Deja-Dup restore failed... unknown error

[Fred1 (F M)]

Hi
I have assembled a new AMD, Mate 20.04 system with two user profiles. With the exception of the second user the new computer is configured the same as our other computers (i.e. desktop, apps loaded, firewall, home folder on separate drive etc), including the settings in Deja-Dup. The backups on all systems are saved on their respective external USB drives being mounted at mnt.

When I ran a Deja-Dup backup-restore test it failed to restore the deleted folder giving an error message indicating the restore failed because of an unknown error. The restore process appears to correctly step through the required windows to the point where a password is entered and then a short time after the password is entered the restore fails.

I have tried installing Deja-Dup via the terminal and from the Mate Software Boutique, using different external storage drives, backing from the home folder and from the home folders storage drive located at mnt. Our other computers all backup and restore successfully with Deja-Dup pointed to the home folder.

I tried reinstalling Deja-Dup, but found it kept all of the previous installs settings. So to get a fresh Deja-Dup install (and new password) I have found I need run sudo apt purge deja-dup and also delete ~/.cache/deja-dup file and then run dconf reset -f /org/gnome/deja-dup/

Any suggestions-ideas appreciated

[mterry (Michael Terry)]

Hello! I’m sorry that Deja Dup is giving you trouble.

I don’t fully understand the issue here. I see one report of an “unknown error” message. And then something about having the wrong settings?

To possibly get more detail out of Deja Dup, rather than just “unknown error”, try running it in Terminal like:

DEJA_DUP_DEBUG=1 deja-dup

This will spit out a bunch of messages during a backup or restore - there might be some interesting error in there that Deja Dup didn’t notice.

[Fred1 (F M)]

Thanks for the reply.
The issue is that the restore fails with an unknown error.
The last paragraph of my post was simply included to show the steps I took to get a fresh Deja-Dup reinstall

I have run a backup and then restore with the terminal command you provided and now have a lot of output which I don’t understand… is there something i should look for, somewhere I can post the output?
.

[Fred1 (F M)]

Some more info
I can restore to a specific-new folder, but cannot restore to the original location.

[mterry (Michael Terry)]

I can restore to a specific-new folder, but cannot restore to the original location.

Interesting.

I have run a backup and then restore with the terminal command you provided and now have a lot of output which I don’t understand… is there something i should look for, somewhere I can post the output?

If there’s nothing sensitive in it (like sensitive file paths or something), post it here. But I’d be looking for error messages or signs of anything going wrong. Maybe in the last 100 lines or so.

[Fred1 (F M)]

For this backup-restore test (as with all of our other systems) I placed an empty folder (Tester1) inside an otherwise empty folder (Extra). The Extra folder is located (with the normal home folders) on a separate drive and linked to the Home directory on the desktop.
I then set Deja-Dup to only backup the desktop Home folder link to the folder Extra, ran the backup, deleted the folder Tester1 and tried to complete a restore.
The following is the last bit of the restore attempt output:

