[vudiff1]

@vudiff1 if you only want to omit the favourites from certain addons but not the settings from that userdata folder then you will have to restore all the addon_data then using a Mac or PC go in and delete the favourites folder. If you are doing that you might as well backup everything and adjust it on a computer later.
If you don't want the library messed with then delete the database folder as well.

Ed, thank you. So, the database folder holds just the users' personal local library. Exactly what I was looking to do, during a restore of a backup to not delete my current database of movies & tv shows from my local network. Thanks again.

[vudiff1]

Make sure to delete the movies and TVSHOWS folders on the Genesis USERDATA as well.

Noted

[ed_davidson]

Hi Rob

I was wondering if you knew of a way to have the temp folder flushed on exit on Android? I have noticed that the contents of the cache folder on a PC get dumped on exit.
These backups are pretty big and you have the unzipped and zipped in the temp folder which doesn't get dumped on exit.
Any way around this?

[elchupete]

Hi there,

sorry if this has been asked / answered before, but this thread is quite huge to read through...

I'm running Kodi 14.2 on a Mac Mini.
I have defined 2 non Kodi folders for backup.

One folder contains an apple script and an xx.app
This folder gets backed upped, but only the apple script. the .app is ignored

The second folder contains additional subfolders in which additional mp3 files are stored.
The main folder does not have any files except those subfolders.
None of the subfolders gets baccked upped.

Is there a way to have everything incl. sub folders backed upped?

Thanks
Stefan

[robweber]

Hi Rob

I was wondering if you knew of a way to have the temp folder flushed on exit on Android? I have noticed that the contents of the cache folder on a PC get dumped on exit.
These backups are pretty big and you have the unzipped and zipped in the temp folder which doesn't get dumped on exit.
Any way around this?

I don't know of a way to force it. The addon attempts to delete the files it creates when it exits, but due to holds from the OS and such these may or may not happen. I've noticed on Windows systems it's like 100% certainty but other systems not always. I suppose you could script something that runs when xbmc shuts down - although again it may not get executed. Some appliance based systems - like OpenElec - don't wait for all addons to close and simply kill them when you give the "exit" command. Maybe script it in the OS?

Hi there,

sorry if this has been asked / answered before, but this thread is quite huge to read through...

I'm running Kodi 14.2 on a Mac Mini.
I have defined 2 non Kodi folders for backup.

One folder contains an apple script and an xx.app
This folder gets backed upped, but only the apple script. the .app is ignored

The second folder contains additional subfolders in which additional mp3 files are stored.
The main folder does not have any files except those subfolders.
None of the subfolders gets baccked upped.

Is there a way to have everything incl. sub folders backed upped?

Thanks
Stefan

The .app file may be considered a "hidden" file. Try turning on hidden files in the Kodi File Lists settings. The custom directories not recursing all subfolders is a known issue. I believe I fixed it with the most recent set of commits on github but they aren't pushed to the Kodi repo yet.

[Blythie]

Rob I cant PM you

For a lot of different reasons (testing, new xbmc system, computer crashes) it is a good idea to backup your XBMC data. I've spent enough time copying my userdata folder around that I decided that being able to just click a button and send it on it's way was worth the time coding an addon for it.

The Backup Addon

Please note that with Kodi 14 (Helix) this addon is now called "Backup" in the addon repository.

This is a real quick way to export your XBMC data to another folder or network share for backup purposes. Scheduling, compressing,and having a max number of archived backups are also configurable options. This allows you to use the addon as a completely hands off backup solution. The types of files you can backup from XBMC include:

• User Addons - Addon's you've downloaded
  
• Addon Data - Settings associated with your addons
  
• Database - The SQLite Databases
  
• Playlists - Your playlist folder
  
• Thumbnails/Fanart - downloaded images
  
• Config Files - sources.xml, guisettings.xml, advancedsettings.xml, etc
  
• Up to 2 non-xbmc directories on your local system
  

Since this addon is using the xbmcvfs python module to actually do the file copy you should be able to backup to any location read/writeable by XBMC. You can also write directly to a Dropbox target without needing the Dropbox client on your HTPC. Right now you can download the addon from the main XBMC Add-on repo or the github page for this project. Please post any problems and suggestions here.

Download
In XBMC: Settings->Add-ons->Get Add-ons->Programs
or
Github: https://github.com/robweber/xbmcbackup

Restores

During the restore process there are a few checks and post-run procedures to know about.

The first is a version check. If you are restoring to a different version of XBMC than the one used to create the backup archive you'll get a warning. In most cases it is OK to proceed, just know that some specific items like addons and database files may not work correctly.

The next check is for an advancedsettings.xml file. If you've created this file and it exists in your restore archive you'll be asked to reboot XBMC. This is so that the file can be loaded and used for any special settings, mainly path substitutions, you may have had that would affect the rest of the restore. XBMC Backup will prompt you to continue the restore process when you reboot the program.

The last bit of post-processing is done after all the backup files have been restored. If you have restored your configuration files the addon will attempt to restore any system specific settings that it can from the guisettings.xml file. This is done by comparing the restored file with settings via the JSONPRC Settings.SetSettingValue method. Only system specific settings can be restored so you will get any custom views or skin specific settings back. See the FAQ for how to restore these.

FAQ

I can't see any restore points when choosing "Restore", what is the problem?

If you've created restore points with an older version of the addon (pre 0.3.6) you may see this issue. New versions of the addon look for a file called xbmcbackup.val to validate that a folder is a valid restore archive. Your older restore folders may not have this file. All you need to do is create a blank text file and rename it to xbmcbackup.val. Then put this file inside the archive directory. Your restore points should show up after selecting "Restore" in the addon again.

