All configurations lost

Hello,

Not sure what caused this because I have noticed this issue after a while, but all configurations are lost and are not visible in web UI.

But I have files with encrypted backups and also config directory is preserved, but seems like those are encrypted too (I had master password for web UI configured).

Config directory looks like

BZQTSLVNRG.sqlite
IRXCNAFWVI.sqlite
KUNBDIAGCV.backup
KUNBDIAGCV.sqlite
UNSWUNIOZL.sqlite
VDTLEZTVJS.sqlite
VGNUCVFWCE.backup
VGNUCVFWCE.sqlite
YFJNEJJWRZ.backup
YFJNEJJWRZ.sqlite

What should I do in order to recover my configurations please?

I had the same issue. I come back to review backup status and find my configurations are all gone. Browsing to the web GUI says “first time run”. How do I get back on track here?

If you are on Windows running Duplicati as a service, I recently found that when Windows 10 upgraded to the latest version, it “wiped” out all my Duplicati settings and opening the Duplicati page behaved as if I was running Duplicati for the first time. The default setting for the Duplicati service is to run as Local System and the config is stored in C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Duplicati and after the upgrade, it seems Windows cleared out the systemprofile directory completely, including the Duplicati settings.

Fortunately, Windows Upgrade kept a “Windows.old” directory, which still contained the old systemprofile data. I copied back my original Duplicati settings (now at C:\Windows .old \System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Duplicati) to the “fresh” location and my settings were back again.

I think for the long run, I’ll have to see if there is a way to specify where the profile data is stored, because it seems then that every time Windows does a major update, Duplicati’s settings will be blown away…

1 Like

@martindeveloper & @briandanimal, what versions of Duplicati are you using?

While this is a valid issue (and not yet “fixed” as far as I know) it’s possible this is not what’s happening in this case.

I say this because I, too, ran into a single machine where the configs just disappeared - and there was no Windows.old folder.

In my case it was with version 2.0.3.6 but the machine was not in my direct supervision so I don’t know what had been done to it in the 5 weeks since I had last seen it. I’ll try to do some forensics on it to see there’s a Windows Update history that coincides with the last write date to the .sqlite files…

Same question…my configurations have disappeared from the GUI. My data is still in my cloud storage location, but local configuration just vanished. What now? Where are they so I can point them properly?

I moved your post to this new topic because I think it might apply better. If you give it a quick read, do you agree this sounds like what happened to you?

Lost my config on a a Win 10 machine aswell. I had no Windows.old directory. How do I store my Duplicati service config in a folder other than C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Duplicati?

This is perhaps a duplicate thread of Installed Windows 10 Fall Creators Update - Now Everything is Missing In Duplicati

(Spoiler: there are several remedies to this issue!)

For me, the simplest resolution was to run the Duplicati service as a specific user (rather than the Local System) so that the settings would be stored in that user’s own profile directory rather than the Windows systemprofile directory.

I created a new Windows user on the machine locally and then changed the Duplicati service to run as that user. If you do this, you will of course have to copy the Duplicati databases and configuration from the Windows systemprofile directory to your new user’s profile directory (assuming you still have those available from the Windows.old directory).

Even more simple is running Duplicati.Server.exe (or installing the service) with the option --portable-mode.
Running in portable mode will store all data and settings (like the Duplicati databases and temporary files) in a subfolder Data at the location where Duplicati is installed.
Creating an additional user account is not needed, Duplicati program and data is stored at the same place (just copy the Duplicati main folder to secure your complete Duplicati environment, including settings and backup configurations) and the System Profile User folder is not used.

Hey all, for those of us who missed our 1-month window to grab the config file out of windows.old, is there any solution? Do I have to just start the backups from scratch? Any way to tack the new backup onto the old database?

@whitenack

Assuming you still have the back end data, yes, you can get it up and running again.

You’ll need to configure your backup jobs from scratch. Some of the details must be exactly the same as before: same encryption key, same block size (default is 100KiB), same destination, etc. Once you configure the job, do a database repair and Duplicati will download some files from the back end in order to rebuild the job-specific database. After it’s complete, you can resume backups.

If Repair DB rebuild starts taking forever in the 70% to 100% range, you might need a new Duplicati.
There’s a bug in the current Beta that can do this. Unfortunately, the fix for it is only in Canary, so far.

If you need to guess at what source files you had configured before, you can see what restore offers.
The FIND command can also make (probably large) listings, if that’s easier than browsing in the GUI.

Thank you ts678. I was having this issue and didn’t realize it. It had been sitting on about 90% for several hours and I just thought that was the way it went. Actually just had the computer crash and tried to run the repair again and got an error that it couldn’t be repaired. So it looks like I need to start over anyway.

Thanks everyone.

If you’re willing to try the latest Release: 2.0.4.34 (canary) 2019-11-05, it seems quite good except for the Stop button, and might be able to rebuild database from backup quickly. Might be worth a try if you would prefer not starting backups from scratch, i.e. if old versions have some value. I think Recreate is somewhat simpler than what Repair tries to do, so there might be fewer reasons for it to have trouble.

You lost all databases already, right? Upgrade would have upgraded them (making downgrade hard), however if they’re gone then you either try to Recreate from backup, or start the backups from scratch. Changing Settings back to Beta channel updates would probably be a good idea, to be conservative…