All prefs lost on installation, how to get back? #2035
Comments
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Yes, mackup does not work correctly in Macos Sonoma, since it doesn't support symlinked files for preferences as it previously. For more information, see #1924 and especially this comment. |
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This app should be removed from GitHub, or at least its destruction of all app and OS preferences should be clearly indicated as a warning to future users atop the readme. |
😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 Um, maybe that should be communicated via the app itself!?!?! I just lost all my configs after doing a backup - I even ran with the dry-run option first to make sure it was going to add what I expected. Rebooted this morning, all preferences are gone and iCloud does not keep backups. Yeah, this is an egregious abuse of user trust. |
The `mackup` program works by moving config files to an off-disk backup location (usually a cloud storage provider like iCloud or Dropbox, etc.) and then replacing the original file with a symlink to the backed up version. The intended use is to make sure program configuration settings and preferences can be restored if you need to replace computers, factory reset, etc. As documented [here](lra/mackup#2035), [here](lra/mackup#1924), [here](lra/mackup#1969 (reply in thread)), `mackup backup` no longer works on MacOS Sonoma (possibly due to [security changes](lra/mackup#1924 (comment)) in the app sandbox in Sonoma) and running the command will result in the loss of all preference files. Users who backup to a storage provider that has versioning or backup snapshots may be able to restore preferences to an older version. For users backing up to other storage providers that do not have this feature, such as iCloud, the command results in total data loss. This issue has been known to the developer for over a year but there is no fix, no mention of the issue in the project README, no warning when running the command, and no indication in the program output that the backup process may not have completed properly - neither in the dry-run mode nor in live mode.
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Here is a pull request to add a warning to users. |
`mackup` works by moving config files to an off-disk backup location (usually a cloud storage provider like iCloud or Dropbox, etc.) and then replacing the original file with a symlink to the backed up version. The intended use is to make sure program configuration settings and preferences can be restored if you need to replace computers, factory reset, etc. As documented [here](lra/mackup#2035), [here](lra/mackup#1924), [here](lra/mackup#1969 (reply in thread)), `mackup backup` no longer works on MacOS Sonoma (likely due to [security changes](lra/mackup#1924 (comment)) in the app sandbox in Sonoma) and running either the backup or restore commands on MacOS Sonoma will result in the loss of all preference files. Users who backup to a storage provider that has versioning or backup snapshots may be able to restore preferences to an older version. For users backing up to other storage providers that do not have this feature, such as iCloud, the command results in total data loss. This issue has been known to the developer for over a year but there is no fix, no mention of the issue in the project README, no warning when running the command, and no indication in the program output that the backup process may not have completed properly - neither in the dry-run mode nor in live mode.
`mackup` works by moving config files to an off-disk backup location (usually a cloud storage provider like iCloud or Dropbox, etc.) and then replacing the original file with a symlink to the backed up version. The intended use is to make sure program configuration settings and preferences can be restored if you need to replace computers, factory reset, etc. As documented [here](lra/mackup#2035), [here](lra/mackup#1924), [here](lra/mackup#1969 (reply in thread)), `mackup backup` no longer works on MacOS Sonoma (likely due to [security changes](lra/mackup#1924 (comment)) in the app sandbox in Sonoma) and running either the backup or restore commands on MacOS Sonoma will result in the loss of all preference files. Users who backup to a storage provider that has versioning or backup snapshots may be able to restore preferences to an older version. For users backing up to other storage providers that do not have this feature, such as iCloud, the command results in total data loss. This issue has been known to the developer for over a year but there is no fix, no mention of the issue in the project README, no warning when running the command, and no indication in the program output that the backup process may not have completed properly - neither in the dry-run mode nor in live mode.
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FYI: This workaround worked for me to restore the missing preferences even though iCloud was not showing all the preferences I was expecting to see backed up. 😌 |
I thought this was supposed to back up all my prefs, but instead it reset them all to defaults. How do I get them back? Where did I go wrong?
From the README, all I did was run
brew install mackupandmackup backup, exactly as indicated in the first and only two instructions.The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: