Snapshot restore issue

As I messed up the Latte Panel in the KDE desktop and cannot find out how to get the Garuda Latte layout back, I wanted to try and restore a snapshot from before the mess up. I followed the guide on the wiki.

After this, when I login to the desktop, a window pops up saying:

Admin Access Required
Admin access is required to backup and restore system files.
Please re-run the application as admin (using ‘sudo’ or ‘su’)

I’m not sure where this message comes from nor what I can do about it.

I’m also not sure whether a snapshot restore will revert to an earlier version of the Latte panel, as this is probably saved in the home directory?

Snapshots only restore system to previous state

They dont restore your home.

To get your layout back
To default
Copy

cp -r /etc/skel/. ~/

It set all configs to default

If you want to selectively
Then copy only the needed one from /etc/skel
To your home

I wanted to selectively get back the latte layout.
I tried to accomplish this here, but do not succeed.
Further help will be appreciated.

Well you can set timeshift to backup your @home, but that is not a good idea for most people. If you use your home for storage of documents or music, videos the new stuff will be lost when you restore to an older date. Say you were working on a big project that you put a ton of effort into, all your work since your last snapshot would be lost.

That would upset many people, as well as potentially increasing the size of your snapshots by a vast amount (depending on what you store @home).

I actually do backup my home because I store very little there. My documents, music and videos are all stored on multiple external platter drives for an extra margin of safety.

Timeshift also has a setting to backup your dot (.) files in @home. This backs up your configuration files in your home directory and that is probably what you'd want to use with timeshift.

This of course is a double edged sword because if you messed a program configuration up and want it back as before that's great. However, say you had a bad update and your only choice was to roll back your system. Now you will lose all your configuration changes since your last snapshot.

The moral of the story is snapshots are not a replacement for a proper backup regimen. Most users never do proper backups until after they've experience a catastrophic data loss. Don't be "that" guy, get a proper backup strategy in place before you live to regret it.

(Edit)

I hope you don't mind too much, but I edited your title. It was not a "failure" on timeshift's part, it was an issue with your misunderstanding how the program actually works.

3 Likes

I fully understand the backup strategy outlined by you, using timeshift.
My documents, pictures & Videos are backed up from pc to a NAS and from there to a cloud service. All good, no need to include @home in the snapshots.
Your discourse however still does not explain the original Admin Access Required error message.
I'm not willingly trying to access folders outside my permissions as per the procedure described in the garuda wiki, i presume
Can you elaborate on this maybe?

Check your current autostarting applications, mainly in ~/.config/autostart, or use kde settings utility. Also, verify you (your user account) are still in the wheel group, as you may have restored a snap version, where system files were not including the proper user groups (/etc/group).
If this is a bug, we should trace it, so it is fixed.

2 Likes

Here are my autostart items:

❯ ls -la .config/autostart
total 24
drwxrwxr-x 1 eljejer eljejer 292 okt. 23 13:07 .
drwxrwxr-x 1 eljejer eljejer 3052 okt. 23 17:59 …
-rwxrwxr-x 1 eljejer eljejer 1194 okt. 23 09:52 garuda-welcome.desktop
-rwxrwxr-x 1 eljejer eljejer 258 okt. 23 10:25 libinput-gestures.desktop
-rwxrwxr-x 1 eljejer eljejer 54 okt. 23 09:52 org.kde.latte-dock.desktop
-rwxrwxr-x 1 eljejer eljejer 54 okt. 20 12:23 org.kde.latte-dock.desktop.ill
-rwxrwxr-x 1 eljejer eljejer 255 okt. 23 09:52 org.ksnip.ksnip.desktop
-rwxrwxr-x 1 eljejer eljejer 3411 okt. 23 09:52 redshift-gtk.desktop

Here’s my user in the wheel group:

❯ id
uid=1000(eljejer) gid=1000(eljejer) groups=1000(eljejer),3(sys),90(network),98(power),976(plugdev),977(jottad),986(video),991(lp),993(input),995(audio),998(wheel),1001(odroid),1002(media)

Just now, I initiated a snapshot restore and get this “Admin access is required…” again.
I cannot find out where this message originates.
Please advise.

Do you use

sudo timeshift --restore

?
or only timeshift --restore?

I follow the procedure as described in the wiki, so I am not sure about the command format...

Timeshift GUI start only after accept the root password. So only reboot then is needed.
You can restore also from grub menu.

Do I understand you correctly that the procedure described in the wiki is not correct then?

1 Like

NO.

Where?
In grub, in terminal or in timeshift gui?


