2025.1: Backing Up into 2025!

That is indeed one of the options I am considering. Not good for secrets though, or add-on update backups.

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[“KEBA”] (Keba Charging Station - Home Assistant) , integrated part of HA is broken too and there must be something really special about 2025.1 since so many integrations are broken. I have had 1 so far during several years and in this one it’s like 4 or 5 out of 37 and i can see so many other guys also are suffering on other integrations. It’s really out of the normal.

Thanks for this release. I find that I’m not able to use the automatic feature because it can only fire at 4:45am. I use a NAS that is not online 24/7, and is not usually up at 4:45am. The NAS is awaken by WOL at 2am by an automation. HAOS is not the only system doing backup as that time - I have 5 other computers doing so as well at 2am. They use Acronis under Windows and each a “pre” action setup to do WOL also, in case the other systems didn’t wake up the NAS somehow.

With HAOS, I currently use Samba backup, which allows me to set the backup time as I wish, unlike the new automated backup feature.

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I backup every night.
I do not restore often, as everything is very stable. Sometimes after beta testing when installed too early on my production system, and I remember a SD card crash one time. But this is exactly the problem for me, as you not do that very often, passwords will be forgotten or can be lost. Absolutely annoying for the time you put into home assistant setup. I see so many people not using password managers, it’s annoying agreed, but also Home Assistant will not change this.
Please, add encryption choice for local storage and add some kind of, “downloaded key” acknowledgement if keeping it for clouds, if necessary…

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some sense in this convo at last, personally, I am currently sticking with the 2024 release, I back up every 3 days because i can, and loads of testing on dashboards (i have 3 spare for testing stuff in front end) The cloud wont work for me despite being a nabu casa user as my backups are 3.1gb each so I would not be able to store 2 let alone anymore.

encryption is not needed for me as backups are on a nas and my encryption is done from that nas to google cloud and then to another remote nas

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So, there are some rough edges in the new UI.

  1. I tried to “backup now” to do a manual backup, but it opened the screen for scheduling automated backups, which I specifically did not want. There should be an option to decline the scheduling and actually do what the button says, “backup now”. I was forced to define a schedule, then delete it, then finally I was able to do a manual backup by clicking “backup now” again. That is not a good user experience.

  2. the wording and location of “settings” is confusing

The word “settings” appears 3 times below :

  1. in the header, “Backup settings”.
  2. in “Settings and history”.
  3. finally in “Configure backup settings”, in blue.

Perhaps the second one was meant to be “Backup data”, to match the title of the header on the page it takes you to when clicking it.

The last one takes you to the exact same place as if clicking the calendar link (“automated backups are not scheduled” in my screenshot), so it’s also redundant.

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  • how often do you open your backup archives?

Most often 5-10 times a year BUT when the need is there its because i have scr**ed something up badly and really need the files.

  • What do you open it up for?

To get ex. configuration.yaml for comparison or an ESPHome file for one of the +30 units i got.

  • How often do you need to restore your backups?

That doesn’t really matter. Seems like asking people to only wear their seatbelt the day your gonna crash. But in general, 1-10 times a year. Depending on how much change i do and how bad i am at it. (prob. like the general owner of a HA setup)

Forced local encryption on backups feels like being completely out of proportions to an eco system made for amateurs like me and there were perfectly fine options for backup’s pre. 2025.

But TY for an otherwise fantastic eco system right up to this release.

BTW: Just had to use unzip of backup this morning to get rid of Z2M 2.0.0 as my 10 Ikea buttons stopped working.

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This could take us to a nice feature request.

Problem: we don’t have rollback option on configuration/automation/scripts/esphome/… And we all know that we like to touch things working to improve them and sometimes we break it. Sometimes we just need to go back to a previous working config.

What we do now: spend a lot of minutes waiting to open the full backup tar, navigate to yaml file and copy/paste.

Possible solution: for example, when saving an automation, the system just have to save the previous yaml in other place, then we can have a timeline on the automation to check previous modifications to allow us copy/paste or restore.

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This honestly is what I’d love to see. The backup system improved upon of course, but maybe a version control system of sorts added as well for smaller changes or rollbacks.

To me, it honestly sounds like a lot of folks are using the backup system as a round about way to get VCS.

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and how do you use this command line without access to HA? or in emergency situation ie no space on disk to decrypt?

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@packetracket, Sorry but I don’t understand how you manage it. do you have different port, but the same IP? If not how you can receive the data from external sensors?

I read the release notes and I searched the GUI prior to my post. I just did so again. I still could not find a mention of how to set a different time for an automated backup. Would you please be so kind as to tell me what I missed ?

