Backup / Restore Disappointing

[Guest]

Backup / Restore Disappointing

I signed Emby Premiere, especially with the backup addon.
As I did the exchange of my server, I used the addon to save the backup of my server and I was careful to keep marked all the existing options, such as users etc etc etc.
It so happens that when restoring the backup to the new installation, I noticed that it took more than 6 hours to complete, but that was not the problem.
The problem I had is that the restore was not perfect as it did not restore my library of movie collections and it also did not restore any of the many users I had and were backing up, so I checked this carefully.
Is there anything I can do to have the perfect restore as it was before or will I be forced to redo the users and the movie collections manually? Maybe manually copy some folder from the backup directory.

Everything else seems perfect. Thanks for answering.  

Edited March 26, 2017 by CarlosLima

[CBers 7450]

The restore shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

 

I recently moved my Emby server to a different physical computer and I took a backup via the plugin on the old PC, set up the Emby on the new PC (adding the libraries etc), let the library scan run.

 

I restored the watched status via the backup plugin on the new PC, after copying the zip across from the old PC.

[Luke 42078]

Collections are something we could add to a future update of the plugin. It does restore just about everything else quite nicely though.

[Happy2Play 9780]

Since Paths are saved in the collection.xml it makes it harder to migrate them to a new system.

[ebr 16184]

Also, guest users are not backed up or restored because the information for them is not just on your server.

[CBers 7450]

During 2 recent migrations, I found that although the EMAIL plugin was restored and the configuration file was in place, the option for the user wasn't enabled in the plugin settings.

 

Not sure if this is an oversight, or a known.

 

Just thought I'd mention it.

[Luke 42078]

@@CBers probably due to the new user id being different.

[NomadCF 15]

After a "few" tries with the backup / Restore plugin. I've pretty much given up on it ever getting really restoring everything back to 100%. I've had the fallowing issues on a multitude of hardware (physical and virtualized).

• Users get restored, but their passwords no longer are working.
• Users preferences are never restores (max bit rates)
• Some users are not transferred on the first pass
• Sync'ed Folders only restores the paths. Which in turn makes the folder sync DELETE all the already done!! (movies,shows ,etc).  
• Movie metadata isn't displayed correctly until after a full library scan (or two). No paths where changed, not sure why it wouldn't just read the nfo/xml files real time and build up the meta db as the user is browsing. 
• Missing Libraries, sometimes I can just run the restore a second or third time and then everything's back,
• Scheduled task settings aren't restored

 

Never have I had a restore work even close to correct. It always; always leaves something undone or incorrect.

[ebr 16184]

After a "few" tries with the backup / Restore plugin. I've pretty much given up on it ever getting really restoring everything back to 100%. I've had the fallowing issues on a multitude of hardware (physical and virtualized).

• Users get restored, but their passwords no longer are working.
• Users preferences are never restores (max bit rates)
• Some users are not transferred on the first pass
• Sync'ed Folders only restores the paths. Which in turn makes the folder sync DELETE all the already done!! (movies,shows ,etc).  
• Movie metadata isn't displayed correctly until after a full library scan (or two). No paths where changed, not sure why it wouldn't just read the nfo/xml files real time and build up the meta db as the user is browsing. 
• Missing Libraries, sometimes I can just run the restore a second or third time and then everything's back,
• Scheduled task settings aren't restored

 

Never have I had a restore work even close to correct. It always; always leaves something undone or incorrect.

 

Hi.  Were you restoring this onto the exact same machine/configuration?

[Luke 42078]

Hi @@NomadCF I understand you are associating movie metadata with the backup plugin as part of the whole process, but it does not back up metadata, only settings. Therefore that is unrelated and instead associated with the library scan on the new server.

 

In testing the restore process I have never come across the other issues but will keep an eye out for them. Thanks !

[CBers 7450]

@@CBers probably due to the new user id being different.

