2025.1: Backing Up into 2025!

[lordwizzard]

Edit: looks like there is a rebuild of the database between 4:00 AM and 5:00 AM. That seems to align with the hard coded 4:45 AM scheduled time for auto backup.

[dumbdevice]

@dec3169

Reminds me of when Canonical tried to make Ubuntu look like Windows by forcing that Unity desktop as the default.

And for me when Philips Hue decided to force Account in App even for people who use their lamps locally

[jackjourneyman (Jack)]

Wading through this and getting confused.

My understanding from the release announcement is that if I do not enable automatic backups, and if I continue to backup using the Samba Backup add-on, nothing will change and nothing will be encrypted. The only difference will be that there will no longer be automatic backups before updates.

Have I got that wrong?

[petro]

What currently remains the same:

• Any backup system you’ve used up to this point
• hassio.backup_full (HAOS/Supervised) action/service. Still available with or without encryption.
• backup.create for core and container. While option-less, should still provide no encryption.

What was added:

• A new automatic backup system in the UI for local (on the pc), local (on a network share), and remote (nabu casa cloud).
• The ability to choose a location for backups on the hassio backup services (this may have existed before by a few versions, can’t remember).
• hassio.backup_partial(HAOS/Supervised) action/service (Might have been there before, can’t remember). Available with or without encryption.

What was changed:

• Backup before you update question has now been removed from the UI (which means no automatic backup before updating).
• Manual update button in the UI does not offer a way to perform unencrypted backups.

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This post is for informational purposes only. It is a direct reply to @jackjourneyman’s question.

[elchininet]

@madelena

• how often do you open your backup archives?
• What do you open it up for?
• How often do you need to restore your backups?

1. A lot
2. Usually to check old configurations, yaml files or files inside the .storage folder and restore part of them if it is needed. Normally I extract the homeassistant.tar.gz from the backup (tar -xzf /path/to/backup.tar homeassistant.tar.gz) and then run it through vim to check their files without decompressing it (vim homeassistant.tar.gz). In this way I can search inside several backups until I find what I am seraching.
3. Almost never, if I remember well I have done it two times for migrations to another hardware

As a side note I would also like to have the option to avoid encrypting my local backups (my NAS is already encrypted), having them encrypted in a mandatory way would result very inconvenient for me in particular.

I would also like to choose if I want to perform the automatic backups or not and have the option to select the periodicity of them (I don’t know if this is already possible in 2025.1.1 because I have not installed it yet, I would prefer to do it when I can disable the backups encryption).

Regards

[jackjourneyman (Jack)]

@petro

Backup before you update question has now been removed from the UI.

To clarify (sorry)…

Is it only the question that has been removed from the UI (making the backup automatic), or does the backup no longer take place?

[arganto]

It no longer takes place.

[bkbartk]

I have the feeling that the hard work of the devs is not appreciated by everyone. and that’s a bit of a pity, a lot of people are convinced there concerns aren’t heart after not getting an official response after 1 working day. Not sure where that comes from

@madelena

• how often do you open your backup archives?
• What do you open it up for?
• How often do you need to restore your backups?

1. rarely
2. if I forget to make a copy of a config and my changes won’t work I can check the differences. and it makes me feel safe to have them.
3. only when changing hardware, so 4 or 5 times until now.(I use HA for about 4 years)

Google cloud backup is still working for me, at the moment I run this side by side with the HA cloud one.

I did some check and it looks like encryption happens at file level instead of the full .tar file. Changing that could make it possible to open encrypted files using 7zip, that at least I can be certain my backup contains my files, Now I cannot validate this.

[NathanCu (Nathan Curtis)]

@bkbartk

ncerns aren’t heart after not getting an official response after 1 working day

Respectfully it was brought up in the beta channel on discord long before it was brought up on this very forum (11 days ago now as of today.) It was dead silence up until release and another day before any further response only after it lit up like the Hindenburg…

I can understand why people are feeling frustrated.

[balloob (Paulus Schoutsen)]

A bunch of the team is visiting CES this week. We’ve been having active conversations around this release when we can, but it takes time to write up a comment based on all the concerns raised.

Whenever we add a new feature, it can compete with the custom solution that you’ve painstakingly built and tuned for your workflow. I understand it can be frustrating to see that Home Assistant makes a different choice compared to your set up. Whenever a feature is added to Home Assistant, it is the goal to make something that is secure and works for everyone. That however doesn’t mean it should break your solution!

During the beta, some of your feedback was not addressed in a timely or thorough manner. With the December holiday season, many contributors were spending time with family, and that left beta participants feeling feedback were dismissed. We acknowledge that this gave a bad impression which is not our intention. We value your input and sincerely apologize for this lapse in communication. We will also try to avoid making the same mistake next year!

At the same time, it is important to note that the beta phase is meant for fixing or addressing bugs, and not overhauling or redesigning features. Suggestions which involve substantial rework may need to be addressed in a future release, and are not always feasible during the beta.

