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Restore from backup missing Live TV Series and Favorites?


pcm2a

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I tried a backup and restore with Emby Backup Plugin. I noticed that the restore did not contain my scheduled series recordings and also favorite channels are gone. Favorite channels is not a big deal, only takes a minute to set up.

 

How can I migrate over schedules series without setting them all up again? The below is one directory I found from the other instance that I backed up.

config/data/livetv$ ls -l
total 96
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 pcm2a daemon 15110 Mar  8 21:14 seriestimers.json
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 pcm2a daemon 78963 Mar 11 04:49 timers.json
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I will answer this one in advance of support. I copied the livetv folder over and it sort of worked, with issues...

 

1. Copy livetv to the new installation

2. Change owner to the embysvr user

3. Restart Emby

4. All series show up (with issues, below)

5. Refresh guide

6. Scheduled shows show up for recording

 

Issues:

 

1. You lose the specific channel that the show is recording on. All of them are now set to All Channels and no specific channel can be set.

 

5c86c34469b13_ScreenShot20190311at32036P

 

2. One show isn't recording even though it shows up as a premiere.

 

5c86c37ae4809_ScreenShot20190311at31645P

 

With some small tweaks it seems like you could include series recordings into the backup process. A fix that always shows matching channels might do the trick?

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The backup plugin will handle favorites but currently not your dvr schedule. it is something we plan to add in the future though. thanks.

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  • 11 months later...
muzicman0

Any plans on adding this soon?  This bit me when I was having all my DVR cover art problems and I re-set the server.  I assumed (stupidly) that the backup plugin would handle the DVR.  Now I am stuck waiting for the shows I had to come back on so I can set them up again.  Luckily I had a list already.

 

It would also help if there was a way to add a series recording without it being in the guide...or even editing an existing subscription so that it would in fact point to a different show (so you could subscribe to ANY show, then edit it to record the show you actually want).

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We have some significant work coming up to accommodate new DVR features and this may change the storage a little bit. We're going to want to get that done first before looking at backing it up. Thanks.

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  • 2 years later...
sfatula

Did this ever get done? If not, I always hate help pages like this:

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159936-configuration-backup

They (and many do this) like to indicate what is included in a backup. But when people are trying to make sure their backups are all includsive and include everything needed to recover in case of disaster, that doesn't help much. It would be nice to also include what is *not* backed up so it can be handled somehow. Here in this thread I can read dvr schedules are not backed up, but who knows what else may not be!

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muzicman0

Last I knew, it still doesn't backup the DVR.  I still use Emby, but not for TV recording, and this is one reason why.

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20 hours ago, sfatula said:

It would be nice to also include what is *not* backed up

There would really be no way to have a list of everything that is NOT backed up but that page does have this statement:

Quote

This will not backup library contents and metadata. To keep a permanent copy of metadata, we suggest enabling saving of local metadata to media folders.

 

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sfatula

And where in there does it say timers? It should definitely say what is missing. I don't see why it can't So other than timers, what else in the emby configuration does it not backup? (if anything)? I was very disappointed the first time I discovered timers were excluded years ago. It simply doesn't say that. To add those words would be trivial. I had a backup plan based on the doc, had to restore Emby (not content), and lost 50+ timers. That was a very very painful process to remember what to recreate.

Rather trying to defend this idea that all is well, you should try and think like a typical Emby user. When they read the doc as some do, they are in fact going to think all is well, just use Emby backup. Until they have to actually restore it. How you you honestly expect them to deduce they will be missing timers!? It will take you about as much time to add a couple words to the page as responding.

Edited by sfatula
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I am not saying "everything is well" I'm just saying that it does mention what is backed up and also specifically points out that media and metadata are not.  It simply isn't practical to mention everything that isn't backed up because that list could be huge and different for everyone and amount to just a lot of noise that would make the article confusing.

Live TV timers were never really in the scope of what we considered your server configuration but it is possible these could get added in the future.  I will add a note to the article that these are not backed up at this time.

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sfatula

Ok thanks for adding it. When people ask in these forums, many times they do, the answer is always use the backup plugin. You guys tell them to use it all the time. I believe 99% of the time, the person asking is wanting what I am stating here, i.e. when they restore it's back to the way it was. But the answer use the backup plugin never says but watch out, timers are missing. And the doc doesn't state it. 
I am not asking for you to add it today. I am merely wanting something to document it for these people. And you are adding it so that's good, but what's far more cinfusing in my eyes is sating to use the backup script, but not point out this quite big limitation. It admittedly doesn't apply to everyone as they have to be a dvr user. The OP was an example of one such user, many others likely blindly believe they are backed up.

For me to recreate my timers would be a pretty large non fun task. By knowing it, I can take measures to make sure Emby is actually backed up.

So, thanks. 

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The storage mechanism of the live tv schedules is in line for a revamp and once that happens it will have an easier backup process. Thanks guys.

  • Like 1
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muzicman0
On 2/19/2020 at 6:50 PM, Luke said:

We have some significant work coming up to accommodate new DVR features and this may change the storage a little bit. We're going to want to get that done first before looking at backing it up. Thanks.

 

11 minutes ago, Luke said:

The storage mechanism of the live tv schedules is in line for a revamp and once that happens it will have an easier backup process. Thanks guys.

I mean...

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