Why Timeshift is a complete fail

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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by Agentl074 »

It is my understanding that TimeShift is only used to fix a broken system -- not broken hardware. You should ALWAYS back up your devices using external means.

HDDs fail, SDDs fail... always back up with external drives.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by NewWorldHero »

You have to laugh at those that think they are Mint or Linux experts, and rationalize their defensive posts by even coming close to labeling my first post a rant.

Even a simple Google or other search shows the complete fail and dissatisfaction rate of TS with basic users/consumers.

Those of you that think youre heros defending TS for what it is not need to refresh your 4th grade reading and comprehension skills (yet) again and read the first part of the post: The inclusion of TS by Clem and the Mint team over the years gives TS legitimacy that it will rescue your install and data when your SSD fails. Mint (and other fail self proclaimed experts) RECOMMEND to immediately use TS and then set up periodic saves.

There IS NO MENTION to NOT use encryption on your Mint install if youre going to use TS. Encryption on a fresh install is used by a majority of new and basic users on every fresh install of Mint.

"Tony" in India has been bombarded by this unresolved TS plague for decades leaving countless thousands of users screwed. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

Again, plainly and commonly known, it is Mints fault for this illusion and inclusion of TS.

Thanks to all you basic and new users for the PM's, who are too intimidated by the bullies and loudmouths that responded in this thread to post publicly, seeking answers to the exact same problems and scenario of the SSD failure. To you guys- cheers. But remember youre totally and completely screwed to get your data install back from a periodic TS save, especially if you used encryption. Its not your fault for following Mint's, and other so-called experts, recommendations during install, and to use the recommended and included "backup" package Timeshift.

Don't look for help from those that responded negatively in this thread, or this forum, or other historic or archived step-by-step posts with this issue and scenario. It will fail.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by Lady Fitzgerald »

NewWorldHero wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 12:44 am You have to laugh at those that think they are Mint or Linux experts, and rationalize their defensive posts by even coming close to labeling my first post a rant.

Even a simple Google or other search shows the complete fail and dissatisfaction rate of TS with basic users/consumers.

Those of you that think youre heros defending TS for what it is not need to refresh your 4th grade reading and comprehension skills (yet) again and read the first part of the post: The inclusion of TS by Clem and the Mint team over the years gives TS legitimacy that it will rescue your install and data when your SSD fails. Mint (and other fail self proclaimed experts) RECOMMEND to immediately use TS and then set up periodic saves.

There IS NO MENTION to NOT use encryption on your Mint install if youre going to use TS. Encryption on a fresh install is used by a majority of new and basic users on every fresh install of Mint.

"Tony" in India has been bombarded by this unresolved TS plague for decades leaving countless thousands of users screwed. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

Again, plainly and commonly known, it is Mints fault for this illusion and inclusion of TS.

Thanks to all you basic and new users for the PM's, who are too intimidated by the bullies and loudmouths that responded in this thread to post publicly, seeking answers to the exact same problems and scenario of the SSD failure. To you guys- cheers. But remember youre totally and completely screwed to get your data install back from a periodic TS save, especially if you used encryption. Its not your fault for following Mint's, and other so-called experts, recommendations during install, and to use the recommended and included "backup" package Timeshift.

Don't look for help from those that responded negatively in this thread, or this forum, or other historic or archived step-by-step posts with this issue and scenario. It will fail.
WOW! Did someone kick your dog or walk on your lawn? :roll:

Your problem is you are trying to use Timeshift for the wrong purpose, then rant that it's no good. It's like ranting that you tried to use a screwdriver to tighten a nut, then, when you failed, blamed on the screwdriver.

Even though I have restored an installation by reinstalling Mint, then bringing it back up to the state it was in before I borked it (once it failed, twice twice it was successful; that was back when I was first starting to learn how to use Linux and didn't fully understand the purpose of Timeshift yet), that still is not its intended purpose. Timeshift was never intend to recover a damaged installation or reinstall an installation onto another drive; it's only intended to bring it back to the same state it was at the time the snapshot being restored was taken. It's the equivalent of Windows System Restore (except Timeshift is far, far more reliable than windows System Restore).

For restoring a completely borked system or reinstalling on a dead drive, you need to use imaging. That is the tool for that task, not Timeshift. You did get one thing correct:
If you encrypt during Mint installation and your SSD fails and you only have a TS backup, you're screwed.
However, that's not the fault of Timeshift. It's your fault for using the wrong tool. It doesn't matter if the installation is encrypted or not; it's still the wrong tool.

