Ubuntu

Deja Dup suddenly cannot back up files (access problem)

Asked by VanillaMozilla

Running from an admin account, Deja Dup cannot back up files from other users. It also failed to back up one directory (/home/<myuser>/.config/nautilus-actions) from my own account, which may be a separate problem, as explained below. It had no problem with the last backup (60 days ago), and there have been no changes in accounts or file ownership. The error message is
"Could not back up the following files. Please make sure you are able to open them."

As a matter of fact, I can only view the directories with sudo, so it appears to be an access problem. There is a bug report ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/deja-dup/+bug/1313034 ) about not backing up
/home/myuser/.cache/dconf
/home/myuser/.dbus and
/home/myuser/.gvfs,

but mine is a much broader problem. Changing ownership is clearly not the way to back up all users' files. Shouldn't deja dup handle other users' files without problem--especially since I'm running from admin? Is there a workaround? Is there a bug report?

Not backing up ~./.config/nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf is a separate, minor problem. I am the owner, but the access rules are no list, create/delete, access. I'm not up on access rules and have to admit to being a tiny bit lazy, but huh? What gives? What is this "no list" and how did it get that way?

Running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, fully patched.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

~/.gvfs isnt a real file, its used for functionality and should be removed from the scope of the backup.

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VanillaMozilla (vanillamozilla) said : 		#2

OK, thanks, that's solved.

But what about all the hundreds of other, real files owned by other users? That's the main problem here.

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#3

What is the output of the command

ls -l ~./.config/nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf

(or if this shows no access rights, sudo ls -l ~./.config/nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf)

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VanillaMozilla (vanillamozilla) said : 		#4

Sorry, I've been gone for two weeks.

~$ ls -l ~./.config/nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf
ls: cannot access ~./.config/nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf: No such file or directory
:~$ ls -al nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf
ls: cannot access nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf: No such file or directory
~$ cd .config
~/.config$ ls -l nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 <mylogin> <mylogin> 34 Sep 28 05:29 nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf

The ls -l or ls -al command does not display files in hidden directories. However, the file is present and readable.

Don't forget the files of other users. That's by far the most important problem here.

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#5

(In my command there was an extra dot, should have been ~/.config...)

The access rights now should allow sufficient access. Do you still get an error message about not backing up nautilus-actions.conf?

+++

For the files of other users:
You have to be aware, that files can be backed up, only if there is read access to the files.
You have to verify whether the user under whose account the backup process is running, really has access to the files in question.

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