[ale] Help with data recovery

[Bob]

Hi Jim,

Never mind what's below; I see that you're way ahead of me. 
Congratulations!

--Bob


On 2020-08-24 5:59 p.m., Bob via Ale wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Jim,
> 
> I'm not seeing why you are thinking that the password must be on the 
> backup drive somewhere.   There could be a standard phrase in a 
> particular location on the backup drive like "The quick brown fox jumped 
> over the lazy dog" except that the phrase is encrypted.  You enter the 
> key=password, and Deja Dup uses that password to decrypt the encrypted 
> version of the standard phrase.  If the decrypted phrase does turn out 
> to be "The quick brown fox ...," then the password you entered is 
> assumed to be correct.  (This is pure speculation---I do not know how 
> Deja Dup actually works.)
> 
> I'm still leaning towards the most likely explanation is that you are 
> not correctly remembering your password.  If there were a failure to 
> store the password, that seems like it might be equivalent to not 
> checking the box asking it to remember the password.  However, you're 
> entering the password, which seems like it has nothing to do with 
> whether Deja Dup saved the password in the gnome keyring.
> 
> Here's an experiment, and I take no responsibility if it goes horribly 
> wrong.  :-)  Since you've installed Deja Dup on the older, spare laptop. 
>   Plug in the external backup drive to the older, spare laptop and 
> attempt to restore a few files.  Do not backup anything to the external 
> hard drive.  However, see if you can restore a few files from the 
> external hard drive with what you think is the password.
> 
> If you were to try the above, I think I'd re-install the os and Deja Dup 
> on the laptop.  Don't ask Deja Dup to remember any password.  Don't save 
> anything to the backup drive.  Just plug in the external backup drive 
> and see if you can restore a file or two with what you think is the 
> password from the external hard drive to your old laptop.
> 
> Before trying the above, you might want to wait and see if some of the 
> other say, "UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU DO WHAT HE SUGGESTED."  :-)
> 
> --Bob
> 
> On 2020-08-24 4:19 p.m., Jim Ransone wrote:
>> Much thanks to everyone for the suggestions and advice so far! Here is an
>> update:
>>
>> I have attempted to duplicate the entire scenario on an older spare 
>> laptop.
>>
>> - I installed the same OS - Ubuntu Studio 20.04.
>> - I created a folder and filled it with a handful of files.
>> - I used Deja Dup to back up the folder onto a usb flash drive. (Didn't
>> want to risk doing something weird to my actual backup drive.) Was 
>> asked to
>> create a password.
>> - Reinstalled Ubuntu Studio 20.04 with the same settings as before 
>> (erasing
>> everything.)
>> - Reinstalled Deja Dup.
>> - Used Deja Dup with the password to successfully restore the backup.
>>
>> This indicates to me that you are right, Bob. The password was the
>> password. There is no other key that's being created and stored 
>> somewhere.
>> It also would seem to indicate that the password is somewhere on the 
>> backup
>> drive, but I don't have any idea where on the drive that would be.
>>
>> So either I am misremembering the original password, as you suggested, 
>> Bob,
>> or there is some other issue. I have seen comments online about a bug 
>> that
>> cause it to sometimes fail to store the key.
>>
>> Jim
> <snip>
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