Scheduling a backup task in Windows Task Scheduler

How-To
1

I exported a task I set up in my previous windows (Win8.1) installation and imported it into my new (win10) installation in windows Task Scheduler. It consists essentially of the command “C:\Program Files\Duplicati Client\duplicati_client_0.6.3_windows\duplicati_client.exe” with argument “run 26” to trigger a backup job (id=26) at logon.
This used to work fine, but I can’t get it to work in the new environment. I verified that all my backup jobs run as specified by their timer settings (as well as manually triggrered); Duplicati.GUI.TrayIcon.exe is up and running.

In Windows CLI I tried “>duplicati_client.exe list backups” and got “not logged in” as response, so I may be missing the point of logging into the duplicati server.
Unfortunately I don’t remember how I did this in my previous installation - thought that importing the task was all I needed. Could someone please help me refresh my memory what it takes to get the task running in Scheduler?

2

ts678 has a great post here of other posts around here that go into quite well (the 2nd one even has photos of it if you use the expand arrow in that post): How can i make scheduler make backup at start system? - #3 by ts678

I don’t think anyone would go into that in depth when its been asked previously.

Edit: Although, I don’t think anyone has gone well into duplicati client use specifically so that might be something here.

Also if “not logged in” is a duplicati client incorrect config thing then it goes into how to use that here such as if you didn’t log in correctly (and the token is expired which is what shows that error message there): GitHub - Pectojin/duplicati-client: A command line client for controlling the Duplicati Server

3

Thanks @Xavron for the links to the posts. Actually following ts678’s instructions here provides a working task. However I would prefer to reference the job rather by its ID so that the jobs triggered by Task Scheduler and the timer in the GUI are sure to stay in sync if I change the job setup in the GUI.
It can’t be difficult to set up the task with duplicati_client since I’m far from being experienced in such things and I managed to do it about 2 years ago :cry:
In between I found out how to login with duplicati_client and get a list of backup jobs, so I can identify their IDs. So theoretically it would take two commands 1) login 2) trigger job which I can put in a batch file. Then I need to know how to fire up the batch file (failed so far) and so on…

So in short: it did work somehow with just the “duplicati_client run ” command in task scheduler. I just don’t remember how I solved the problem with login. I also remember that a black cmd window briefly popped up when the task started and I got a glimpse of a message like “Token expired” and “logging in” - so something must have happened which goes beyond the setup in taskscheduler. Just can’t get my head around it… :grimacing:

4

Off the top I’m guessing you had scheduled the Duplicati Client to run the jobs, maybe you used my powershell script to run GUI jobs but I doubt it.

AFAIK, (hence the development on the above PS script) you cannot call directly upon a GUI job by ID from the CLI.