Suggested file restore on new machine?

I am currently testing the windows client (assuming same process for mac). I am wondering what the suggested restore procedure is (maybe overlooking it in the admin manual). Below are the steps I performed, and eventually found something that worked…

  1. I installed the client on a guest machine. had running for a couple weeks collecting backups.

  2. Un-installed the client from the machine, deleted the folder that was being backed up.

  3. access our server portal, downloaded the client back to the guest machine.

  • unable to access backups from client, error about no access to files.
  • tried to perform restore from web gui. action kicks off on guest machine but nothing is restored.
  • I am able to of course download a zip of the backup from the web gui.
  1. what I found worked was:
  • add a backup path on the new guest machine.
  • perform a full backup of the folder (it was empty)
  • if I click browse backups from the client, I do not see the original backups in the web gui.
  • if I login to the web gui, and look at backups I see everything, from there I was then able to push one down to the client.
  • in short, it seems that you need to install the client on the new machine, then create at least one backup with the server before you’re able to perform a restore. Is this right? thanks in advance.

Does this help?

Yes, the client access key only being transferred with the first backup is a usability problem. Will be fixed.

If you want the new client to be able to access the old backups you need to somehow restore the files in C:\Program Files\UrBackup\tokens (e.g. via ZIP download).