Migrate issue to new location

Configuration
1

Hi,
I need help with the migration of HA (container based) and I can’t quite figure out how to get it working without strange errors.

I create backups in HA that are stored locally. I understand that you only need to unzip this into the Config folder at the new destination, is this correct?

How it looks like:

image
image1460×204 12.4 KB

There is no “import backup” functionality unfortunately (I guess that is not made available in the docker version), so I need to do this manually.

What I did so far:

I saved the backup file on a share which is mounted at the new location/VM and unpacked it there:

tar -xf /share/nas/homeassistant.tar -C /home/docker/test

this results in:
/home/docker/test/homeassistant/data

the data folder contains the complete config folder with all of the HA files…

Now I’m ready to copy it to the new HA folder:

sudo cp -r -a /home/docker/test/data/. /home/docker/homeassistant/data/

Is this the correct way to do this? how my docker compose looks like:

services:
  homeassistant:
    image: ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:2024.9
    ports:
      - 8123:8123
    volumes:
      - /home/docker/homeassistant/data:/config
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/Amsterdam
      - DISABLE_JEMALLOC=true
    restart: unless-stopped

but when I start HA, it goes to recovery mode and doesn’t actually load anything

Am I missing something? Are the commands correct or is there perhabs another way to load the backup at its new location?
Thanks!

2

Have hidden folders been copied as well?
Check the presence of the .storage folder in your restored config folder

3

Import backup doesn’t exist in any type of HA, it has to be done at onboarding.
Sorry, I misinformed you. :blush:
@ShadowFist pointed this out: ‘you absolutely can import a backup after onboarding (at least on HAOS). Hit the 3 dots in the Backups screen > Upload backup, then simply restore like any other backup’

1 Like
4

From what I can see your commands and folder structure should be correct. Can you share the error logs?

5

Pff after a LOT of hours I got it working finally:

I created a new backup first (on the old server), in the HA GUI
saved it on the new server:
/home/docker/test

I renamed the backup file to x.tar (just to simplify things)

Then I went to the new server with Shell:
cd /home/docker/test

and executed the unpack command:
tar xf x.tar

You will get another tar file, so another unpacking moment:
tar xf homeassistant.tar.gz

then this command to copy the files from the unpack location to the final destination:
sudo cp -a /home/docker/test/data/. /home/docker/homeassistant/data

Thanks all for thinking along!

6

Note that a one-liner is documented

1 Like