Ah, OK.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1154]

The easiest way to backup your Emby Installation is to copy the entire directory it is installed in. If you need to restore your installation, just replace what is in the directory with your copied directory. This is what I did the last time when I reinstalled the OS on my server. Took all of 2 minutes to get Emby back up and running with all of its settings, user watched states and everything working properly.

 

The plugin was underwhelming and didn't copy 99% of what you would want when restoring an installation.

[Guest]

Well, considering the problems I reported in this topic and considering the other users' posts, I can only consider it a disappointment with the backup plugin, because I trusted that it would do the perfect restore as it was before and therefore, I will not use it anymore. Thank you all.

[NomadCF 15]

The easiest way to backup your Emby Installation is to copy the entire directory it is installed in. If you need to restore your installation, just replace what is in the directory with your copied directory. This is what I did the last time when I reinstalled the OS on my server. Took all of 2 minutes to get Emby back up and running with all of its settings, user watched states and everything working properly.

 

The plugin was underwhelming and didn't copy 99% of what you would want when restoring an installation.

 

Awhile ago (~2 or 3 yrs) I moved Emby's installation, meta data & cache directories their own filesystems (ZFS). So I can just remount after a install of the same version, snapshot them before I upgrade so I can roll it back when / if I get another bummed stable release or sync it to the backup servers. And your right this works out so much better than the plugin does.

 

But this is about the faults of the "PREMIUM" backup/restore plugin. And how abysmal it works (or rather how it doesn't work). Not about what workarounds we all have had to come up for it. 

[Koleckai Silvestri 1154]

I use Windows as my OS. I didn't even have to reinstall after restoring. Just double clicked the executable.

[ebr 16184]

The plugin was underwhelming and didn't copy 99% of what you would want when restoring an installation.

 

Can you please enumerate the 1% that was backed up and the 99% that wasn't?

[ebr 16184]

Awhile ago (~2 or 3 yrs) I moved Emby's installation, meta data & cache directories their own filesystems (ZFS). So I can just remount after a install of the same version, snapshot them before I upgrade so I can roll it back when / if I get another bummed stable release or sync it to the backup servers. And your right this works out so much better than the plugin does.

 

But this is about the faults of the "PREMIUM" backup/restore plugin. And how abysmal it works (or rather how it doesn't work). Not about what workarounds we all have had to come up for it. 

 

Did you see my question above?

 

 

Hi.  Were you restoring this onto the exact same machine/configuration?

[NomadCF 15]

At times yes, and with the same results. Even then he machine is different (which really shouldn't matter for most settings when it comes to the users,etc). The paths are always, always, always the same, the distro is the same (newer version maybe).

 

Take to night I created a new VM identical to my existing system (distro, paths, version, etc, etc). Installed emby, when through the basic setup to get to where I could insert my premier key. So I could then install the install the backup/restore plugin ( which is asinine by the way, you would think if your going to be doing a restore you could skip all the intro crap, and go straight install the plugin. But no. That's not the case at all. First you need to need to walk though the intro setup BS and then re-input your key. Then finally you can. Install the plugin). At which point I took a snapshot. Setup the restore plugin and wham. This thing during the restore not a single user was restored. Ran it a second time and it then it restored every one. But not before crashing and making me restart the service.

 

So I restored the snapshot, ran though the restore again . And this time everyone was restored. Although no ones passwords would work. (And yes I did test them at against the live server and they where correct). Again running the restore fixes these issues. But one ever knows how many times it will take before it does.

 

Why can't we export a single backup via download able open/rar/7z and have their be a simple restore option on the 1st or 2ns page of the setup "wizard". Hell for that matter why is the backup and restore plugin behind a pay wall anyways. Hell not even Microsoft does this that. That they love to up charge for everything (NFS client for example).

[CBers 7450]

I'm not fully understanding the problem with the restore procedure people are having.

 

I have used it many times, when restoring user's WATCHED STATUS between my Dev/Beta and Stable Emby installations.

 

I've also used it twice in the last few weeks to fully restore users and WATCHED STATUSES etc. when moving 2x Emby installs to new servers for myself and a family member. I never had a problem.