The new automatic backup is opt-in - if you don’t want to use it as you have created your own backup solution: great, that will still work. Use Google Drive backup add-on with unencrypted backups? Yep, also still working.

From the release notes:

No worries, if you are using any custom solution for backups, they will continue to work today. Even with everything new, we’ve made sure to keep everything backward compatible.

We’ve been tracking all the feedback, and here’s what we’ve heard so far:

1. Home Assistant 2025.1 breaks or conflicts with the backup strategy of some users. These users have an advanced system and automations for their backups.

2. Home Assistant 2025.1 breaks user-defined version control flow - where someone could unzip a backup, copy a file or lines of code and revert certain things in Home Assistant. For example an automation or passwords in their secrets.yaml. Instead of using the built-in partial restore functionality that overrides more configurations.

3. Home Assistant 2025.1 breaks peace of mind by removing the backup switch before updating. Some users backup before updating, to make sure they have history data to the minute and their latest admin work in Home Assistant between the last automated backup and the update.

4. Community members are concerned that they may lose their encryption key, making it impossible to restore a backup.

5. Some users don’t like that Home Assistant decides what to do with their files on their system by encrypting it.

We’re looking into each of these points and are considering all the options. There is no magic wand - it’s very clear that the community wants more from this update, and that will take time. As always, we iterate and work in the open and expect improvements to land in upcoming monthly releases.

[haforme]

Auto backup for updates needs to be added back. This feature is key for rollbacks to previous versions. It should not be that users should have to remember to do it manually. Maybe the Home Assistant team that developed the new scheme can add a third “Upgrade” backup type to the menu as in;
Automatic
Manual
Upgrades

[123 (Taras)]

Perhaps worth mentioning:

hassio.backup_full is an action provided by the Supervisor so it exists exclusively on installation methods that include the Supervisor:

• Home Assistant OS
• Home Assistant Supervised

It doesn’t exist on the following (because you can’t install Supervisor on them):

• Home Assistant Container
• Home Assistant Core

(Or at least that’s my understanding based on Supervisor’s documentation)

[mucki]

@balloob

Home Assistant 2025.1 breaks peace of mind by removing the backup switch before updating. Some users backup before updating, to make sure they have history data to the minute and their latest admin work in Home Assistant between the last automated backup and the update.

That’s the bigger issue for me now. I’ve almost given up on the fact that I’ll probably never be able to use HA’s integrated backup system because of the encryption (in the hope, of course, that the alternative options won’t be affected by an update at some point).

But from now on, having to manually create a backup before every update is almost a bigger pill to swallow…

[juergenjw (Jürgen W.)]

I’m using action: backup.create with Home Assistant Container to create an unencrypted backup on the local file system. Might work with Home Assistant Core also.

[123 (Taras)]

@juergenjw

backup.create

Right, that’s a different action provided by the Backup integration which can be used by any installation method.

However, if you compare its documentation to that of hassio.backup_full, or hassio.backup_partial, you’ll see it offers no ability to control how it operates.

For anyone making a backup script/automation and wanting control over the procedure, that action offers no flexibility. However, if one has no need for flexibility then, yes, it’s a viable option.

[stevemann (Stephen Mann (YAML-challenged))]

@stevegroom

that has a lot of data stripped out

Completely unrealistic. WHO decides what to “leave out”?

There should simply be a switch: encrypted or unencrypted.

[peterho]

Yep. Didnt notice wundergroudpws was broken when upgraded to 2025, (didnt check as other more critical integrations had broken which prompted a rollback to 2024) and i havent seen any issues logged on this one subsequently to

https://github.com/cytech/Home-Assistant-wundergroundpws

I assume wundergroundpws you are referring to the cytech repo?

How broken is it? “If” there are issues, logging an issue to the discussions tab on the repo will help cytech immensely

https://github.com/cytech/Home-Assistant-wundergroundpws/discussions

I have since rolled back to 2024 whilst awaiting fixes to other custom integrations and watching the melee of encrypted backup discussions getting next to no response or comment from the core team…

Edit: I stand corrected, balloob / paulus has commented 36 minute before i posted…

[stevemann (Stephen Mann (YAML-challenged))]

@stevegroom

Viruses are quite good at finding and exfiltrating credentials.

Urban legend. The user is an easier source of exposing credentials. Why risk being caught by an antivirus program when it’s so much easier to simply ask the user? (It’s called Phishing, and phishing is incredibly easy). For a “virus” program to find and extract credentials, it would have to be pretty big, as computer viruses go. And big malicious viruses are the easiest to find.

[Mats789]

@peterho

… encrypted backup discussions getting next no no response or comment from the core team

Please read the response 6-7 posts above yours

[Gav_in]

The custom WUndergroundpws integration works fine for me on 2025.1 so not sure there is a widespread issue with it