Using alternate-destination-marker prevents database rebuild/repair

#1

Learned on the hard way by not knowing about the details of using hot-swap hdds under windows 10:
correctly configured they should be assigned to the same hardware slot.

So this and other handling errors led to the second problem:

Repair or deletion of concedrned databases did not work since i used the alternate-destination-marker option.
So for backup HDD 2 I put an empty file “DupBack2.txt” as destination marker into the backup directory of HDD 2.
When I tried to repair the database i got the
Found 1 files at the remote storage, but none that could be parsed
message.

So I terminated the duplicati Program Icon via right klick and

  1. deleted all backup data
  2. deleted the appropriate database in c:\Users…\AppData\Local\Duplicati\xxxx.sqlite
  3. started a “fresh” backup without any previous data

So if the repair / rebuild database could ignore the under alternate-destination-marker definded marker file could hopefully simplify things.

thanks

#2

Welcome to the forum!

Can you help me understand your workflow? Are you trying to use Duplicati to back up to an external drive, but be able to swap the drives regularly?

#3

Hi, yes, I use this kind of setup on two Windows 10 machines using rotating HDDs.

These are (hopefully) swapped once a day and the (almost identical) backup jobs start with a time offset of 10 minutes looking on several drive letters for “their” backup HDD medium.

The machine using HotSwap HDDs gave me some headaches since it seems that these HDDs are to expected in the same slot by Windows 10. The system using the same kind of configuration on external connected USB HDDs which most the time works fine.

Best to show you - here are the (anonymized) settings of backup job #6 for HDD nr. 6:

      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "--alternate-destination-marker",
        "Value": "DupBack6.txt",
        "Argument": null
      },
      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "--alternate-target-paths",
        "Value": "e:\\DupBack;f:\\DupBack;g:\\DupBack;h:\\DupBack;",
        "Argument": null
      },

The full (anonymized) settings:

{
  "CreatedByVersion": "2.0.4.23",
  "Schedule": {
    "ID": 6,
    "Tags": [
      "ID=6"
    ],
    "Time": "2019-10-09T02:50:00Z",
    "Repeat": "1D",
    "LastRun": "2019-10-08T02:50:00Z",
    "Rule": "AllowedWeekDays=Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday,Sunday",
    "AllowedDays": [
      "mon",
      "tue",
      "wed",
      "thu",
      "fri",
      "sat",
      "sun"
    ]
  },
  "Backup": {
    "ID": "6",
    "Name": "DupBack6",
    "Description": "LangzeitSicherung6",
    "Tags": [],
    "TargetURL": "file://F:\\DupBack\\",
    "DBPath": "C:\\Users\\nettboss\\AppData\\Local\\Duplicati\\LKMNVKDNYL.sqlite",
    "Sources": [
      "C:\\Shares\\",
      "%MY_DOCUMENTS%",
      "%MY_MUSIC%",
      "%MY_PICTURES%",
      "%MY_VIDEOS%",
      "%DESKTOP%",
      "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft SQL Server\\MSSQL10_50.PRODUCTNAME\\MSSQL\\Backup\\"
    ],
    "Settings": [
      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "encryption-module",
        "Value": "aes",
        "Argument": null
      },
      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "compression-module",
        "Value": "zip",
        "Argument": null
      },
      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "dblock-size",
        "Value": "50mb",
        "Argument": null
      },
      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "passphrase",
        "Value": "SecretCode-not-to-be-shown",
        "Argument": null
      },
      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "retention-policy",
        "Value": "1W:1D,4W:1W,12M:1M",
        "Argument": null
      },
      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "--alternate-destination-marker",
        "Value": "DupBack6.txt",
        "Argument": null
      },
      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "--alternate-target-paths",
        "Value": "e:\\DupBack;f:\\DupBack;g:\\DupBack;h:\\DupBack;",
        "Argument": null
      },
      {
        "Filter": "",
        "Name": "--exclude-files-attributes",
        "Value": "hidden,system,temporary",
        "Argument": null
      }
    ],
    "Filters": [],
    "Metadata": {
      "LastErrorDate": "20191008T025003Z",
      "LastErrorMessage": "Unwrapped TargetInvocationException",
      "LastBackupDate": "20191004T034336Z",
      "BackupListCount": "1",
      "TotalQuotaSpace": "500106784768",
      "FreeQuotaSpace": "467351908352",
      "AssignedQuotaSpace": "-1",
      "TargetFilesSize": "32582650047",
      "TargetFilesCount": "1246",
      "TargetSizeString": "30,34 GB",
      "SourceFilesSize": "85369457234",
      "SourceFilesCount": "304177",
      "SourceSizeString": "79,51 GB",
      "LastBackupStarted": "20191006T022600Z",
      "LastBackupFinished": "20191006T023108Z",
      "LastBackupDuration": "00:05:08.3496883"
    },
    "IsTemporary": false
  },
  "DisplayNames": {
    "C:\\Shares\\": "Shares",
    "%MY_DOCUMENTS%": "My Documents",
    "%MY_MUSIC%": "My Music",
    "%MY_PICTURES%": "My Pictures",
    "%MY_VIDEOS%": "My Videos",
    "%DESKTOP%": "Desktop",
    "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft SQL Server\\MSSQL10_50.SOMESOFTWARE\\MSSQL\\Backup\\": "Backup"
  }
}
#4

Interesting, I didn’t know about these options at all.

Maybe someone else has an idea, or I can try to reproduce your issue and do some testing when I have a bit more time.