I would love it if this end up with an introduction of better undo/versioning of HA configuration. It all seems to me people are used to using backups for this, but it’s a hacky workaround.

I have been burned in the past by accidently deleting big part of my dashboard. I had a backup from shortly before and I just restored it.

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  • how often do you open your backup archives?
  • What do you open it up for?

I’ve never done the above two, but I do like the use cases explained by others and see the value in them

  • How often do you need to restore your backups?

I’ve used the restore three times. One was to move HA to my new server, the other two were because an official HA update broke my installation. Apparently the option to create a backup as part of an update is no longer available and that is, in my opinion, a huge mistake. This functionality has saved my installation twice, because I had a backup from just before the update that broke my installation.

“Also, the beta was done over the holidays. Contributors have families and friends, too.”
To be fair, a beta that covers the redesign of an important component should not be done over the holidays, because of exactly the same reason as you stated.

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Thanks for your Words!
Productive is a good idea :slight_smile: While i think there is already much productive Feedback here. Well, on your Questions:

Sometimes not for several month, then multiple Times per Day. I’ll average to 2x Month.

Obviously getting previous Settings. And modify/restoring DB without reverting the whole System.

Regulary 1-2x per Month - cloning the productive System to Dev System. And if a new Update goes wrong, i’d say 1-2x per Year.

Then, for some more Arguments in this Decision:

  • Give the Users the Choice, do not Force them
    Another Example might be the Hard Coded DNS. I consider it beeing Anti-Privacy and actually leads to other Complications. While it is deeply buried into the System, at least it can be turned of. I think this should be the Way.
  • It adds Inconvenience and is in Fact a Single Point of Failure, if the Password is lost
    I rarely had Problems with encryted Files. Only, and most of the Times, when i really needed them :stuck_out_tongue:

In addition, there have been some - productive and constructive - proposals from others, which i think are really solid, and would likely solve this Problems:

  • Make Encryption Opt-Out
  • Disable Cloud Upload with turned off Encryption

I allow myself to react to some Statements - with all Respect and much Love for you and everyone involved in the Development of Homeassistant:

Isn’t UX rather related with Design and Interaction? The Problem with the Backups is a forced encryption on System level.

I can’t recall a survey/vote about the Roadmap or on (this) specific Features. Where was it? I would have loved to have voted. If the Majority wants something else than me that would be totally fine.

Absolutely. And i think it is just not fair for every single Dev, that HomeAssistant keeps improving so much, and such Decisions overshadow all the excellent work.
But this Discussion doesn’t happen out of nowhere. And if its not solid to include (holidays and/or just some unsolved problem), then i don’t get why it gets released. This is not Windows :smiley:

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I use a NAS for backup and I’d like to retract my statement. I want unencrypted backups when they are local and not cloud.

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It is possible to bypass the new backup system. Even if automatic encrypted backups have been set up, one can use the following action in an automation or in a script linked to a dashboard button

action: hassio.backup_full
data:
  compressed: true
enabled: true

and it produces an unencrypted backup (if a password hasn’t been specified). Currently there is no deprecation notice on this feature.

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You missed nothing :smiling_face:
In your local timezone, some process happen on your database every night, 4:45 is a few hours after that so that your backup is the smallest.

Really looking forward to the integrated backup solution. I’m sure this feature will mature over time with all the constructive feedback :rofl: and I love what you guys do.

Anybody else having issues with starting the zigbee2mqtt add-on after updating to 2025.1.0? I am unable to get it to start since updating, although I updated HA, OS & the add-on at the same time so I don’t know which action has caused issues. I’ll try to add more info here as I dig it up.

Update: solved via the below process. Leaving here in case anybody else does a bunch of updates together like me.

If anybody else has this issue, could be due to updating Zigbee2mqtt from something older than 2.0.0. Check for this in the Zigbee2mqtt log. See the end of issue discussion at the url in the below log snippet for an example of how to update the configuration. Note that the add-on configuration is what needs changing, not HA configuration.yaml.

[2025-01-04 07:28:43] error: z2m: Error: USB adapter discovery error (No valid USB adapter found). Specify valid 'adapter' and 'port' in your configuration.
[2025-01-04 07:28:43] error: 	z2m: If this happens after updating to Zigbee2MQTT 2.0.0, see https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/discussions/24364

I also had all Zigbee2mqtt action sensors failing after the update. See a few different options here to correct it: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/action-entity-missing-for-zigbee-switches-zigbee2mqtt/630468/12, and some other info about avoiding breaking changes during the 2.0.0 update here: https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/discussions/24198

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But why are the Backups still named in the cryptic manner and not e.g. yyyymmdd-hh-mm-ss.

How will anyone deal with this?
Bildschirmfoto 2025-01-04 um 09.48.54

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