So this is what I have done:

  1. Reboot
  2. In GRUB (bootloader) select "timeshift-snapshots" instead of “Garuda Linux” and select the latest snapshot
  3. Once the boot process completed open Timeshift via the start menu, it will prompt for root rights
  4. Select the latest snapshot and click restore, found at the upper left of the application window
  5. Reboot

After login, the described error message appears.
Also, at this moment timeshift --list displays this:

> ❯ sudo timeshift --list
> /dev/nvme0n1p2 is mounted at: /run/timeshift/backup, options: rw,relatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,space_cache,autodefrag,subvolid=5,subvol=/
> 
> Device : /dev/nvme0n1p2
> UUID   : 8344326d-e1fe-46c6-bf83-b03108b13786
> Path   : /run/timeshift/backup
> Mode   : BTRFS
> Status : OK
> 14 snapshots, 212.2 GB free
> 
> Num     Name                 Tags  Description                                    
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 0    >  2020-10-15_23-00-01  D                                                    
> 1    >  2020-10-16_23-00-02  D                                                    
> 2    >  2020-10-17_23-00-01  D                                                    
> 3    >  2020-10-18_06-23-05  O     Before restoring '2020-10-16 23:12:47'         
> 4    >  2020-10-20_10-00-01  D                                                    
> 5    >  2020-10-21_13-00-01  D                                                    
> 6    >  2020-10-21_13-30-16  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade}  
> 7    >  2020-10-21_19-49-59  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade}  
> 8    >  2020-10-22_15-00-01  D                                                    
> 9    >  2020-10-22_16-11-41  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade}  
> 10   >  2020-10-23_10-33-41  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade}  
> 11   >  2020-10-23_15-00-01  D                                                    
> 12   >  2020-10-23_17-26-26  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade}  
> 13   >  2020-10-23_17-58-42  O     Before restoring '2020-10-23 17:26:26'

I presume entry number 13 should not be there anymore after a successful restore.

The error message appears in a window on the desktop, so when you ask me where the message appears, in grub, terminal or in timeshift gui, I cannot answer this

1 Like

So you are on restored desktop.
Ahhh, did the “old” 'Before restoring ‘2020-10-23 17:26:26’ snapshot work?

I often use old snapshots but never have this popup.

If you are in your restored snapshot, do

sudo update-grub

I want to know where you start the restore of the snapshot, not where the message appears.

As stated in step 4; I initiated the snapshot restore in the TimeShift Gui

1 Like

If I start timeshift GUI I will ask for password.
That seems the problem for you.

Please start Timeshift in terminal.

timeshift-launcher 

and post output.

update-grub will not delete the 'Before restoring snapshot...' I presume?
I have experienced before that this ' Before restoring snapshot...' is automatically deleted after a successful restore. So when will this be deleted then?

never :wink: , I think, but it is no problem.

sudo timeshift --list
[sudo] Passwort für sgs:    

/dev/sda2 is mounted at: /run/timeshift/backup, options: rw,relatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,space_cache,autodefrag,commit=120,subvolid=5,subvol=/

Device : /dev/sda2
UUID   : 4aed908c-1db5-4744-b4f7-928ea01e5bed
Path   : /run/timeshift/backup
Mode   : BTRFS
Status : OK
6 snapshots, 181.3 GB free

Num     Name                 Tags  Description                                    
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0    >  2020-10-08_11-45-35  O     Before restoring '2020-10-08 11:34:12'         
1    >  2020-10-21_12-50-27  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade}  
2    >  2020-10-21_23-06-11  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade}  
3    >  2020-10-22_10-18-14  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade}  
4    >  2020-10-22_23-51-52  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade}  
5    >  2020-10-23_13-39-52  O     {timeshift-autosnap} {created before upgrade} 

If I start timeshift GUI I will ask for password.
That seems the problem for you.

Please start Timeshift in terminal.

sudo timeshift-launcher 

and post output.

With me, when I start the timeshift gui, in my case from krunner, I will be asked for the root password as well.
Anyway, here is the terminal output of timeshift-launcher

❯ timeshift-launcher 

** (timeshift-gtk:37663): WARNING **: 18:53:46.322: Unable to connect to dbus: Error spawning command line “dbus-launch --autolaunch=12f3c70021084db7bef0fd5b9cb4ea58 --binary-syntax --close-stderr”: Child process exited with code 1
 App config loaded: /etc/timeshift.json
 
 /dev/nvme0n1p2 is mounted at: /run/timeshift/backup, options: rw,relatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,space_cache,autodefrag,subvolid=5,subvol=/ 
(timeshift-gtk:37663): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 18:53:46.576: g_dbus_connection_register_object: assertion 'G_IS_DBUS_CONNECTION (connection)' failed
(timeshift-gtk:37663): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 18:53:46.576: g_dbus_connection_register_object: assertion 'G_IS_DBUS_CONNECTION (connection)' failed
(timeshift-gtk:37663): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 18:53:46.576: g_dbus_connection_get_unique_name: assertion 'G_IS_DBUS_CONNECTION (connection)' failed
App config saved: /etc/timeshift.json

The timeshift gui does appear