I am getting an error on running automatic backups since 4 days ago and would appreciate any tips on how to deal with it as manually running backups is not working and I am not understanding what the error is meaning I should do and have so far not found the same issue.
thought about that, it seems to have more than enough space 29% used 74Gb free.
says in the backup that a backup is estimated to 5.2Gb (although the ones I have currently, including the one done last week, are all like 1.5Gb) not sure how accurate the estimate is.
I have tried
i was using the google backup from hacs - i thought maybe this was the issue so I disabled this and went back to the system backup - same issue in logs.
checking space, based on current sizes and estimates it should not be a problem both locally and google.
as I have been also having backups via google, I thought that was maybe a certificate issue so I turned that off and tried and same result.
restarting - tried in the beginning and it did not help and has not helped since.
thinking about any updates done or anything else, and nothing I can come up seems it should be related to backups BUT .. i did have a strange restart between these periods where automations just did not load.. like at all(!?).. once I realized I restarted and they came back.
worth maybe knowing (?) - HA is on a raspberry pi4 and is updated fully now 2026.6.0 (from 2025.5.1 where this behavior first occured) (chanced it without the backup, hoping it would help with backups.. it did not) and is connected directly to the router via lan.
thought about that, it seems to have more than enough space 29% used 74Gb free.
says in the backup that a backup is estimated to 5.2Gb (although the ones I have currently, including the one done last week, are all like 1.5Gb) not sure how accurate the estimate is.
I have tried
i was using the google backup from hacs - i thought maybe this was the issue so I disabled this and went back to the system backup - same issue in logs.
checking space, based on current sizes and estimates it should not be a problem both locally and google.
as I have been also having backups via google, I thought that was maybe a certificate issue so I turned that off and tried and same result.
restarting - tried in the beginning and it did not help and has not helped since.
thinking about any updates done or anything else, and nothing I can come up seems it should be related to backups BUT .. i did have a strange restart between these periods where automations just did not load.. like at all(!?).. once I realized I restarted and they came back.
worth maybe knowing (?) - HA is on a raspberry pi4 and is updated fully now 2026.6.0 (chanced it without the backup, hoping it would help with backups.. it did not) and is connected directly to the router via lan.
edit:
I just went via ssh and checked out the file and it seems to be there and updating .. time is current:
*.fault was empty (it says 0 but I double checked) .. a little strange I think is the log file seems to be not filling, but I think I turned it off at some point after I debugged a different issue I had in november.
I just restarted and again automations disappeared, it was empty in http:.../config/automation/dashboard - I restarted again and they reappeared. I add this as I am guessing this behavior is somehow related as I think it first occurred around the time the backup was to run and failed the first time.
If that means there is 5.2Gb to backup, it seems like that would "fit" around 1.5Gb, when compressed during backup
You can verify that by trying to "open" one of your backup (some backup-file you won't "need", unless it's a copy of the orig backup-file)
As FleskeFjes mention a read or write Error, could also cause
Which also can be do to a "file-lock" or i.e a script-running etc during the backup-procedure
Try to create a Manual backup where you exclude the DB, and Integrations ( which will be only Homeassistant-Settings )
BTW , Which HA version are you actually running ?
log.1 and log.old Are ohhsoOld ! , and should not be there
As an aside I thought maybe that the system is overloading originally, but after trying a number of backups it seems it is ok from what I understand in terms of disk, memory and processor - i think some of the processor spikes are when the automatic backups and now most recently manual backups have been manually triggered by me - system should run automatically at like 5:00 but these do not always seem to be seen in the processor:
regarding the old logs - at one point where the system randomly crashed and I lost some history I turned on detailed logs to save and find the issue as I needed the info between restarts - do most users always have these logs always saved to disk? should I remove these logs?
I tried again an automatic backup as the manual with only HA settings worked but it was still not going, I tried manual again including history and it failed.
I would really hate to lose all my history if something should go haywire - any ideas? My guess now is that something in history has gone bad (?) or a process locking up the database (?) but I am really not sure how I would figure this out and hopefully fix it?
Maybe an integration which "hooks" on to the DB, Try with Enable Debug and run the Manual Backup, including only Settings and History, and then one with All, if first doesn't reveal much.
I would try also just manually backup only DB, trail and error to exclude/narrow down
I doubt most people have no clue, and don't turn on detailed logs, but yes i would delete them, it's not that you need those from november 25 ( And definitely no reason to back them up every day )
I see I included apps last time with settings.. and took away the others.. oops, but it changes nothing as it worked without history and it narrowed down the issue to the history file.
I am not following what you mean by logs,
I tried to enable debug by adding to configuration.yaml the following but got no more info than previously
logs:
homeassistant.components.backup: debug
I guess it probably isn't the correct string, i guessed it and the check didn't complain - or there are no other messages available.
do you or anyone know if I can make a manual backup by just copying and then downloading the db file ? thinking it is now more than 2 weeks and things are acting strangely it would be nice to have another backup I could potentially piece together (?) :S
Did you just typed logs, then the " logger " component know nothing
And your "intend" seems also wrong anyhow
Always under the third(3) letter, Not fourth or fifth , or random
Yes, but you have to verify it in i.e sqlite-browser program after, as it might get corrupted, during a copy process on a running instance.
If you have the means,you could stop core and perform the copy through cli
I am really unsure what to do from here, outside of trying to copy via ssh the db file as a band aid - which as you say may be corrupted copying on a running instance while I am really unsure how I would use it if I had an issue. - as an aside, I just tried to use the vscode integration to dump it all onto github but it complained that it was in use. Maybe there is a way to lock it so it can be copied with some action or something? Also, if anyone knows what a restore from a manual copy would look like (not a standard backup) - maybe it would be quite like a normal restore anyway, or maybe likely not going to work anyway?