 

WRT the initial setup before the restore, Emby is designed to be installed as a new installation, hence the wizard. I found it easier to install afresh, add your libraries, run the library scan then do the restore.

 

I would expect that out of the 162,000 forum members, only a handful ever use the restore part of the plugin.

 

Just my thoughts

[Nikolaech 32]

Yes, the topic is serious, developers, you need to make a good recovery plugin.

[ebr 16184]

At times yes, and with the same results. Even then he machine is different (which really shouldn't matter for most settings when it comes to the users,etc). The paths are always, always, always the same, the distro is the same (newer version maybe).

 

Take to night I created a new VM identical to my existing system (distro, paths, version, etc, etc). Installed emby, when through the basic setup to get to where I could insert my premier key. So I could then install the install the backup/restore plugin ( which is asinine by the way, you would think if your going to be doing a restore you could skip all the intro crap, and go straight install the plugin. But no. That's not the case at all. First you need to need to walk though the intro setup BS and then re-input your key. Then finally you can. Install the plugin). At which point I took a snapshot. Setup the restore plugin and wham. This thing during the restore not a single user was restored. Ran it a second time and it then it restored every one. But not before crashing and making me restart the service.

 

So I restored the snapshot, ran though the restore again . And this time everyone was restored. Although no ones passwords would work. (And yes I did test them at against the live server and they where correct). Again running the restore fixes these issues. But one ever knows how many times it will take before it does.

 

Why can't we export a single backup via download able open/rar/7z and have their be a simple restore option on the 1st or 2ns page of the setup "wizard". Hell for that matter why is the backup and restore plugin behind a pay wall anyways. Hell not even Microsoft does this that. That they love to up charge for everything (NFS client for example).

 

Okay, part of the issue may be the OS.

 

When you start a restore, there should be a message that pops up that says that the restore has started and that the server will restart once it has finished.  The restart is critical so if that isn't happening, either there is a problem with it working in your environment or you simply aren't waiting long enough and are starting to look at things before the restore has actually completed.

 

Do you happen to have a server log from when you did a restore and you thought things didn't restore properly?  Did your server ever restart itself automatically?  Did you ever restart it manually?

[NomadCF 15]

Okay, part of the issue may be the OS.

 

When you start a restore, there should be a message that pops up that says that the restore has started and that the server will restart once it has finished.  The restart is critical so if that isn't happening, either there is a problem with it working in your environment or you simply aren't waiting long enough and are starting to look at things before the restore has actually completed.

 

Do you happen to have a server log from when you did a restore and you thought things didn't restore properly?  Did your server ever restart itself automatically?  Did you ever restart it manually?

 

1. "thought things didn't restore properly", User and setting where missing. There was no "thinking" involved here as they flat out where not web interface or in the sqlite DBs
2. "Did your server ever restart itself automatically?", If but "ever restart itself automatically". Yes emby can restart it just fine most of the time. But this is not always the case, like every one else on these forums have witnessed  Emby crashes or just doesn't restart some times. 99% of the time it restarts after it's "restore".
3. Yes when it crashed I had to manually start it. And when I've had the restore plugin not restart the server automatically and the LOGS who no more progress is being made, and no files are showing ANY signs of being altered, and there is no other signs of the plugin or emby doing anything. I manually restart emby. Again this happens on both windows servers and linux servers.

 

PS. No I'm not trying to restart a windows backup to a linux or vice versa.

 

PSS. Really I don't care if the plugin ever really getting working correctly. It hasn't for all these years and I've learned to work around it. 

[ebr 16184]

I was asking if your server restarted itself after the restore operation.  The restore would not be complete until this happened so, if you went looking before that happened then it could certainly look like it didn't work. 

[Guest]

I chose to forget restoring user data and collections and manually re-done it, since the backup plugin does not restore such data. Everything is beautiful again

[Luke 42078]

I chose to forget restoring user data and collections and manually re-done it, since the backup plugin does not restore such data. Everything is beautiful again

 

The backup plugin does restore user data.