obtain the detailed logs of the tray monitor as explained in this article.
Contacting Acronis for help
If you need further assistance, contact us directly as explained here.