You keep berating the experts, claiming that they do not know what they are talking about. Explain, then, why do we Timeshift users have no problems with it? Timeshift does everything I ask it to because I what it's supposed to be used for and know how to use it. I use it several times a week without problems. I can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the times restoring a snapshot failed but, even then, all I had to do was just go back to an earlier snapshot.

Timeshift has the advantage that you do not have to use a live disk to make a snapshot. You can still, use the computer while Timeshift is running, making it convenient to use frequently. I take a snapshot first thing Monday morning and again before doing anything that could screw up the system, such as changing settings, adding or removing programs, installing a new kernel, etc. It takes only a handful of seconds to start the snapshot, then keep using the computer (even though it takes only a minute or so to complete the snapshot).

The same as a mechanic doesn't use only one tool to repair a car, you need more than one tool to maintain your computer. To restore an installation onto another drive, you need to use imaging. Foxclone and Rescuezilla are excellent tools for this (I use Rescuezilla). You can also use imaging in place of Timeshift. However, imaging does require using a live disk, ties up the computer while running, and takes longer to use, so it's not as convenient to use in place of Timeshift.

To back up my data, I use FreeFileSync.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by Moem »

NewWorldHero wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 12:44 am Even a simple Google or other search shows the complete fail and dissatisfaction rate of TS with basic users/consumers.
Did your search also turn up my experience? viewtopic.php?f=60&t=364125
If not, that may make for a nice bit of contrast.
NewWorldHero wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 12:44 am remember youre totally and completely screwed to get your data install back from a periodic TS save, especially if you used encryption.
I'm not surprised. Trying to get your data back from a system snapshot is like trying to open a can of pureed tomato with a hammer: it's unlikely to go over well. That doesn't mean that a hammer is a bad tool; it's just a really, really poor can opener.

In my view, Timeshift should never be connected with the concept of backups, except in the sense that apart from a Timeshift snapshot, you will also need data backups. They are very different things.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by Moem »

Mod note:
Removed a post that went against the 'no name calling' rule. C'mon, now.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by AZgl1800 »

Timeshift has saved my arse so many times, I can't count them

I can try out 'new to me' software with immunity, don't like it? it crashed something,

Timeshift/restore and it is fixed.
plain and simple
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by signer-ink-beast »

Timeshift is really nice. When I was using Gentoo, I used rsnapshot in conjunction with cron. Timeshift is very similar and has some perks that are better than rsnapshot, especially for computers that aren't on 24/7.

You can configure Timeshift to backup user data and the root user's dotfiles, which is what I do, but it doesn't do that by default. But it's basically set and forget after that. You can reinstall and copy files over from your TS backups. For raw disk images, TS doesn't do that. You need to use a different tool, and there are many out there.

With disk encryption, there is the greater risk of losing everything without backups. As long as you make backups, test them, and make backups of your backups (can recommend, saved my butt when my online backups went kaput), you'll be fine with encryption. You can always reroll your OS, but you can't always replace your important data. There are cloud backup options worth considering for some things as well, as yet another offsite option. There are pros and cons to everything.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by AndyMH »

signer-ink-beast wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:12 pm You can configure Timeshift to backup user data and the root user's dotfiles, which is what I do, but it doesn't do that by default.
Bad idea. Install backintime (there are alternatives). backintime works just like timeshift, takes snapshots. backintime default = only do home, timeshift default = do system excluding home. So complementary. That way, screw up your system, timeshift gets you back leaving your data alone, lose your data, backintime gets it back leaving the system alone.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by signer-ink-beast »

AndyMH wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:49 pm
signer-ink-beast wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:12 pm You can configure Timeshift to backup user data and the root user's dotfiles, which is what I do, but it doesn't do that by default.
Bad idea. Install backintime (there are alternatives). backintime works just like timeshift, takes snapshots. backintime default = only do home, timeshift default = do system excluding home. So complementary. That way, screw up your system, timeshift gets you back leaving your data alone, lose your data, backintime gets it back leaving the system alone.
Awesome, I'll use it. Very handy! Thanks.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by Second Round »

Timeshift restored my borked system last week from a snapshot on the very same drive that got messed up.

