What is "delete backup" in web UI doing? Messaging unclear

Hi all,

I just started using Duplicati on Ubuntu via the web UI and have been very happy with it. However, I’m not clear on how deleting a backup job works. My goal was to move my configuration over from running as a foreground process by my user and over to a system service.

I exported the configuration, and then went to delete the job. I checked the box for delete local database, and left the Delete Remote files box unchecked. Note - it said 174 files/4GB of data, but I have many something like 48K files. 4GB of data could be right, as I have 5.4GB of data, but possibly symlinks or compression reduces that?

Upon clicking Delete Backup, the status bar showed a message, something like “Deleting X files. Y files to go” and moving very slowly. I don’t remember the number, but I think X was in the tens of thousands, maybe the 48K that I have.

I panicked, as it sounded like it was actually deleting my files. I would think that deleting local metadata would A. be worded differently and B. not take very long.

I cancelled the delete process after a few seconds, restarted the server as a system process, and went to import the configuration. It gave me a message that “174 remote files are not recorded in local storage. Please run repair”.

It is now recreating the database (very slowly).

At this point, with the number of files I have, it’s not easy to tell if I have experienced any data loss.

I’ve read Deleting a backup job and also can’t imagine any backup tool deleting source data, but the messaging is quite disconcerting.

Could somebody help clarify what is going on? Also, is there an easy way to “test” that all remote files are represented in the source?