Observation on Backup Versions Count

1

I just noticed today that if a backup job runs, but doesn’t find any changes the backup versions count doesn’t increase. This makes perfect sense, but I don’t think I had ever had a backup job where nothing changed from one run to the next so I was used to seeing a new version every run.

Also no files are placed on the destination at all if nothing changes. Again it makes sense, but I was planning to monitor the destination each day looking for new files as a “canary in a coal mine” to warn me if Duplicati failed to run for an extended period of time.

Just wanted to share to save anyone else the testing in case they notice the behavior and wonder :slight_smile:

2

It’s true that no files are uploaded when there are no changes in source files since the last backup operation.
To upload files for a new restore point, even when there are no changes, you can use advanced option --upload-unchanged-backups=true.

2 Likes
3

Thanks @kees-z!

That’s perfect. I was hoping there was a way to do this inherently without hacking together a pre-run script to “touch” a file each run. Appreciate you saving me the effort of digging through the advanced options!