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I have a problem with my backup cronjob. I use these settings (as proposed in that post):

15 * * * * env DISPLAY=:0 /usr/bin/deja-dup --backup

During runtime deja-dup says:

Backup location not available. Waiting for 'xy' to become connected...

The external disk 'xy' is mounted; I can also create a backup when I run deja-dup --backup in the command line.

Any ideas what the problem could be? Could it be a permission issue? But crontab runs the job with my user I suppose.

Thanks

3 Answers 3

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I have the same problem with deja-dup not working reliably when executed via cron. The (very unsatisfying) answer is, that it's simply not designed to work from cron.

One possible solution is to use duplicity for doing cron scheduled backups. Duplicity is the backend deja-dup connects to.

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Ok, I've found a workaround for this. First, you need to have installed dconf-editor:

sudo apt-get install dconf-editor

Then run it and open org/gnome/deja-dup/file. There, change the "type" from "volume" to "normal"

enter image description here

Alternatively you could just execute this command:

dconf write /org/gnome/deja-dup/file/type "'normal'"

Some notes, though:

  • Tested in Ubuntu 16.04
  • I have not tested what happen if the volume is not actually mounted
  • I have not tested either what happen if you change your Deja Dup settings later, but I think it will probably reset that value, so you'll have to edit it by hand again (or add the previously mentioned command to your crontab before the dejadup --backup one)
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Another work-around is to use "local" backend instead of "volume". Only thing you need is a static backup path, in my case it's /media/filip/red/backup.

dconf write /org/gnome/deja-dup/backend "'local'"
dconf write /org/gnome/deja-dup/local/folder "'/media/filip/red/backup'"

The volume (here /media/filip/red) is LUKS-encrypted volume mounted from USB stick. But on my Ubuntu (20.04) deja-dup does not detect this LUKS drive when running from cron, for some reason.

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