Can I confirm that an overwrite of all the files in all the shares exposed by the SAMBA add-on is sufficient to restore the HA instance ?
Context is everything so here is the context. I have been starting out with HA on a VM running on Windows Server 2025 Datacentre. This has allowed me to checkpoint and rollback as needed. Backup the VM etc. However I wanted to move to a WYSE based dedicated machine due the 2w idle power draw (believe, it’s on the hardware meter).
I installed HA OS by flashing from the live installation URL 15.1 2025.4 as of this morning. I then took a manual backup from the “dev system” and pasted that into the “restore backup” option presented on the WYSE based install once it had done its initial config.
I waited - 4 hours - and nothing was going on, much. So I killed it. I tried again without the DB, even though that was a mere 300mb. Nothing. Both OS and HA versions are identical. . .
Third time around I read up on what the non HA OS guys do to restore and my read on that is. Get the thing running, configure a new HA instance. Get samba going, core stop overwite everything in the config folder, which for me was drag and drop from one samba share to another samba share. core start.
Seems to have worked perfectly, but being so new (about 10 days) into HA OS usage, I want to confirm I am not missing something not very obvious.
Thank you, - none of those procedures for restoring worked for me during on boarding my new HA hardware instance as per original post - [and I have no idea why, constrained around investigating further] - not a linux capable user at all. Did not know to click on a backup as system has been stable and used other methods as per post. So much to learn. . .
I was doing this from the restore screen once the backup had imported.
* If you want to restore the complete configuration with all directories and add-ons, select everything.
But as I say never successfully completed - waiting four hours for a 300mb backup.
I am hoping someone knew or knows whether what I have done has in fact worked as well as it has appeared to have worked? Or whether there is something else I must manually do, since I am now here. Windows has a concept of DPAPI [data protection API] a registry and other files which will not tolerate a straight SMB copy, only sector level copy.
Linux? I do not know.
I don’t understand what is being communicated by not affecting other containers and add-ons, affecting how, positively? negatively?
Assuming you are using Home Assistant OS, Home Assistant runs in a Docker container. Addo-ns (like Mosquitto MQTT, SAMBA Share, etc…) run in their own containers. You only restored the configuration in the Home Assistant container so if you had any add-ons they are now gone.
I did correct - but superfluous since I can super easy add all those back and there isn’t 50 hours yaml editing invested in those so I don’t care - but for completeness and accuracy I understand and yes they were excluded.
You should still have been able to restore the backup using the normal method. Mind you I have not tried using the new backup system. Still using the old SAMBA backup add-on to make my backups as it tells me if the backup fails. The new system still can’t do this.
