Nothing was backed up, all that's left are broken symlinks

[jamesblackwell]

Mackup has lost the settings to all of my apps. All that remains is symlinks to files that don't exist. Many programs will not even open. I simply followed the installation tutorial, ran backup and then restore. Upon restoring I ran into an issue that said the file wasn't present for one application and when I checked the iCloud folder directly, saw that nothing was there. I don't know whether this is a mackup or iCloud issue but it's incredibly frustrating

I'm on Catalina 10.15.5 on both macs, using iCloud as storage the engine.

[CommanderPho]

I encountered something similar on macOS 10.14.6 upon attempting to sync to Dropbox. This is a major issue and needs a warning at minimum.

[askl56]

Same here. This is incredibly irresponsible by the devs.

[lra]

This is a major issue and needs a warning at minimum.

If you feel like there isn't enough warning and confirmation questions, please propose a change. But keep in mind that there is never enough warning for the least responsible people. A balance needs to be kept to keep software usable.

Same here. This is incredibly irresponsible by the devs.

Thanks for your support.

This ticket is about both icloud and dropbox without a way to reproduce the issue. More details on how to reproduce the issue would help.

[Crocmagnon]

I simply followed the installation tutorial, ran backup and then restore

I feel like the OP ran backup and then restore on the same machine. Maybe that helps?

[charleshan]

I think this is happening to many people because they don't read the documentation, particularly Bullsh*t, what does it really do to my files. But it's expected that people don't read everything in the documentation. Usually, "backup" doesn't change the original files.

I think it would be better (safer) if the mackup backup command only backs up the files without replacing them with symlinks and there can be an option or another command for "backup and replace original with symlinks".

[fugidev]

So I just yeeted all my "backed up" dotfiles because I wanted to try out different config options. I know this is my fault for messing around without carefully reading the entire docs... But why tf is the command called backup if it does not create a backup? Creating symlinks to a synced folder is also a nice concept, but it not a backup!

[lra]

Propose a better name.

[fugidev]

Well, how about link? I think that describes pretty well what it will do. Or maybe something more neutral, such as install, as it is functionally the opposite of uninstall?

[lra]

Only sysadmins know what a link is.

[fugidev]

If non-sysadmins don't know what a link is, then it is especially bad that they are told that this creates a backup. A backup is supposed to be a redundant copy, which is why I believe the use of the term "backup" here is very misleading. The command should be called something like install, and there should be a clear explanation that mackup is not a backup utility, but it aggregates all the dotfiles into a single folder, which can then be backed up or synced. That should be easy enough to understand for regular, non-sysadmin users.

[Alex-Just]

Have to uninstall and forget about this app, unfortunately, after dropbox beta update which broke all of my backup-ed apps

[jaimejim]

Only sysadmins know what a link is.

Please, could you be so kind to simply add an option to copy instead of create symlinks? I am also having issues now with Dropbox and Python 3.12. and since mackup fails I cannot revert the symlinks.

Mackup is great but at the end of the day it is something used once a year or so and it needs to be very reliable.