Some thoughts to the WebUI

[Usefulvid]

With the webui, duplicacy has the chance to get to the mass market.
For my youtube channel I already reviewed some backup solutions and most of them fail even on standard tasks. Duplicacy supports a lot of backends and end users do not need to have to worry about plugged in hard drives.
Things which I am missing in the new webui:

1. An option to get alerted if a backup fails (via mail) and not every time a backup run successfully
2. an option to catch up missed backups (in case the PC was not running at the scheduled backup time)
3. If I create a new local storage (e.g. usb drive) in windows, how makes duplicacy sure that Windows did not just swap the drive letters and the backup goes to the wrong place?

[Christoph]

• An option to get alerted if a backup fails (via mail) and not every time a backup run successfully
• an option to catch up missed backups (in case the PC was not running at the scheduled backup time)

I think the best way forward here is to use healthchecks.io to do the monitoring (but see #monitoring for discussions of other solutions).

See this post (and the one above it):

How to avoid stupid mistakes in your powershell scripts (self-test your scripts)

Well, I haven’t heard back from the developer yet but realized that it seems to be implemented already. See here. Will try this out asap. If this works, I think it would be the solution for monitoring duplicacy backups!

But since you mention the “mass market”, maybe this wont meet your criteria? (In fact, since I haven’t switched to the web-ui yet, I’m not even sure how to make it work with healthchecks.io) So perhaps @gchen is willing to add an interface where one can just paste healthchecks.io ping URLs (or any webhooks for that mstter) for different kinds of events (backup started, backup finished without errors, backup finished with errors)?

If I create a new local storage (e.g. usb drive) in windows, how makes duplicacy sure that Windows did not just swap the drive letters and the backup goes to the wrong place?

There is a nice little freeware tool for Windows to make sure the same device gets the same drive letter every time. I can’t remember it’s name right now but will get back when I remember.

Ha! There you have it: it’s called USB Drive Letter Manager - USBDLM

[Usefulvid]

Drive letter:
so this means, duplicacy will orientate itself on the drive letter? Very bad idea. If a user does not uses this tool you mention things may go wrong. Duplicati has an easy solution for this:

Windows Drive Letters

You can just place an emtpy file with a random name on the drive. Duplicati will then use this file to get the backup medium right. Simple and reliable.

Monitoring:
I just saw that a check can be scheduled. This can be done once a weak and would nearly met my criteria but the pc has to be running at the time there I scheduled it.
This brings me back to the catch up of the missed backups

[TheBestPessimist]

how makes duplicacy sure that Windows did not just swap the drive letters and the backup goes to the wrong place?

A storage has a special structure:

So when tries to connect to your storage (on the usb drive) if it won’t find the config file, then it will error out. I believe this to be enough.

There is ofc one case where even this may fail: if you have multiple external HDDs, and they all have the same storage init-ed at the same location. In that case i honestly blame it on you though

[Christoph]

This brings me back to the catch up of the missed backups

You can also use windows scheduler to run duplicacy. This gives you options to run missed backups/checks as soon as the computer is turned on.

Regarding the drive letters: I had missed that you were talking about storage. I thought you wanted to backup those external drives. When it comes to storage, there is no problem as TheBestPessimist mentioned above.

[Usefulvid]

if it won’t find the config file, then it will error out. I believe this to be enough.

Will it search through all connected drives? So in case of a letter swap, will it find the correct drive? Will the user be informed in case of error?

You can also use windows scheduler to run duplicacy.

This makes the usage very complicated. in this case I could also use the cli version which is free for personal use. The webui should target users who want an easy to configure backup solution. The webui is very very close to it and it would be sad if it will fail only because missed backups can not be addressed.

[TheBestPessimist]

Will it search through all connected drives? So in case of a letter swap, will it find the correct drive?

idk :-/ (i wouldn’t expect it to, though)

Will the user be informed in case of error?

I hope so. (idk either)

I’m not a web-ui user, so all i’m saying here is from what i read in other posts and what i know from my cli usage.

[Usefulvid]

I only see a notification option via mail but only in scheduled jobs. I do not want to be informed every hour about an successful backup.
perhaps @gchen can comment on this

edit: Video finished:

[Christoph]

Will it search through all connected drives?

No, of course not (@gchen, correct me if I’m wrong). It only looks at the storage path, i.e. only the drive letter under which the drive was originally registered. If the path doesn’t exist or if it doesn’t find the config file, I suppose ot will exit with an error, just like it will if your trying to backup to any other unavailable destination.

Video finished:

Great! Would you like to post it in a separate topic?

