First install, warning detected during restore

A first-time user, I installed the latest Duplicati Canary, created a backup job, ran the backup, then ran a restore. The restore seemed to work fine because I got the file I expected and was able to open it, but the logs show a warning that I assume is a programming bug that ought to be fixed:

Warnings: [
Failed to apply metadata to file: “E:”, message: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. => Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

It’s possible that the problem is failing to apply NTFS permissions. I noticed that I had to give myself permissions on the file before I was able to open it.

Also strange is that the warning says the file is just “E:”. I believe it should say “E:\my file name.pdf”.


Edit: I noticed that this forum says to post bugs to the GitHub page, so I did that too: https://github.com/duplicati/duplicati/issues/3036

It sounds like you’re running into the issue mentioned below. In that case, the problem was that the original backup was multiple folders deep but the restore was “higher” up. For example:

  1. Back up E:\Dir1\Dir2\myFile.mp3
  2. Restore to myFile.mp3 to E:\ (instead of the subfolders)
  3. I SUSPECT Duplicati tries to apply the metadata from Dir2 to E:\ but since it’s a drive, not a folder, the error occurs.

You’re right. I backed up a file that was deep in folders and restored directly to the root of E. That other forum thread has more history about this bug, so anyone finding this thread should probably use that one: https://forum.duplicati.com/t/warnings-failed-to-apply-metadata-to-file/1636/7

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