windows 10 emby-server shut down - all settings lost

[pr0xydad 0]

Windows moved my emby-server to /windows.old/user/...

I'm unable to succesfully move it back to %appdata%/roaming/ember-server. I.e., all my library settings are gone.

Is there a way to manually recover the library settings? I have the files - just need to know where to move them into the new server. 

I do have emby premier. 

[Abobader 3464]

Hello pr0xydad,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[pr0xydad 0]

I have two emby-server backups that contain: /ember-server/programdata & system.

When I put them back in %appdata% I have to walk through the setup process again (choose language, accept ULA..), and then my library shows briefly (with no source dir though) but then after i enter my premier key everything disappears = empty library.

I can live with that, but I have many hours into tweaking movie names & metadata - I'd like to recover these, hopefully?

Thanks.

[Carlo 4561]

You should be able to copy/paste it back to the proper location and then install Emby directly over it.

If you're having trouble send me a PM and I can do a remote session with you to get you started with this.

Carlo

[pr0xydad 0]

Hi Carlo,

1. Copied over backed-up emby-server data (%appdata%\emby-server\programdata & system)

2. Run emby-server installer (latest release)

3. Emby comes up and shows old libraries - no source directory though.

4. activate emby premier - all restored libraries & settings are now gone. 

Maybe I need to run the original installer?

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, What does #3 mean?

[Happy2Play 9780]

Something is not right here as all you should need to do is restore %appdata%/roaming/ember-server as that contains everything unless you have applied custom paths for Cache/Metadata/Transcoding.

[pr0xydad 0]

Right, # 3 = walk through setup process (choose language, accept license agreement, etc) and at the end when the page comes up (http://x.x.x.x:8096) the old libraries are there, but they show 0 (zero) objects because there is no source directory associated with any library.

When I edit a library and try to add the source directory, nothing happens.

#4) so I proceed to activate premier and then I have an empty library.

Note that all the user IDs are restored correctly.

[Carlo 4561]

I don't think you followed the suggested method as you would not have had to enter your Premiere Key again.

Do this:
Shutdown Emby
Re-copy from you backup right over top your new install

Restart Emby and let us know what happens.

But a Question for you.  Where did this backup come from?
Did you try and backup while Emby was running?  If so that will not be a good backup.

Are you using the same OS/Windows username so the install path is exactly the same?

Edited April 24, 2021 by cayars

[pr0xydad 0]

Hi happy2play - the only customizations I've ever made are to add / remove some Categories (ex: Classics, Westerns, Drama, etc) to a movie's metadata. 

"%appdata%/roaming/ember-server as that contains everything" - that is what I wanted to know, thanks. Not sure why I'm not having any luck. I'll keep trying...

[Carlo 4561]

Did you happen to also backup using the Configuration Backup Plugin?
If not do that ASAP once your system is up and running.

[pr0xydad 0]

Thanks everyone, I got it. 

Note this is a Windows 10 Pro which I run like a server (24/7). The other day it went down and when it came back up it forced installed a few windows updates. When I was finally able to login, emby was gone. I found it in root\windows.old - emby was the only data in that directory. I checked antivirus quarantine (windows defender) and found no issues.

So it seems the most recent update caused Windows 10 to flag emby-server and put into windows.old - I've never seen something like this before.

Anyway, I have two emby-server backups - 1) 9/20 manual backup of %/roaming/ember-server, and 2) the one in root/windows.old which is the most recent (4.20) but archived automagically by windows).

I've been trying to restore #2.

I just tried #1 and it restored fine. So I'm back!

I'm configuring the backup plugin now, which I was sure I had setup before but apparently forgot 

Thanks for your help guys. Love my emby

[Carlo 4561]

Glad you got things working again!

[Happy2Play 9780]

Sounds like something may have actually gone wrong in the Major OS update that created windows.old, which is not that uncommon these days with Microsoft.

[pr0xydad 0]

Although in general I'm back in business, I have not been able to restore:

1.  Movies that I've renamed via a movies 'Identify' instead of manually renaming - these will need to be fixed again. This time I'll manually rename I guess.
2. I created some new Movie > Genre's like 'Classics' - these are gone.
3. Some TV shows lost their season identifications - easy fix.

Note that I had indeed installed the Server Config Backup plugin which had 5 recent backups - I had forgotten where I'd put them. 

So, I've tried multiple restore options as noted above PLUS 1. installing from scratch, 2. installing Server Config Backup plugin, 3. restoring one of the 5 recent backups - seems like this would have restored everything. 

However, nothing I tried would fully restore all Emby-Server settings, although most of it was restored and I'm happy about that.

One observation was that the manual backup I created (as noted above on 9/20) of Emby-Server was not the same content as the Server Config Backup plugin.

If everything is in Emby-Server then my manual backup copy should have restored everything right? Maybe some other settings got lost somewhere in the shuffle.

ANyway, just FYI. Moving forward now...

 

 

 

[Guest]

On Number 1. above embedding metadata helps as well to fix hard to identify videos.. several things.. I think there are some items in the naming convention available as well that can help like you were saying.

On 2. Also embeddable...

Edited May 1, 2021 by Guest

[Luke 42078]

Quote

1.  Movies that I've renamed via a movies 'Identify' instead of manually renaming - these will need to be fixed again. This time I'll manually rename I guess.
2. I created some new Movie > Genre's like 'Classics' - these are gone.
3. Some TV shows lost their season identifications - easy fix.

In each of your library settings if you allow emby to save nfo files, then all of these metadata edits will be stored in the nfo files and that is the best way of backing them up.