GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 604398
[backup-restore] "Invalid Evolution Backup file. Please select a valid backup file to restore"
Last modified: 2010-02-01 23:05:44 UTC
Iam trying to move my Evolution information from one system to another. The two systems are using the same Evolution release of 2.28.0-2.5 (x86-64), running the OpenSuse 11.2 O.S. with Gnome desktop. I have backed up the information on the "from" system using Evolutions own backup process. I then copied the Evolution backup file to a DVD. The DVD contents were then copied to a harddrive of the "to" system. When I use the Evolution "Restore from Backup" in Evolution Setup Assistant I get a message box that states "Invalid Evolution Backup file Please select a valid backup file to restore." I have looked in the system log for some reason for the file being considered invalid and found nothing. The Evolution logges are empty. I have removed evolution from the "to" system and reinstalled it, but still received the same message. Can you give me some idea where to look for evolution error messages or give me a reason why I am receiving this message when I try to load the backup file? Thank you for your help with this problem. Distribution: openSUSE 11.2 (x86_64) Gnome Release: 2.28.0 (null) (SUSE) BugBuddy Version: 2.28.0
I think this is a Dup or related of bug 604198
Fabio, no, as bug 604198 is an UI issue I think.
Does your both the systems have same user and domain names ? Backup restore doesn't work if those two are not same afaik.
Akhil: The owner, octal permission #, the group, and read/write permissions on the files are the same on both systems. I am not sure about the domain name. I have not set a domain name for ether system, so if one exists it should be the default value set by the OpenSuse 11.2 OS. Can you point me to to where I can check the file domain name to be sure it is the same on both systems? If I have not given you the information you require, please direct me to where I can find the specific data you need. Thank you for your interest and work on this problem.
(In reply to comment #4) > Can you point me to to where I can > check the file domain name to be sure it is the same on both systems? Sorry for the confusion, it's hostname, not domain name. Open a terminal, type hostname and in the result you will see hostname. You can verify it in both the machines.
Akhil: The hostname is different. Do you know if replacing the .evolution file in the home directory on the "to" system with the .evolution file on the "from" system would still work? Thank you again Akhil, for finding me the answer on the Evolution backup/restore question. I appreciate your effort in helping me resolve this issue.
(In reply to comment #6) > Akhil: > > The hostname is different. Do you know if replacing the .evolution file in > the home directory on the "to" system with the .evolution file on the "from" > system would still work? > Evolution stores account details in gconf so you will have to transfer them as well with .evolution directory. Please follow below steps http://www.go-evolution.org/FAQ#How_can_I_transfer_all_my_Evolution_data_from_an_old_home_directory_to_a_new_home_directory.3F
Hello, I also experienced this problem whilst rebuilding my laptop recently. In preparation I backed up my evolution data and moved the file to my NAS. After the rebuild I attempted to restore the data directly from my NAS which failed with the error message described above. I'm running evolution 2.28.1 under Ubuntu 9.10 32 bit. After posting a question on the Ubuntu forums I was advised to move the backup file to my home directory and restore from there; this worked fine. See: https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evolution/+question/88622 https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evolution/+bug/447888
static gboolean sanity_check (const gchar *filename) { gchar *command; gint result; > command = g_strdup_printf ("%s/evolution-backup --check %s", EVOLUTION_TOOLSDIR, filename); result = system (command); g_free (command); #ifdef HAVE_SYS_WAIT_H g_message ("Sanity check result %d:%d %d", WIFEXITED (result), WEXITSTATUS (result), result); return WIFEXITED (result) && (WEXITSTATUS (result) == 0); #else return result; #endif } The filename is not quoted before passing to g_strudp_printf. In this case the path that contains spaces will cause a failure: rtg@lucidity:/usr/lib/evolution/2.28$ ./evolution-backup --check /home/rtg/Ubuntu One/evolution-backup.tar.gz tar: One/evolution-backup.tar.gz: Cannot open: No such file or directory tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now tar: Child returned status 2 tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors ** Message: First result 512 Note that the path does not have the space escaped. The same error message from tar is printed to the terminal. In case the filename is properly escaped the problem will be gone.
Thanks for the analysis, Roman. You're correct. And it looks like the quoting issues were fixed under bug #540516, but the patch was only committed for Evolution 2.29. I cherry-picked the patch for the 2.28 branch: http://git.gnome.org/browse/evolution/commit/?h=gnome-2-28&id=46d05a49a59009b2db40e810773bd5c12361a569 Sometime soon -- I haven't decided exactly when yet -- we'll be releasing an unscheduled Evolution 2.28.3 which will include this fix among others. In the meantime distro maintainers can grab it for themselves. Closing this as a duplicate. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 540516 ***