FAQ

This list is not meant to be 100% comprehensive, however these questions do get asked a lot......

1. 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.

2. Why is the Addon prompting me to restart Kodi 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 Kodi 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 Kodi 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.

3. I've re-installed a newer version of Kodi 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 Kodi it is usually easier to install the version you had and do an in-place upgrade by installing the newer version of the top. Kodi 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, Kodi 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 Kodi.

   If you want to get your databases back after doing this there is something you can do. Kodi 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 Kodi. Find the database files under userdata/Databases and delete the ones with the highest DB number. Then start Kodi 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.

4. 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.

5. Why are my addons and settings gone after a restore?

Two reasons mainly, the files are probably there but either not in the right spot or enabled. Some Kodi specific settings are in the guisettings file. This file gets dumped whenever Kodi restarts, so it really can't be updated while running. The addon will make a guisettings.xml.restore file that you can copy over manually on your file system. The addon also makes an attempt to update settings via JSON-RPC if it can.

For addons the files are probably available, just not enabled. Kodi loads up addons in the folder not installed by itself in a disabled mode. You'll have to re-enable them from scratch. Kind of a pain but in order to remain in the Kodi repo this addon can't alter the state of other addons. It's one of the rules!

6. Can I exclude an entire directory EXCEPT for specific folders? (Advanced Editor)

Yes. This is somewhat non-intuitive at first glance. By default the root directory is included in the backup set, along with all files and folders within. Remove this included folder from the set. At this point you have a set with no folders selected. Then, do specific includes only for the folders you want.

7. Why can't I exclude the root folder? (Advanced Editor)

You can. See the above example. Removing the root folder from the include path effectively removes it, and all sub folders, from being backed up. Exclusions really only apply to folders beneath an already included folder.