Timeshift Restore Showing All Drives [SOLVED]

[Daisuke]

Finally had time to give TimeShift a try. I also created a test file in /etc which I planned to delete and then verify that TS would restore it.

I booted Into Mint and created a TimeShift snapshot of the file system plus the dot files from /home. I also included one additional /home directory with about 20 files which I want to preserve. Once the snapshot was complete, I exited from TS and I deleted the test file.

I started TS again, this time selecting Restore. I selected the snapshot (it was the only one) and pressed Next. Here was the first sign of trouble. Instead of only seeing a few partitions (like /, /boot, /boot/efi) I saw every partition in my system. (See screenshot below). I pressed Next and got an error, "Unable to Mount". I tried restarting TS. This time it continued without error, but still showed all the drives. In all my reading about TimeShift, I had not come across this situation. I turned off the options to restore grub, etc. in the supplementary menu "Bootloader Options (Advanced). Pressed Next again. TS went through the dry run. It said it would create the deleted test file and restore everything else. There were also a few deletions for Firefox files created after the snapshot. This looked promising.

Then on the penultimate page, I got a warning telling me that data would be modified on ALL MY DRIVES. (See screenshot below). This did not look good. So I quit.

I next tried running TimeShift from a Linux Mint Live USB to see if this would resolve the problem. I could run TimeShift but it did not find the snapshots. At this point I did not know what to do.

I do not understand why TS listing all my devices. Can anyone shed light on this? They were not involved in the drive selection when the snapshot was created. I hope someone can offer a solution short of having to disconnect all these drives in order to do a restore.

[Cosmo.]

The purpose of TS is to save the state of the system and restore it to a previous state, if needed. Although it is possible to copy a single file (or directory) from a snapshot this is not the usual purpose of the program. Restoring the systems does necessarily mean bringing all partitions, which have been included in the snapshot, back to the previous state inclusive deleting all, what is not included in the snapshot. Out of this reason the inclusion of home (or a part of it) makes it likely to loose all data, which has been saved since the date of the used backup. This is not recommended and the user does at his own responsibility. TS is like a time machine: If a user restores a snapshot from day X all, what has been created, altered or deleted after day X will be gone after the restore. By default /home is excluded, but if it is included, it will be affected also. The TS developer recommends Back In Time or other programs for that purpose.

If TS gets used from a live system it is necessary to tell, in which partition the relevant snapshot is stored. Each partition can only store the snapshots of one system.

[MAlfare]

Each partition can only store the snapshots of one system.

This is not true.
Timeshift can distinguish snapshots from different sources (by the info.json files in every snapshot) and, when creating new snapshots, select the correct ones for comparison with the current state. The user must label the snapshots to keep them apart.
AMRoberts has tested this:
viewtopic.php?f=90&t=360279&start=20
My links to additional informations about TS in this ancient thread are outdated.
Give me a message if you want the current one
Ignore the stupid comments of Aztaroth, who will never understand, how TS works

[Cosmo.]

The developer says clearly:

This[1] is the normal bahaviour. Timeshift is not designed to store snapshots of multiple systems on the same backup partition.

[1] Deleting snapshots from other systems, when the same backup partition gets used for multiple systems.
Source: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift/issues/552

If I have the choice to believe the developer or people, who invent something different (why the hell don't they fork and create their own program?), than I do not need a second to decide. And I do not waste time by discussing this.

[MAlfare]

The developer says clearly:

This[1] is the normal bahaviour. Timeshift is not designed to store snapshots of multiple systems on the same backup partition.

[1] Deleting snapshots from other systems, when the same backup partition gets used for multiple systems.
Source: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift/issues/552
If I have the choice to believe the developer or people, who invent something different (why the hell don't they fork and create their own program?), than I do not need a second to decide. And I do not waste time by discussing this.

The developer not "says clearly" but said more than two years ago.
No fork required, the original, the hell, is able to do it!
Of course I read that. But it is refuted, possibly outdated. And of course you can believe what you want, and of course you can spread your belief.
As long as you do not claim that it is a fact!
And I don't have the ambition to teach (another) cow to waltz.

[Cosmo.]

The developer not "says clearly" but said more than two years ago.

Your perception ability is limited. He said it in words, which cannot get misinterpreted. The program has not been rewritten from scratch since that date. And 1 year later the TS developer repeated it once more. It is proven, that you ḱnow this. That are the facts!

I have seen enough from your style of posting. So EOD here.

[Daisuke]

@Cosmo and @MAlfare,

I think that I did not state the problem clearly enough. I apologize for that. Please let me try again.

First, and most importantly for your exchange, I am only trying to use TS for one, single Linux system. I only have one system partition / to backup and the dot files from a second partition /home. So I hope I have clarified all of that.

I have other purely data partitions mounted to sub-directories in /. These are in /data and /share. I also have one partition mounted to /media, but I see that TS did not pick this up. So apparently this configuration has somehow created a problem for TS. I did not intend for TS to take snapshots of these devices!!!!! These primarily contain virtual disks for virtual machines run on VmWare and the files are very large and change daily. TS is clearly not the way to perform backups on these partitions. I back them up in a completely different way.

I found a work around. I set each the value of the "Device" column for each of these erroneously listed partitions to "Keep on root device". Then, these devices disappear from the warning page. Because I had just made and tested a Disk Image of the /dev/sda drive, I felt that I could go ahead with the restore operation. It worked correctly, perfectly actually. I have no idea what would have happened if I had not made this change.

I assume that "Keep on root device" means that TS should ignore them. Perhaps, I should have created exclude filters for them instead. I will post a question on the meaning and use of "Keep on Root Device" in TS. But I am going to mark this SOLVED. When time permits, I will also try exclude filters in case that achieves the same result and post back here.

[pbear]

Perhaps, I should have created exclude filters for them instead.

That's the correct solution, not manipulating or spoofing the restore targets.

[pbear]

Each partition can only store the snapshots of one system.

Let's say should rather than can, eh?

[Cosmo.]

Please read my sentence in the context of the very short paragraph, only 2 sentences. It is about the situation, where the system is in such a bad condition, that only a restore from a live system can help.

And now there comes something, what I call the human factor:
If things go very bad, many people have the tendency to get nervous. If they are nervous they need clear procedures to do the correct steps. A number of them come here, because they do not find the right procedure. Sometimes there is not even advanced knowledge necessary to find the solution, but "only" a head free from nervousness. Making things complicated for restoring anything is the first step into the catastrophe.
Following Murphy's law bad things happen mostly, if you are already short of time. Doing something under time pressure potentiates the nervousness.

Now assume somebody is in that bad situation. (S)he knows, that a TS snapshot is there, but because of an immature idea there are snapshots from multiple systems combined. TS will not work in the way, as described in the documentation. How likely is the case, that the user finds the correct way to go? And even worse: How great is the risk, that the snapshots get damaged and kill the last chance for restoring?

Back to the said sentence and the said paragraph: I do not change this sentence for the slightest detail.

[pbear]

Then I shall leave it with, I respectfully disagree. OTOH, I agree using a single partition to snapshot multiple systems is a bad idea.

[Cosmo.]

I respectfully disagree.

No problem.