So, IME, it's not a complete fail. In baseball parlance it's 1 for 1. Sure hope not to give it many more at-bats.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by dave1953 »

Personally don't use Timeshift as I have tried several times but only ever got it to work properly once; however I accept this is probably due to either misconception on my part or user error on my part. As I keep all precious data on a separate physical drive (backed up to a physically separate external drive) my data is reasonably safe. I appreciate that for tinkerers (like me) Timeshift used properly would be an important and invaluable tool.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by AZgl1800 »

dave1953 wrote: Tue Feb 15, 2022 10:35 am Personally don't use Timeshift as I have tried several times but only ever got it to work properly once; however I accept this is probably due to either misconception on my part or user error on my part. As I keep all precious data on a separate physical drive (backed up to a physically separate external drive) my data is reasonably safe. I appreciate that for tinkerers (like me) Timeshift used properly would be an important and invaluable tool.
YOU MUST set the 'LOCATION' to a partition that is NOT the one the OS lives on.
that is a Cardinal Rule that must not be violated, or you are heading for trouble.

I have used Timeshift Restore so many times, that a 100 spreadsheets could not count them.
Not once, did it fail.

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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by dave1953 »

My bad I forgot to mention that any attempts at using Timeshift have been made using a separate ssd for the backups. My setup is nvme for the os and apps; separate ssd used for Timeshift backups; separate spinning internal hdd for data; separate spinning external hdd for data backup. As stated - it is obviously user error and I have no criticism of Timeshift at all. It's just personal inadequacy.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by gittiest personITW »

Not being a programmer and hence not contributing code to Mint/Ubuntu etc, it is a bit rude for me to denigrate someone else's hard work.
However, it would be great if Teejee could implement a simple check on free space before creating a snapshot or even to not allow snapshots onto a system drive or a quick screen at the time of first use warning not to use the system partition.
I have contributed towards the project as a 'thank you' as it has also saved my behind many a time (that still doesn't mean that I can be derogatory and I hope this post doesn't come across as that as I have great respect for Teejee and other developers) but there are many people who post on the forum where users don't realise that the tool can become a problem and have run out of space on their system drive and can't log in.
Really, this shouldn't happen for a tool that is designed to save peoples' behinds, but in the end it comes down to personal choice about whether we want to use it or not.
All in all - Thank you Teejee, but if you have a few minutes, could you possibly .................
Last edited by gittiest personITW on Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by AZgl1800 »

dave1953 wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 5:42 am My bad I forgot to mention that any attempts at using Timeshift have been made using a separate ssd for the backups. My setup is nvme for the os and apps; separate ssd used for Timeshift backups; separate spinning internal hdd for data; separate spinning external hdd for data backup. As stated - it is obviously user error and I have no criticism of Timeshift at all. It's just personal inadequacy.
back when I was using 18.3 and really trying to learn how to manage MINT, I always used an extUSB Seagate HUB drive for my Timeshift backups....

The downside, was that they had to be done manually, and while that worked great, there was always the problem of the latest Timeshift backup being recent enough to Save My Bacon...

Then I learned how to create partitions, and now I keep the OS on a small partition, Home data on a separate partition, and my backups on a 3rd partition.

The Seagate USB Hub drive is still much in use, just not so often, more for Images and /home backups done once a week manually.

.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by signer-ink-beast »

I tried using Back In Time, the alternative mentioned for backing up personal files, but it's not as good as just letting Timeshift backup my files in addition to my system. Big thing is that it seems to want the external drive plugged in all the time. Didn't feel like devoting time to it. Timeshift can tell when partition on the device I want it to backup to is available or not. It has saved my bacon along with rsnapshot. I think if it wasn't meant for backing up personal files in addition to system files, the option wouldn't exist in Timeshift.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by AZgl1800 »

signer-ink-beast wrote: Wed Feb 23, 2022 2:44 am I tried using Back In Time, the alternative mentioned for backing up personal files, but it's not as good as just letting Timeshift backup my files in addition to my system. Big thing is that it seems to want the external drive plugged in all the time. Didn't feel like devoting time to it. Timeshift can tell when partition on the device I want it to backup to is available or not. It has saved my bacon along with rsnapshot. I think if it wasn't meant for backing up personal files in addition to system files, the option wouldn't exist in Timeshift.
using Timeshift to backup the HOME folders is not the proper use of Timeshift, doing that is no different than Creating an Image of the drive.... you can't pull out just the HOME folders by themselves. And, you will LOOSE valuable new files when backing up in time with Timeshift if you use it to backup HOME... bad bad bad.


BackInTime was a total Colossal failure for me to recover all of my HOME/folders when I upgraded from 19.3 to 20.3

BIT would not even RECOGNIZE the backup on the external USB drive, when I tried to use it reload my home folders onto 20.3

I was forced to reImage the drive again with 19.3 and then use Lucky Backup and that worked Perfect.

also a straight across backup using NEMO from 19.3 to the USB drive works perfect, but is very slow.
I have huge USB backup drives so was able to make multiple backups with different methods.

