Used Emby Server Backup on New Windows Install...but...

[Mkilbride 86]

Besides user names...that's all that transferred. Metadata didn't come along for the ride, nor my "watched" or "currently" watching. Nothing. Not that great of a backup honestly.  All drive letters are the same, I had save artwork into folder, store metadata in .nfos, but this is being kinda a pain. I was hoping for a seamless transfer to a new Windows install.

[GrimReaper 4740]

How did you backup, using Server Configuration Backup plugin or manual backup? 

[Mkilbride 86]

The Plugin. I still have my other Windows install, so nothing is set in stone yet / lost.

[GrimReaper 4740]

In that case, 

5 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

Metadata didn't come along for the ride

would be correct, as indicated in KB article:

Quote

Use the Server Configuration Backup Plugin

We recommend using the Server Configuration Backup plugin, which is designed to make this process really painless by doing the work for you. This plugin requires Emby Premiere and can be found in our plugin catalog.

The Server Configuration Backup plugin can help you backup and restore the following:

• Server configuration
• Users
• User data (playstates, favorites, etc).
• Installed plugins
• Plugin settings
• Playlists

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.  The plug-in also does not backup live TV recording settings or series at this time.

For that, this is what's used:

6 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

I had save artwork into folder, store metadata in .nfos,

With those conditions and:

6 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

All drive letters are the same

upon initial scan is completed (all items have to be reindexed), you shoould have these retained also:

7 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

nor my "watched" or "currently" watching

as UserData is separate table and items are tracked by providerid. 

Can only guess your initial scan hasn't completed yet. 

Have personally restored library multiple times, haven't encountered any issues with either. 

 

[Luke 42080]

If you want everything to come over, then just take the whole program data folder and copy it manually.

Soon the backup plugin will be changed to do that, and that's going to become the recommended backup and restore procedure.

[Luke 42080]

2 hours ago, Mkilbride said:

Besides user names...that's all that transferred. Metadata didn't come along for the ride, nor my "watched" or "currently" watching. Nothing. Not that great of a backup honestly.  All drive letters are the same, I had save artwork into folder, store metadata in .nfos, but this is being kinda a pain. I was hoping for a seamless transfer to a new Windows install.

Do you want the process of backing up to be quick and produce a small output, or do you want it to be very large and slow? 

That is the reason it is just a settings backup. And yes, I know you're going to say that you have local metadata - but not everything gets stored there.

[Happy2Play 9782]

Yes as current User/Config is seconds and about 30+MB, but a full backup multiple GB depending on one's configuration of where images and bif files are stored so one of my current systems would be over 75GB to backup so this would be a timely process and that would be small as I save images with media.  The metadata folder size is primarily the people folder in my case.

But would be required to restore the database with linked internal metadata/images.

So a Server Configuration Backup is exactly that only Configs/Users/Userdata.

 

From a time standpoint it comes down to how fast can you copy potentially a million plus small files?  Then how is an open database handles or would this be an offline backup requiring downtime?

Edited March 17, 2023 by Happy2Play

[tedfroop 34]

23 hours ago, Luke said:

If you want everything to come over, then just take the whole program data folder and copy it manually.

Soon the backup plugin will be changed to do that, and that's going to become the recommended backup and restore procedure.

Will the data sets it backs up be selectable?  For me, I don't care about the data for commercial media, just anywhere there is custom data like say People meta.

[Luke 42080]

On 3/17/2023 at 1:32 PM, tedfroop said:

Will the data sets it backs up be selectable?  For me, I don't care about the data for commercial media, just anywhere there is custom data like say People meta.

It will be a complete backup of data, so that should come along with it.