DUPLICITY: INFO 3
DUPLICITY: backend BackendWrapper
DUPLICITY: archive-dir (. dir)
DUPLICITY: chain-complete
DUPLICITY: full 20211031T083253Z 1 enc
DUPLICITY: orphaned-sets-num 0
DUPLICITY: incomplete-sets-num 0
DUPLICITY: . Collection Status
DUPLICITY: . -----------------
DUPLICITY: . Connecting with backend: BackendWrapper
DUPLICITY: . Archive directory: /home/USER/.cache/deja-dup/e18c9d180c01b75948a8e26424efa3d1
DUPLICITY: .
DUPLICITY: . Found 0 secondary backup chains.
DUPLICITY: .
DUPLICITY: . Found primary backup chain with matching signature chain:
DUPLICITY: . -------------------------
DUPLICITY: . Chain start time: Sun Oct 31 09:32:53 2021
DUPLICITY: . Chain end time: Sun Oct 31 09:32:53 2021
DUPLICITY: . Number of contained backup sets: 1
DUPLICITY: . Total number of contained volumes: 1
DUPLICITY: . Type of backup set: Time: Number of volumes:
DUPLICITY: . Full Sun Oct 31 09:32:53 2021 1
DUPLICITY: . -------------------------
DUPLICITY: . No orphaned or incomplete backup sets found.
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20210922T121920Z ‘.’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Wed Sep 22 14:19:20 2021 .
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20210922T123957Z ‘home’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Wed Sep 22 14:39:57 2021 home
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211031T083009Z ‘home/USER’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Sun Oct 31 09:30:09 2021 home/USER
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211031T083010Z ‘home/USER/.cache’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Sun Oct 31 09:30:10 2021 home/USER/.cache
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211031T083235Z ‘home/USER/.cache/deja-dup’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Sun Oct 31 09:32:35 2021 home/USER/.cache/deja-dup
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211031T083235Z ‘home/USER/.cache/deja-dup/metadata’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Sun Oct 31 09:32:35 2021 home/USER/.cache/deja-dup/metadata
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211031T083235Z ‘home/USER/.cache/deja-dup/metadata/README’ reg
DUPLICITY: . Sun Oct 31 09:32:35 2021 home/USER/.cache/deja-dup/metadata/README
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20210923T085549Z ‘home/USER/Extra’ sym
DUPLICITY: . Thu Sep 23 10:55:49 2021 home/USER/Extra
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211004T035909Z ‘mnt’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Mon Oct 4 05:59:09 2021 mnt
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20210923T090436Z ‘mnt/Afolder’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Thu Sep 23 11:04:36 2021 mnt/Afolder
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211031T083200Z ‘mnt/Afolder/Extra’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Sun Oct 31 09:32:00 2021 mnt/Afolder/Extra
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211005T092426Z ‘mnt/Afolder/Extra/.stfolder’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Tue Oct 5 11:24:26 2021 mnt/Afolder/Extra/.stfolder
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211026T121145Z ‘mnt/Afolder/Extra/.stversions’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Tue Oct 26 14:11:45 2021 mnt/Afolder/Extra/.stversions
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211026T084619Z ‘mnt/Afolder/Extra/.stversions/restoretest1~20211026-110059’ reg
DUPLICITY: . Tue Oct 26 10:46:19 2021 mnt/Afolder/Extra/.stversions/restoretest1~20211026-110059
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211026T120701Z ‘mnt/Afolder/Extra/.stversions/restoretest1~20211026-141145’ reg
DUPLICITY: . Tue Oct 26 14:07:01 2021 mnt/Afolder/Extra/.stversions/restoretest1~20211026-141145
DUPLICITY: INFO 10 20211031T083152Z ‘mnt/Afolder/Extra/Tester1’ dir
DUPLICITY: . Sun Oct 31 09:31:52 2021 mnt/Afolder/Extra/Tester1
DUPLICITY: DEBUG 1
DUPLICITY: . Releasing lockfile b’/home/USER/.cache/deja-dup/e18c9d180c01b75948a8e26424efa3d1/lockfile’
DUPLICITY: INFO 1
DUPLICITY: . Using temporary directory /tmp/duplicity-we1hvksw-tempdir
DUPLICITY: DEBUG 1
DUPLICITY: . Releasing lockfile b’/home/USER/.cache/deja-dup/e18c9d180c01b75948a8e26424efa3d1/lockfile’

[mterry (Michael Terry)]

Well, I don’t see any issues in that log output. Hmmm. Maybe search for a log message higher up that would include the word “traceback”?

I’ll install a Mate 20.04 system and try your reproduction steps. But it’s possible a particular part of your setup is the issue (like home folders on different drive or something like that could be confusing us or duplicity). So I may not be replicating your setup exactly. But I’ll give it a go.

[mterry (Michael Terry)]

I tried to reproduce, but no luck yet. On an Ubuntu Mate 20.04 system, I did get a message about “could not restore the following files. please make sure you are able to write to them” for the symlink. That message got fixed in the latest releases though.

[Fred1 (F M)]

Thanks for taking the time to test the problem.

I have been doing the same thing with a new Mate 20.04 install on a different AMD desktop.
I have found;
Only one user profile with its home folders in the usual place on the OS drive = backup and restore functions correctly.

Only one user profile but with home the folders linked to a different drive = backup and restore functions correctly.

Two user profiles with their home folders in their usual place on the OS drive = backup and restore functions correctly.

Two user profiles with one having its home folders in the usual place on the OS drive and the other profiles home folders linked to a different drive.
This configuration results in the backup and restore functioning correctly on the profile with its home folders in the usual place on the OS drive
However, the second profile with its home folders on a different drive appears to backup correctly (i.e. without error) but fails to restore to the original location because of an “unknown error”.

I didn’t bother testing with both profiles having their home folders on different drives because that is the configuration on the computer that is the reason for this thread.

It appears my issue is coming from an interaction between having more the one user profile and moving -linking the profile(s) home folders to a different drive.