Migration to new PC - faq wanted

I have read the various posts, but it would be nice if there was a FAQ on migrating to a new PC; best/quickest/most efficient. Hope I didn’t miss one.

In my case, the new PC will be a duplicate of the old as regards users and data locations, and I will have access to all the old Duplicati index files etc. The pc name will change from Sphere to FTS (don’t ask :laughing:)

I propose to stop Duplicati on the old machine when I’m ready to change over and copy across all of the Duplicati jobs and indexes; then restart Duplicati on the new PC. All the data will have been copied across and will be up to date. Backup destinations are OneDrive and Backblaze B2.

Is this the best way? Anything I’ve forgotten? All comments welcome.

Note: I haven’t tested or done anything below

I think that a good way is to simply reinstall Duplicati normally and copying your %appdata%/Local/Duplicati folder to the new one. This way all databases and backup jobs will already be copied. Unless you have jobs that have DBs outside of this folder.

Is it a Windows or Linux machine?

Windows - and that should do it. Thanks.

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Please keep us posted on whether it worked!

All seems to have gone well :sweat_smile::grinning:

Now done a ‘verify’ and currently backing up.

I’ve been using Duplicati for a while with no incidents. I’ve now arrived at the inevitable situation where I have a new computer – in fact, two. In one case, the old computer is accessible, in the other it isn’t (crashed). In looking all over the Duplicati forums I haven’t been able to find a coherent set of instructions on how to migrate to a new computer (either with or without the old computer available).

Does such a document exist and I just can’t find it? If not, it is much needed!

I agree - a FAQ should be written up if one does not exist yet.

Basic steps if the old PC is still accessible:

  • Disable Duplicati process/service so it no longer attempts to run backups. (Very important!)
  • Copy the %localappdata%\Duplicati folder from the old PC to the new PC. (Assuming you are using Windows here…)
  • Install Duplicati on the new PC and start it.

It should recognize all your old backup jobs and everything. If files are laid out the same on your new PC, you might be done. Otherwise you may need to edit the backup job and adjust the “source” folders.

Note that if you did any special install method on the old PC, like configuring it as a service, you should do the same on your new PC. Also note the path in second bullet point may vary depending on how you did the initial setup.

Basic steps if the old PC is NOT accessible:

  • Install Duplicati on the new PC.
  • Configure a new backup job and specify all the same details as you used on the old PC, such as destination folder, encryption key, etc. (Hopefully you recorded this information somewhere. Personally I keep exports of all my backup configs and store them in a safe place. This way I can re-import the backup job if I’m ever in this situation.)
  • Run the Database repair option to rebuild the local database. This may take some time depending on how big the backup is.
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Rod – many thanks. This had the important hint – copy the files and then install Duplicati! Actually, I have a small suggestion that would improve it further (maybe the beginnings of a small set of instructions for this) – Trying to copy the files first is hard because the relevant folders don’t yet exist. What I ended up doing (partly be accident) was installing Duplicati and then immediately uninstalling it. This leaves the relevant folders in place so the files can be copied; Duplicati can then be reinstalled. In my case, the file paths had to be fixed and then everything worked fine.

Duplicati has to be uninstalled because, at least for me, one of the files is write-protected in some manner and can’t be replaced by the corresponding file from the old computer. It should also be pointed out that the AppData file on Windows in a hidden file so won’t be seen unless the hidden files are made visible.

Depending on whether my other old computer can be fixed or not, I may or may not be able to try the procedure for the case where the old computer is not accessible.

Dave

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Backup Reconnect was a similar question with some answers, and some commentary by me such as:

I remember a time (a couple of decades ago) when I was coding tools for users who were developers, and even in that setup, among developers only, I often ran into a situation where while I was writing user instructions, I got stuck with how stupid my own program’s user interface was, and ended up modifying the software instead, and then scrapping the unnecessary instructions. Writing user instructions should not be perceived as a distraction. It can be very productive if done often enough. Well, depending on the developer type, of course. I’m crap with the UI’s.

Signed up on this forum just to inform that the procedure outlined by mikaelmello and drwtsn32 works perfectly!

I had 3 jobs on a (Windows) computer that died for me but the hard drive was still working. Copied the files as instructed and installed Duplicati (using chocolatey) and everything was up and running in 5 minutes.

Source: Windows network share
Destination: One Drive for Business

Thank you for the instructions!

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Hi Overthere,
tried the above described method which also in my opinion should work… but strangely it didn’t :frowning:

After some try’n’error I noticed that my Duplicati isn’t storing the sqlite-files in
%localappdata%\Duplicati
but in
c:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Duplicati\

I assume this is because I’m running Duplicati as a service. Can anybody shed some light on this?

And yes I too think this should become part of the documentation and FAQ

Yes, if you are running as a service then that is the default location for database files.

Note that this isn’t a good location for Windows 10 machines. During the major semi-annual updates, this location is affected and it will break your backups. (The files aren’t deleted, but can be found in C:\Windows.old… so you can recover.) I would recommend you move the databases somewhere else though. C:\ProgramData\Duplicati seems like a good idea to me. Hopefully Duplicati will be improved in the future so this is the default location when running as a Service.

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Thx. When I read your message I remembered doin’ so before but had totally forgotten, so it sent me into a spin.

I second that “installation as a service” and change of the directory when doin’ so should be part of the regular installation process. Do you know whether there’s already an issue opened for this on github?

I just wrote a How-To on this that might be what the OP is looking for: Restoring Duplicati after a Windows system reinstallation - How-To - Duplicati.

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i just changed to duplicati running as a service 2 hours ago on a win 10 machine and moved my DBs to

c:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Duplicati\

as described elsewhere on here. now i read this!!! :grimacing:

Yeah, I’d recommend moving those files to C:\ProgramData\Duplicati

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