Several settings aren't being restored, this includes views, weather, etc. How do I get these back?

GUISETTINGS.xml is a configuration file used heavily by XBMC for remembering GUI specific settings. Due to the fact that XBMC reads this file on startup, and writes from memory to this file on shutdown; it is not possible to restore this file while XBMC is running. You must manually move this file from your backup archives if you wish to restore it. User SouthMark has posted the following steps for restoring in the OpenELEC system where this is more difficult:

1. Run the restore of your backup
2. SSH using putty to the IP Address of your media centre username: root Password openelec
3. Type "systemctl stop xbmc.service" - Your media center machine should now go blank
5. Connect to your machine using WinSCP and copy the guisettings.xml file to the userdata folder (this is the guisettings.xml file from your backup), alternatively you can copy this file directly to an SMB share and use putty to move it to the right spot.
6. go back to your putty window and type "systemctl start xbmc.service"

Why is the Addon prompting me to restart XBMC to continue?

If you have an advancedsettings file in your restore folder the addon will ask you if you want to restore this file and restart xbmc to continue. This is because the advancedsettings file may contain path substitution information that you want to be loaded when doing the rest of your restore. By restoring this file and restarting xbmc it will be loaded and the rest of your files will go where they are supposed to. If you know your file does not contain any path substitutions you can select "no" and continue as normal.

I've re-installed a newer version of XBMC from scratch and tried to restore my data from an older version. Why isn't it working?

It is working, just not how you are expecting. When re-installing xbmc it is usually easier to install the version you had and do an in-place upgrade by installing the newer version of the top. XBMC will take care of upgrading your content, addons, and databases itself after running it for the first time. By doing a backup of your current, wiping your data, and installing a newer version you're not allowing these processes to take place. What ends up happening is that your old databases and other files get restored, xbmc just doesn't care to use them anymore. In the case of addons this could really mess things up by restoring now non-working addons from an older version of xbmc.

If you want to get your databases back after doing this there is something you can do. XBMC will perform a check on startup for the most current database version. If one is not found it will look for an older one and upgrade it. So you can do your restore process, then quit xbmc. Find the database files under userdata/Databases and delete the ones with the highest DB number. Then start xbmc again. It should take your old database and upgrade it to the most current version - creating a new database file in the process. Please note this only works for the SQLite database.

Compressing my backups isn't working, why?

The most common reason for this is going to be drive space. Non-compressed backups write files directly from your local folders to the remote directory. When compressing the archive the files are first staged locally and then only the compressed folder copied over the remote directory. This means for both backup and restore operations you need to have enough space on your local drive for creation/extraction of the compressed archive. Depending on the folders you are selecting - especially for custom directories - this could be a lot of extra drive space, or very little.

[elchupete]

The .app file may be considered a "hidden" file. Try turning on hidden files in the Kodi File Lists settings. The custom directories not recursing all subfolders is a known issue. I believe I fixed it with the most recent set of commits on github but they aren't pushed to the Kodi repo yet.

Installed and tested with latest GitHub Version

Both issues seems to be solved.

a) Folder incl. subfolders are backed up correctly now.
b) my xx.app files is backed up (without activating hidden files)now correctly.
.app are basically a special type of folders. So seems to be the case, that the .app was ignored due to the same issue sub directories had been ignored.

Thanks for your support.

[ed_davidson]

Any idea what's going on here rob when I did a restore.
http://goo.gl/RIzmCL

[ed_davidson]

I think may have an idea what happened. The zipped file with all the data on get got downloaded to the temp folder. Got the path error so browsed to the temp folder. Did the restore from the unzipped folder. On reboot found everything that was transferred was all 0KB. The zip didn't get extracted correctly.

[robweber]

That could be, wonder if the Python zip library didn't like it for some reason. Curiously I looked through that log and couldn't find any reference to the backup addon even being run. All log messages from it are prefaces with "script.xbmcbackup" and that was only found in 1 place where the addon was loaded. I did see this line: GetZipList - Processing zip://%2froot%2f.kodi%2ftemp%2f111111111111.zip/ - but no idea what ran it.

[ed_davidson]

Yes I have no idea. The issue I'm having right now is that if I do a restore with just the config data nothing gets extracted, it's all 0 kilobytes. I have to add it to the addons and USERDATA to get it to restore properly.

[robweber]

The extracted zip file is 0 kilobytes? Are there any files in it. are you doing the backup with other files or just the config? The files you choose should not affect the extraction. That happens before the script even tries to figure out while files to pull. It treats the extracted file more like a types file path once the extraction occurs. Wonder if this happens with just regular remote folders that aren't zipped.

[ed_davidson]

The option I chose was a zipped backup, of the config, which went well. When I tried the restore from the zip and had the path error I checked the folder and all the files were 0 but they were all there.
Interesting though. If I try to copy a file to usb in file manager the file copies but when I get it to my laptop the file has nothing in it. I am using MXLINUX.

[kpitao]

Hello all,

Newbie here.... So I got a Amazon Fire Stick with XMBC Gotham 13.2... I want to backup everything before something happens, but for some reason I cannot get the backup to work.... tiered different ones Backup, XML Backup, etc/

All I get is Script Failed!

Can someone help me?

Thanks

[robweber]

I attempted to push a fix for the Zip file archives giving a "no path found" error. Instead of using the extractAll function I'm extracting one at a time. Had 100% success with this in my test environment. As a bonus I can now show a progress bar for the extraction so you can tell if it's hung or working. Anyone willing to try check out github. I'm going to run more tests and wait for any feedback before pushing to the main repo.

@kpitao - you'll have to upload a debug log. "Script failed" isn't very descriptive so I can't speculate on what is going on. Gotham is an older release as well - trying Helix might work better for you.