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More => Old Versions => Media Center 12 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: dcwebman on July 01, 2008, 11:32:44 am

Title: Automatic backup?
Post by: dcwebman on July 01, 2008, 11:32:44 am
With a recent thread about files being tagged wrongly, it was suggested that a previous library backup be restored. I try to remember to back up my library every so often but as is probably true with most people, I forget to do it too often. Some programs I use have an automatic backup feature so when the program is closed, the library is backed up. Wouldn't this be something useful to add to MC?
Title: Re: Automatic backup?
Post by: Matt on July 01, 2008, 11:36:17 am
Media Center makes daily (and monthly) automatic backups.
Title: Re: Automatic backup?
Post by: JimH on July 01, 2008, 11:42:44 am
MC does do automatic backups.
Title: Re: Automatic backup?
Post by: fitbrit on July 01, 2008, 11:48:56 am
MC does do automatic backups.

LOL, just like you and Matt in this thread.
Title: Re: Automatic backup?
Post by: marko on July 01, 2008, 12:20:38 pm
Am I correct in thinking that it doesn't do automatic purging?

Maybe something to consider to prevent the backup folder from growing in size ad-infinitum.

-marko.
Title: Re: Automatic backup?
Post by: mark_h on July 01, 2008, 01:24:13 pm
I had a situation today where I wish it didn't do automatic purges (as I believe it does).  For some reason many of my tracks have lost their "last played" fields (and perhaps others :eek:).  I went to the backups looking for a date where this occurred so I could recover the information.  I only have backups going back to April 2008 but have been using MC on this current PC for over a year and found that this wasn't enough to recover all the missing data.  I was able to use my stored copy of my previous PC's files to hunt further back for more missing data.

Upshot is, I'd like to see backups kept for a much longer period.  Granted, I had to jump through hoops (external scripts) to pull out the data I wanted and reintroduce it to my database via scripturally constructed playlists but the fact I was able to do so means the more backups available the better for just such occasions.

I wish I knew why I lost my Last Played fields from a lot of my files though as many of my smartlists work off this information and now I'm back to a backed up state...  one step forward, three steps back...

Mark
Title: Re: Automatic backup?
Post by: hit_ny on July 01, 2008, 01:36:40 pm
I was about to say the hard part is deciding the cutoff date :)

I do manual backups whever i do any significant changes, this invariably means at least cpl of times a day. I keep all the backups, just transfer them to unused HDs.

The only time its possible to lose entire fields is if MC gets interrupted while doing its save, either via a crash or being terminated.

It's very strange this new database bug, hope it gets squished soon.

 ?
Title: Re: Automatic backup?
Post by: dcwebman on July 02, 2008, 04:51:38 am
Good to know but it doesn't keep the backups in the location I manually keep my backups. I did some searching and think I found the automatic backup location. But if it does daily (and monthly) backups, I can't understand how come I have so few backups:
MC Library Backup (MC12 - July).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - 2008-06-27).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - 2008-06-23).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - 2008-06-21).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - 2008-06-18).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - 2008-06-11).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - 2008-06-09).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - June).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - 2008-05-31).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - May).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - April).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - March).zip
MC Library Backup (MC12 - February).zip

I know I have been using it daily for the past week and there aren't backups for those days. I can't find anything in the wiki or help that specifies how often backups are made, how many are made, etc. There is a brief entry in the wiki for version 11:
http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/What%27s_New
that says "Automatic library backup every three days"
Title: Re: Automatic backup?
Post by: Deivit on July 02, 2008, 05:36:05 am
If those backups are really purged automatically by MC (which I was not aware of since I do it manually once in a while), taking a look at your list I would say that MC keeps the last 6 monthly backups plus all the backups from the last 30 days. For my experience, I don't think it does daily backups... I would say it does one every two days.

(or so  ;) )
Title: Re: Automatic backup?
Post by: Matt on July 02, 2008, 12:43:28 pm
A backup is made every two days.

Backups are purged to a maximum of 15 backups during the time of a monthly backup.