Web-UI: Upgraded from 1.3.0 to 1.5.0 and lost all settings

[lphelan]

[Note: everything below that appears critical is meant, sincerely, as constructive criticism. Duplicacy is great and I’m grateful for the work @gchen does to create and improve it. Also I’m grateful for the help many users provide on this forum.]

Before beginning the upgrade (Windows), I looked to the forum to make sure I wouldn’t mess up the upgrade. As expected, I found no clear, complete step-by-step how-to-upgrade description. Instead I found hints and bits of instructions scattered about in various threads. I tried to synthesize these into some instructions for me to follow.

This is what I did:

1. I stopped the Duplicacy process in Task Manager.
2. The Duplicacy service was no longer running (probably a result of step 1 above), so I couldn’t “stop” it.
3. I ran the 1.5.0 install exe as administrator. I chose to install for all users, as I had for previous versions, so Duplicacy would run as a service.
4. During the install I got an error message that the service already exists.
5. After the install I got the “Duplicacy will store all passwords/credentials in an encrypted form in the configuration file. Please enter a password to encrypt/decrypt these passwords/credentials…” dialog. I thought this was a bad sign because I already had a password from the 1.3.0 install.
6. It was a bad sign. When I started 1.5.0 it started from scratch, knowing nothing about my previous 1.3.0 setup.
7. After rebooting and rummaging around I find that I have two Web-UI installs. 1.3.0 remains and is still running normally. The new shortcut runs 1.5.0 that remembers nothing about my settings.

Is there a way to recover from this situation, so that I have only one Web-UI, version 1.5.0, that knows all my settings without having to re-enter everything? Also, what step(s) did I miss or get wrong when I just tried to do the upgrade?

[gchen]

If Duplicacy is installed as a service, then all settings are stored under C:\ProgamData\.duplicacy-web. Otherwise they are stored under C:\Users\username\.duplicacy-web. If 1.5.0 doesn’t see the old settings you’ll just need to copy all files from one directory to the other. After that you can run the 1.3.0 uninstaller to remove the 1.3.0 installation.

[lphelan]

There is one .duplicacy-web folder in C:\ProgramData, and it belongs to version 1.3.0. Version 1.3.0 still contains my storage and schedule settings, which shows in the duplicacy.json file. The schedule continues to run. It has already made a backup today and the log for this backup appears in C:\ProgramData.duplicacy-web\logs.

So, where is version 1.5.0? In C:\Users\username is a .duplicacy-web folder. Most of the subfolders are empty. The duplicacy.json file is almost empty, since 1.5.0 has not been set up yet. The file dates of some of these folders is from yesterday at the time I installed 1.5.0.

I installed 1.5.0 for all users, and as I said in my step 4 above, I got a message that the service already exists. I don’t know why 1.5.0 seems to have been installed in \Users\username.

I ask again, how can I properly install 1.5.0? Version 1.3.0 was installed for all users with its service, and I’d like to install 1.5.0 over it, also for all users with its service. Do I need to also delete the existing Duplicacy service before beginning the install?

[Droolio]

My upgrade procedure is to uninstall Duplicacy first, then install the new version…

I dunno - maybe Duplicacy is suppose to stop the service, upgrade, then start the new version, but I’ve always run into issues with this. In your case, best to start from scratch - your configuration won’t disappear, if you uninstall…

Uninstall all instances and make sure Duplicacy isn’t running beforehand (check the bottom right in the icon tray, and also any services). Then I’d delete the redundant config dir C:\Users\username\.duplicacy-web.

Finally, run the v1.5.0 install, by right-click ‘Run as administrator’ and install for all users, selecting to install as service at the very end. The service should be started and the interface can be accessed via http://127.0.0.1:3875/. DON’T use the desktop shortcut, as that’ll only run another non-service instance. (I tend to delete that and replace it with a browser shortcut to the URL.)

IMHO, the Duplicacy installation process needs a vast improvement - should probably default to ‘all users’ / service mode, and be able to deal with existing install of either configuration.

[lphelan]

Thanks @Droolio. I did what you said. I also copied the .duplicacy-web folder (the one in ProgramData with all my settings) over to a safe place. Just in case.

There was only one Duplicacy app available to uninstall. Control Panel said it was 1.5.0. I guess the uninstall info got overwritten with by the 1.5.0 install I did yesterday. I uninstalled, and got a dialog “The Duplicacy Web Edition service has been successfully uninstalled.” I confirmed that the service was no longer listed in the Services list. Further, both .duplicacy-web folders, the one in ProgramData and the one in \Users\username, were untouched. The Duplicacy folder in Program Files was deleted.

The install did everything right this time. I never got told that the service already exists, and never got asked for a new “password to encrypt/decrypt…” Version 1.5 was installed and appears to be working. All my settings still show up in the UI.

I bet if I had manually uninstalled the service yesterday, that would have also been a solution.

I’m going to delete the .duplicacy-web folder under \Users\username.