I can no longer delete old backups

Sinocelt · May 8, 2025, 8:14am

I used to prune my backups using the “delete” command and an argument like this one: --version=10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40

Now I get this error:

2025-05-07 22:36:41 +08 - [Error-Duplicati.Library.Main.Controller-FailedOperation]: The operation Delete has failed with error: You have attempted to remove the passphrase on an existing backup, which is not supported. Please configure a new clean backup if you want to remove the passphrase. UserInformationException: You have attempted to remove the passphrase on an existing backup, which is not supported. Please configure a new clean backup if you want to remove the passphrase.

This is probably due to my recently(ish) encrypting the database.

What can I do now?

[Edit:] It said it failed, but versions seem to have been deleted anyway. I had about 150 versions and have only 89 left. The overall size of the backup doesn’t seem to have changed, though.

kenkendk · May 12, 2025, 9:31am

Those two are not related. The error message is for the remote data encryption, and the post you link to is encrypting the settings database. The two are fully unrelated.

This error message is shown if you do the following:

Run one or more backups with encryption enabled
Run a command with --no-encryption=true

In this case, Duplicati infers that you would like to remove the encryption of the remote files. This is not supported because it would require rewriting all remote files.

(In case someone actually wants this, the RecoveryTool/duplicati-recovery-tool can do this with the recompress command).

That sounds odd… The delete command verifies the database before attempting to delete anything:

github.com/duplicati/duplicati

Duplicati/Library/Main/Operation/DeleteHandler.cs

master


      
          public async Task RunAsync(IBackendManager backendManager)

          {

              if (!System.IO.File.Exists(m_options.Dbpath))

                  throw new UserInformationException(string.Format("Database file does not exist: {0}", m_options.Dbpath), "DatabaseFileMissing");

          

              using (var db = new LocalDeleteDatabase(m_options.Dbpath, "Delete", m_options.SqlitePageCache))

              using (var tr = new ReusableTransaction(db))

              {

                  Utility.UpdateOptionsFromDb(db, m_options);

                  Utility.VerifyOptionsAndUpdateDatabase(db, m_options);

          

                  await DoRunAsync(db, tr, false, false, backendManager).ConfigureAwait(false);

          

                  if (!m_options.Dryrun)

                      tr.Commit("ComitDelete", restart: false);

              }

          }

Line 58 does the encryption change check and refuses to go any further, so it never gets to line 60, which will (eventually) delete remote files.

Do you have the option --no-encryption set somewhere? If so, it needs to be removed, and then everything should work as expected.

Sinocelt · May 13, 2025, 2:06pm

Not that I can see. And why would it suddenly “appear”? I had no problem pruning my versions until recently-ish. I would know if I’d added --no-encryption somewhere.

That is odd. Some versions have disappeared. A lot of versions, actually. But usually deleting versions takes more time than took place here before the error appeared, I believe. Can they have been “falsely deleted”?

(I’m beginning to think that I have a gift for breaking Duplicati.)

[Edit:] I tried to delete just one version this time (--version=1), and there was no issue.

ts678 · May 19, 2025, 1:21pm

You switched to Canary on December 30. If it’s still Canary, please say so on reports.
Canary is sometimes rather easy to break. Bug reports are great, but say it’s Canary.

Canary imagines it in the new UI, when Commandline is used, as doing such delete requires.

Steps for similar 2.1.0.118 Canary bug:

Run an encrypted backup of a short file.

Use Commandline to run same backup.

Developer tools shows its request to be:

`["backup", "file://C:\Duplicati\duplicati-2.1.0.118_canary_2025-05-12-win-x64-gui\RUN\test 2\",…]
0
: 
"backup"
1
: 
"file://C:\\Duplicati\\duplicati-2.1.0.118_canary_2025-05-12-win-x64-gui\\RUN\\test 2\\"
2
: 
"C:\\backup source\\short.txt"
3
: 
"--backup-name=test 2"
4
: 
"--dbpath=C:\\Duplicati\\duplicati-2.1.0.118_canary_2025-05-12-win-x64-gui\\RUN\\UBPLTGPKJZ.sqlite"
5
: 
"--backup-id=2"
6
: 
"--no-encryption=True"
7
: 
"--dblock-size=50MB"
8
: 
"--compression-module=zip"
9
: 
"--disable-module=console-password-input"

Output Window says:

Backup started at 5/19/2025 9:12:54 AM 
 Checking remote backup ... 
 The operation Backup has failed with error: You have attempted to remove the passphrase on an existing backup, which is not supported. Please configure a new clean backup if you want to remove the passphrase. => You have attempted to remove the passphrase on an existing backup, which is not supported. Please configure a new clean backup if you want to remove the passphrase. 
 
 
 ErrorID: PassphraseRemovalNotSupported 
 You have attempted to remove the passphrase on an existing backup, which is not supported. Please configure a new clean backup if you want to remove the passphrase. 
 Return code: 100

New UI shows different view than was originally set up::

NGAX (is there a better name coming?) shows correctly:

and its Commandline looks good (unlike new UI which is very empty) and runs successfully.