Lost my backup key?

Installation
1

my instance (supervised in vm) is faulty, cant load containerd :frowning:

but i do have a backup which I’ve lost the encryption key

since i can access the teminal (press enter for maintenance)

can i access the key somehow from the terminal please?

thanks

ps running docker ps says docker not running, can i repair/reinstall it from terminal? location of docker logs to see why service is not starting please?

2

From the Backup integration’s documentation:

  • If you have lost the encryption key, and have no access to your Home Assistant instance, there is no way to restore the backup.
  • Nabu Casa does not store your encryption key and cannot provide support in decrypting backups if the key goes missing.

I believe your remaining option is to (using Terminal) navigate to the folder containing all of your Home Assistant configuration files (assuming they’re accessible) and manually copy them (elsewhere). Re-install Home Assistant, shut it down,
then copy the saved files to the new installation (overwriting the existing ones).

If it seems like a lot of work (with potentially unsatisfactory results), you’re not wrong. It’s why the Backup documentation stresses the need to save the encryption key in a safe place and create a Backup Emergency Kit.

3

thanks i’ll fire up a separate vm, install HA and try copying over the config files

4

Don’t forget to copy the hidden files and directories.

5

thanks using your advice, got it all up and running :slight_smile:

step by step info of how i did it for anyone running HA as a VM on a proxmox server who might be in similar situ in future…

  1. start a linux vm on the same server with ssh server

  2. create a new HA proxmox VM and run the initial wizard then switch it off (i created a user with the same credentials on the failed HA, probably not needed)

  3. detach the disk from the new HA VM

  4. attach it too the linux vm instead (step 1)

  5. detach the disk from the failed HA VM and attach it to the linux vm

  6. on the linux vm mount both the new drives to say /mnt/old and /mnt/new

  7. I then used wincsp from a windows pc on the network to ssh in to the linux vm

  8. In winscp i browsed too /mnt/new/… and deleted the homeassistant folder

  9. i then browsed to /mnt/old/… and right clicked on the homeassistant folder and picked “duplicate” and chose the destination on /mnt/new/… where the homeassistant folder was that i deleted

  10. i then shutdown the linux vm and detached the two drives

  11. i then attached the drive that belongs to the newly installed HA back to the new HA vm

  12. It all came back up, happy days

  13. i then deleted the old faulty ha vm (and its old detached drive in the linux vm)

PS Big lesson learnt, got lazy because i assumed my weekly proxmox backups would cover me, but i only keep three weeks of backups for each vm, and all failed the same and my vm had not been hard restarted for weeks!