Since we’re pinging Gilbert anyway, I’d like him to confirm how duplicacy is supposed to be pronounced according to him. In my mind, the - acy is pronounced as in privacy. So that would put the emphasis on the syllable pli in duplicacy, but in some versions of English perhaps it’s also possible to ephasize the du. I’m not a native speaker…

[Usefulvid]

my speaker used both versions in the video
But me and the speaker are also not native (as you may have already guessed )
Would be nice to get the hint from @gchen

Great! Would you like to post it in a separate topic?

yes give me a second

edit:
@Christoph

Video Presentation: The new duplicacy Web UI

Please feel free to discuss this video!

feel free to change the category if I got it wrong

[gchen]

only see a notification option via mail but only in scheduled jobs. I do not want to be informed every hour about an successful backup.
perhaps @gchen can comment on this

Yes, the email after each completed schedule is the only notification.

No, of course not (@gchen, correct me if I’m wrong). It only looks at the storage path, i.e. only the drive letter under which the drive was originally registered. If the path doesn’t exist or if it doesn’t find the config file, I suppose ot will exit with an error, just like it will if your trying to backup to any other unavailable destination.

That is correct.

Since we’re pinging Gilbert anyway, I’d like him to confirm how duplicacy is supposed to be pronounced according to him. In my mind, the - acy is pronounced as in privacy . So that would put the emphasis on the syllable pli in duplicacy, but in some versions of English perhaps it’s also possible to ephasize the du . I’m not a native speaker…

I’m not a native speaker either, so I really don’t know which syllable should be stressed. Maybe someone here can recommend an official pronunciation?

[theotherbuzzy]

I think the best way forward here is to use healthcheck.io to do the monitoring (but see #monitoring for discussions of other solutions).

Did you mean http://healthchecks.io ? Without the ‘s’ it takes you to a domain reseller. However this is a cool idea! I was thinking of using email filters and maybe IFTTT, but that wouldn’t really help with missed backups. The Crashplan service has a tendency to stop working or not restart occasionally and it takes the “no backup” email for X days before I realize it.

[Christoph]

Did you mean http://healthchecks.io

Yes, sorry, fixed it.

[Usefulvid]

Yes, the email after each completed schedule is the only notification.

This would make it a show stopper for me for windows.
Users must be informed if something is going wrong

That is correct.

Why not using the same methoed as duplicati does? Drive letter is really a bad idea in windows and if the user does not gets informed in case of an error… this is a receipe for desaster

[Droolio]

Users must be informed if something is going wrong

This is not as easy as it sounds.

In fact, literally just this second, I checked the Duplicacy web edition icon in the tray next to the clock. Hovered over the icon and it disappeared. Duplicacy, was in fact, not running.

This is an issue I’ve been seeing for the past several weeks but am unable to put a finger on it. My PC is on 24/7 and I leave it logged in. Once a week or two I’ll notice Duplicacy isn’t running. Why? I have no idea! The Windows event logs don’t show any crashes. My last successful backup today was at 12:15 but the 14:15 (and 16:15 & 18:15) backup didn’t run according to the dashboard. Sometimes a day or two will pass before I notice it isn’t running. Luckily, today I only missed a few hours.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make… Duplicacy itself can’t tell you if something like that goes wrong, if it isn’t even running.

Hence the purpose of an external service like healthchecks.io. I recently set up an alert for a customer’s system running Vertical Backup (Duplicacy’s brother for ESXi hosts) and set up a pre-script to ping a given URL. If it doesn’t run, I get an email notification. I may have to do the same on my personal machine.

[Usefulvid]

This is not my point. If a program crashes it can not alert the user this is clear. But if the backup medium is missing the user should be alerted. There is an easy solution to this. What do you think of a threshold which can be user defined. This threshold should check for the last successful backup and measure the time which has past since then. If the value is too high it should send a mail.
This would also help if duplicacy crashes entirely. At the next start a mail could be triggered that the last Backup is too old.

[Droolio]

I like this idea and I definitely think notifications could be more finer grained.

[Usefulvid]

I could try to write a script but for that I would need a time stamp format which can be set in relation to the actual time. Any ideas how to do this?

[gchen]

@Droolio

This is an issue I’ve been seeing for the past several weeks but am unable to put a finger on it. My PC is on 24/7 and I leave it logged in. Once a week or two I’ll notice Duplicacy isn’t running. Why? I have no idea! The Windows event logs don’t show any crashes. My last successful backup today was at 12:15 but the 14:15 (and 16:15 & 18:15) backup didn’t run according to the dashboard. Sometimes a day or two will pass before I notice it isn’t running. Luckily, today I only missed a few hours.

Normally when the web GUI crashes it will leave the stack trace in the ~/.duplicacy-web/logs/duplicacy_web.log. If you can’t find anything there maybe you can try ProcDump? This page has instructions on how to do that for a Windows service but it should work the same way for the web GUI:

Debugging Windows Service Startup Using Procdump