Scripts: SageTV backup scripts (dailly config, full weekly, full manual)

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by ChaOConnor

Jason, attached is the error I'm getting. I'm running this from the Admin account on the WHS box. When it's done there isn't anything in the backup folder. Thanks!

Did you ever figure this one out? I'm running the script on WHS and I'm getting the same exact error messages.

[HuMan321]

Originally Posted by robogeek

READ THIS IF YOU ARE USING THESE SCRIPTS WITH SAGETV V7!

While it's fresh in my mind, the sagetv-config-backup script isn't fully compatible with SageTV v7 and may cause problems with the plugins installed using the plugin manager if you restore one of these config backups. The plugin manager uses an additional properties file (filetracker.properties and filetracker.properties.autobackup) and some plugins store additional properties and other information in their own folders. The plugin manager stores info in the SageTV main properties file as well as the filetracker properties file. If these properties files get out of sync, it may cause issues with plugins failing, failing to uninstall, or failing to install. I'm not sure what kind of sanity checks the plugin manager has to prevent these possible situations, so please be careful restoring configuration backups.

The weekly and manual backups should catch everything, but the additional files and folders would have to be added to the sagetv-config-backup script to ensure things don't go bad when restoring configuration backups. I'll try to get these incorporated along with some of the great additions others have added to the original scripts.

Was this issue with V7 plug-ins ever resolved?
Thanks,

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by HuMan321

Was this issue with V7 plug-ins ever resolved?
Thanks,

No, not yet. There should be no problems using the weekly or manual full backup scripts with SageTV V7, but extreme caution should be taken with daily config backups. For daily config backups, the main problem is restoring the sage.properties file that contains some critical plugin information. If the plugin data in the sage.properties file doesn't match up with what is in the filetracker.properties file and with the actual contents of the JARs, PluginInstallers, and various other plugin related folders, you'll likely end up with plugins out of sync and in an inconsistent state.

I'm considering just removing the daily config backup script and making the weekly full backup the new daily backup script. Seems a bit overkill, but I think it would be the safest way to go.

[HuMan321]

Thanks for the reply.

Did you need to install an add-in to your WHS for a scheduler such as this?
New Add-in: WHS Trigger

I would like to move my cache files to the D: shares as well. The folder name would be cache and it would be a subfolder of Fanart which is on the D share. I get confused on the syntax (/\) Could you help?
The location would be D:/shares/fanart/cache or D:\shares\fanart\cache to change the location in the properties file?n Any spaces needed in the property file?
Thanks,

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by HuMan321

Thanks for the reply.

Did you need to install an add-in to your WHS for a scheduler such as this?
New Add-in: WHS Trigger

I would like to move my cache files to the D: shares as well. The folder name would be cache and it would be a subfolder of Fanart which is on the D share. I get confused on the syntax (/\) Could you help?
The location would be D:/shares/fanart/cache or D:\shares\fanart\cache to change the location in the properties file?n Any spaces needed in the property file?
Thanks,

For the scheduler, I just used the builtin Windows Task Scheduler which is available in the Control Panel. You'll either need to login to the WHS machine with Remote Desktop, login directly at the WHS machine, or use an Add-in that allows you to access the Control Panel from the WHS Console. In the Task Scheduler settings, just remember to set the 'Start in' setting to the base directory where the scripts are located.

For the cache directory change in the sage properties file, I use backslashes. And the colon and backslashes need to be escaped with backslashes. So you would have:

D\:\\shares\\fanart\\cache

But I think you can also use forward slashes which don't need to be escaped, but the colon still needs to be escaped with a backslash like this:

D\:/shares/fanart/cache

There are a few different bmt/phoenix/fanart cache properties. Be sure to scan the sage properties file for the word cache and any properties that start with bmt or phoenix you might want to move off of the C: partition to ensure none of the bmt/phoenix cache files fill up what little space is left on that small 20GB C: partition.

[phareous]

Imagine my surprise today when I needed to actually use the weekly backup and found that it backed up absolutely none of the subdirectories of the SageTV folder

These xcopy flags seem to fix the issue:
/c /h /e /y /q

c - continue if errors happened
h - copy hidden and system files
e - copy all subdirectories
y - say yes if there is an overwrite prompt
q - quiet

[phareous]

Also just to clarify, I believe locked files were causing the issue, thus the /C flag fixes that (skips the files)

In my case it appears to be a directory called activemq-data/ortus

[phareous]

I also found it helpful to exclude a few directories, which saved over 2 GB in my case. I don't know how to exclude them with xcopy so I just remove them before the zip is created:


ECHO Compressing backup: %folderName%
CD /D "%backupDirTemp%\%folderName%"
RD /s /Q "%backupDirTemp%\%folderName%\SageTV\cache"
RD /s /Q "%backupDirTemp%\%folderName%\SageTV\STVs\Ortus\Trailers"
"%~DP0\zip.exe" -r -9 -q -S "%~DP0\%folderName%".zip *.*

[ptzink]

Digging up an old thread... I am going to start using these scripts, but is there the opportunity (read: likelihood) that my wiz.bin backup will be corrupt each time since the sagetv service is always running when the backup is made? Or does something in the script accommodate for this situation? If not, how are other people running these scripts shutting down the service prior to backup to ensure a good wiz.bin file. Thanks for the help.

[Slugger]

Prior to each EPG update the core creates wiz.bak - backup that file instead of wiz.bin. If you schedule the backup to happen shortly after an EPG update then the wiz.bak is pretty close to a live backup.

[pjwerdna]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Prior to each EPG update the core creates wiz.bak - backup that file instead of wiz.bin. If you schedule the backup to happen shortly after an EPG update then the wiz.bak is pretty close to a live backup.

This is correct. But doesnt guarantee that either wiz file is not corrupt.

Ive had four times when SageTV stopped updating the wiz files correctly and the only time I found out was when I restarted the SageTV service.

As far as I can tell it creates the wiz.bak and then tries to update the wiz.bin. If this update fails, then the next time it does this update process it overwrites the usable wiz.bak with the now corrupted wiz.bin.

I currently backup all configuration files every night and keep every backup (theyre only a few MB) The last corruption caused me to go back nearly two months until I could find a wiz file that wasnt instantly marked as corrupt.

One thing I have found is that after the EPG update the wiz.bak is usually bigger than the wiz.bin, unless the wiz.bin is corrupt in which case wiz.bin seems to get appended to and so be larger than the backup.