A tool like Back In Time is useless if it cannot be used to cross from one version of Linux to a newer version.

I have now decided that I will never again use the Default Install method which leaves HOME inside the OS partition, I will keep a Permanent /HOME partition instead. that way, the files will still be intact the instant the Fresh Install is done.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by signer-ink-beast »

AZgl1800 wrote: Wed Feb 23, 2022 3:25 am
signer-ink-beast wrote: Wed Feb 23, 2022 2:44 am I tried using Back In Time, the alternative mentioned for backing up personal files, but it's not as good as just letting Timeshift backup my files in addition to my system. Big thing is that it seems to want the external drive plugged in all the time. Didn't feel like devoting time to it. Timeshift can tell when partition on the device I want it to backup to is available or not. It has saved my bacon along with rsnapshot. I think if it wasn't meant for backing up personal files in addition to system files, the option wouldn't exist in Timeshift.
using Timeshift to backup the HOME folders is not the proper use of Timeshift, doing that is no different than Creating an Image of the drive.... you can't pull out just the HOME folders by themselves. And, you will LOOSE valuable new files when backing up in time with Timeshift if you use it to backup HOME... bad bad bad.


BackInTime was a total Colossal failure for me to recover all of my HOME/folders when I upgraded from 19.3 to 20.3

BIT would not even RECOGNIZE the backup on the external USB drive, when I tried to use it reload my home folders onto 20.3

I was forced to reImage the drive again with 19.3 and then use Lucky Backup and that worked Perfect.

also a straight across backup using NEMO from 19.3 to the USB drive works perfect, but is very slow.
I have huge USB backup drives so was able to make multiple backups with different methods.

A tool like Back In Time is useless if it cannot be used to cross from one version of Linux to a newer version.

I have now decided that I will never again use the Default Install method which leaves HOME inside the OS partition, I will keep a Permanent /HOME partition instead. that way, the files will still be intact the instant the Fresh Install is done.
I have copied single files, whole folders, and restored my entire home folder out of the folders Timeshift stores its backups in just fine via standard copy-paste. That's what I used to do with rsnapshot. Both tools use rsync to make backups, unless you change Timeshift to use btrfs' snapshots. But with rsync, your backups are just copies of your files. It is not the same as imaging, which is making a raw copy of storage mediums bit-by-bit. You need a different tool for drive imaging, and there's plenty of those available. Timeshift is not one of them. I disagree with you saying that it's bad to use Timeshift for backing up files, at least. Rsync and Timeshift are well-tested.

Note I have never used any system restore function Timeshift has, so I have no experience with that, but I thought it was pretty neat and handy to see it included in Mint by default.

I still recommend backing up your files in your home folder if you have anything you don't want to lose in them, because things happen. Hardware failure and user/program error happens. And make backups of your backups (I suggest at least two hard drives; one for backups, and the other one for backing up your backups that stays unplugged, with your main backup drive mounted read-only while backing it up to the second drive), and test your backups. You get to choose what you want to use. You don't have to use Timeshift. Use whatever you want to get the job done.

For BackInTime, it didn't like my lvm over luks partition that I wanted it to back up to, that I already back up to just fine via Timeshift. It backs up both and generally stays online on a dedicated logical volume for it. Didn't feel like troubleshooting.

For Timeshift, I can suggest hardening it as an online backup solution. If I can keep that partition mounted read-only until it's actually backing stuff up, then remount it read-only (or keep it unmounted), that would be pretty nice. That lessens the window of opportunity for the errant

Code: Select all

rm -rf /mnt<ENTER>
"oh shit, really?" twitchy-pinky-tapped-enter moment to hose them. Maybe it can allow for pre and post backup scripts? Or maybe I should learn how it does its thing and make lazy wrappers or something.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by 151tom »

MattJ86 wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 7:10 pm Just copy your important files on external conventional USB hard drive from time to time and stop freaking out.
That's what I do.
Everything of value is copied onto 2 separate usb flash drives.
One drive to use when needed and one drive in case the other drive fails.
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Re: Why Timeshift is a complete fail

Post by TuxSymphony »

IMHO Timeshift is a nice failsafe for regular users of the system who just use the apps and functions.
It's saved my bacon a few times on other distros as well as Mint.
Those who experiment with off-piste things will have their preferred method and then there's VM's..
Impossible to please all the people, all the time :|
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