I want a clean install of the new prod release, but bring over users.

[vaise 340]

Now the new release is out, I will have a clean install of this - i.e I dont want the 10 ish years of updates and mess in the database/folders from the last 200+ or so updates.

As the backup/restore can no longer bring over users, can I ask when/if this will be a thing ?

I can re-key the users, but I cant really contact the 35 friends and family and ask for their passwords - not very professional.

Will there be a way of porting my users (and passwords) from the final beta 78 into the new prod  .80?

The new backup/restore does the play states, just not the users/passwords.

If this will not be forthcoming, please advise so I can start keying them all in and asking for passwords.

[Luke 42080]

Hi, officially there is no way to only restore users. You might be able to get by with just copying the users.db database file (for now), but as nobody is testing this, no promises can be made.

[vaise 340]

One last thing - can this be copied from a running server, or must I stop it first ?

[rbjtech 5284]

2 hours ago, vaise said:

One last thing - can this be copied from a running server, or must I stop it first ?

You must always shutdown emby when doing file level and database activities, as emby needs to 'flush' any data in memory to the db.

[FredrikT 24]

11 hours ago, vaise said:

The new backup/restore does the play states, just not the users/passwords.

I just updated one of my server from beta to Prod (4.8), did a backup, then a restore to a new server (both Windows). And all my users were restored without any problems and can log in again without reauthenticating. But I might have some old data brought across as well, but I can't see any problems.

[vaise 340]

Yeah, I want it clean and fresh.

[vaise 340]

 So today I got the time to try this users copy from the beta to the new prod.

The users are there, and their passwords seem to work - which is the primary goal.

What I found after doing this is below - are there any 'hacks' to copy this over also - as its quite a bit of work for 35 users :

1 - user images did not come over - so they have a broken icon.  I can delete / re-add this on the profile of each - but is there a way to copy them over ?

2 - user configuration is all default -  I edit a few things on each (lib access, etc etc) - but is there a way to copy them over ?

That's all I have found so far.

[Luke 42080]

In the program data directory there's /config/users. you can copy that from the old server to restore images, some configs and some polcies.

But this is where things get dicey and why this selective restoring was removed to begin with. the user configs and policy files will contain database ids, and the server may react unpredictable to ids that are applicable to the old server but not the new one.

So what you should do after copying this is go to the Profile and Access tabs for every single user, review the options and click save.

[vaise 340]

Cool.

Seems to have worked.

I deleted the target folders first, then copied them over - restarted emby and restarted the browser (as a refresh showed no users at all.

I will now go through them and check.

[vaise 340]

I can now use the 'special' backup restore to copy the watchlists and I am done.....

[vaise 340]

only issue seen so far is strangely the tvshows libraru is not allocated to any users, so i have to add that and change the profile order so its back at the top for every user.

And the profile screen has liveTV there for everyone - when they dont have that so I wipe that out.

[vaise 340]

Just back to this - so I have my shiney new prod server, which is all working and all images and metadata is there that I can see.

What I am astounded by is the appdata space this will be saving.  The weekly emby appdata backup with be 10 times quicker and hence 10 times less emby outage.

A 10 times lower size.

This is the beta server - that has been the same since the beta's first started many many years ago :

And this is the new prod server - only lightly used so far - but all is there and working over the exact same libraries:

 

Over the years I guess there has been loads of crap added and never removed ?

And notice the difference in folders - some are not there in the new prod server.

Note - transcode and conversions are mapper to the array outside of the appdata.

The cache and metadata seems to be the major size differences.

Is this as more stuff been moved to the database over the years ?

Could I expect the cache to keep growing like that (I have the new cache images turned off)

If this is normal - they there is a benefit in all doing a new prod server install and porting across to it.

 

 

[Luke 42080]

1 hour ago, vaise said:

Just back to this - so I have my shiney new prod server, which is all working and all images and metadata is there that I can see.

What I am astounded by is the appdata space this will be saving.  The weekly emby appdata backup with be 10 times quicker and hence 10 times less emby outage.

A 10 times lower size.

This is the beta server - that has been the same since the beta's first started many many years ago :

And this is the new prod server - only lightly used so far - but all is there and working over the exact same libraries:

 

Over the years I guess there has been loads of crap added and never removed ?

And notice the difference in folders - some are not there in the new prod server.

Note - transcode and conversions are mapper to the array outside of the appdata.

The cache and metadata seems to be the major size differences.

Is this as more stuff been moved to the database over the years ?

Could I expect the cache to keep growing like that (I have the new cache images turned off)

If this is normal - they there is a benefit in all doing a new prod server install and porting across to it.

 

 

So three major differences:

• your new server's cache folder will likely grow, still i'm surprised to see the size of your beta server cache folder considering that it deletes files more than 30 days old. you may want to check if you have old files in there. if you do, then it could be a sign that the server is being denied access to delete them
• data - what is primarily contributing to the 1.5gb size?
• metadata - you've only just started. remember lots of images are downloaded on demand, not up front, so it will grow with usage. it probably won't get anywhere near as large as your beta server though.

[vaise 340]

I have had a poke around and all images when it click around on the prod new system are there.  Not sure which comes down on use - unless its so fast I cant see it.

My images are stored with the media on both systems.

Re data folder :

Beta server - sorted by files size :

 

Prod server sorted by size :

 

 

 

 

[Painkiller88 250]

Sorry but i have to ask why the backup/restore plugin can't handle those things?

For me a backup/restore should do all the steps without having the user to do manual steps.

Maybe there should be an update for the plugin because i am sure, all users here rely on the fact that a backup is really a full backup and i think reinstalling and only importing the users seems to me to be quite normal behavior, which i'm sure many would do

[vaise 340]

21 minutes ago, Painkiller8818 said:

Sorry but i have to ask why the backup/restore plugin can't handle those things?

For me a backup/restore should do all the steps without having the user to do manual steps.

Maybe there should be an update for the plugin because i am sure, all users here rely on the fact that a backup is really a full backup and i think reinstalling and only importing the users seems to me to be quite normal behavior, which i'm sure many would do

The new backup restore does it all now (its all or nothing), and the old one is modified for manual install only to ONLY do the watch lists.

I wanted a clean install without 10 years of stale and rubbish info.

Hence new need for this process - which seems to have worked for exactly what I want.

 

[Luke 42080]

22 hours ago, Painkiller8818 said:

Sorry but i have to ask why the backup/restore plugin can't handle those things?

For me a backup/restore should do all the steps without having the user to do manual steps.

Maybe there should be an update for the plugin because i am sure, all users here rely on the fact that a backup is really a full backup and i think reinstalling and only importing the users seems to me to be quite normal behavior, which i'm sure many would do

The new process moves just about everything. No manual steps.

[vaise 340]

A bonus of this clean install and smaller size - the emby full backup takes just over 10 minutes.  Thats NVME to different NVME.  This is also evident in my unraid appdata backup weekly process.  Means much lower outage time while docker is stopped, backed up and restarted.