Check if Include folders/files do exists (in case they are removed)

[rafaelhdr]

Solution b) when start taking a snapshot the include list should be checked of existence first and warn about missings.

reference: #1586

[rafaelhdr]

This is not complete yet, but if possible I would like some feedback before finishing it.

Are the messages good? And I am wondering if the qt warning is ok (it is asking a confirmation before continuing instead of just warning).

And I didn't implement a) for no big reason. I am still getting familiar with the code and b) was something that was more clear for me. I could try a) in a future PR.

And how you normally do translations? I was planning to translate all other languages using some automated tool (Copilot) but I wanted to confirm how you guys do it normally...

[buhtz]

Dear Rafael,
Awesome! Thank you for this next contribution.

I added some comments and suggestions to the code. I am not sure about the whole solution. I would suggest to further discuss it in the related issue #1586.

I will set the PR into Draft mode to state the the solution is not finished.

Best,
Christian

[rafaelhdr]

I appreciate a lot for the review. It clarified a lot of questions and taught me some good lessons (I would never have thought about RTL issues on translations). And I am happy about not use the camel case :)

I will do the fixes from the review and wait for any suggestion in the original issue.

Thank you very much 🙏

[buhtz]

Does anyone know how to trigger the systray-icon message-bubbles via BIT?

I tried with "Snapshot.setTakeSnapshotMessage(1, 'FOO BAR')" but without success. This message appears in the status bar of the main window.

[buhtz]

I would never have thought about RTL issues on translations

Me neither. When I started to work on the translation task I thougt it is easy. I learned things like that from translators and the community around them while trying to attract translators to BIT.

[rafaelhdr]

I am still checking on Systray. TBH I didn't know we had a systray (it is not running fine here). But I will keep trying to understand it in order to make the fix.

[aryoda]

Does anyone know how to trigger the systray-icon message-bubbles via BIT?

Our systray icon started as stand-alone process

backintime/qt/plugins/systrayiconplugin.py

Lines 86 to 93 in 99081af

	def processBegin(self):
	try:
	logger.debug("Trying to start systray icon sub process...")
	path = os.path.join(tools.backintimePath('qt'), 'qtsystrayicon.py')
	cmd = [sys.executable, path, self.snapshots.config.currentProfile()]
	if logger.DEBUG:
	cmd.append("--debug") # HACK to propagate DEBUG logging level to sub process
	self.process = subprocess.Popen(cmd)

and it calls every second a function to update the status:

backintime/qt/qtsystrayicon.py

Lines 160 to 201 in 99081af

	def updateInfo(self):
	# Exit this systray icon "app" when the snapshots is taken
	if not self.snapshots.busy():
	self.prepareExit()
	self.qapp.exit(0)
	return
	paused = tools.processPaused(self.snapshots.pid())
	self.btnPause.setVisible(not paused)
	self.btnResume.setVisible(paused)
	message = self.snapshots.takeSnapshotMessage()
	if message is None and self.last_message is None:
	message = (0, _('Working…'))
	if not message is None:
	if message != self.last_message:
	self.last_message = message
	if self.decode:
	message = (message[0], self.decode.log(message[1]))
	self.menuStatusMessage.setText('\n'.join(textwrap.wrap(message[1], \
	width = 80) \
	))
	self.status_icon.setToolTip(message[1])
	pg = progress.ProgressFile(self.config)
	if pg.fileReadable():
	pg.load()
	percent = pg.intValue('percent')
	## disable progressbar in icon until BiT has it's own icon
	## fixes bug #902
	# if percent != self.progressBar.value():
	# self.progressBar.setValue(percent)
	# self.progressBar.render(self.pixmap, sourceRegion = QRegion(0, -14, 24, 6), flags = QWidget.RenderFlags(QWidget.DrawChildren))
	# self.status_icon.setIcon(QIcon(self.pixmap))
	self.menuProgress.setText(' | '.join(self.getMenuProgress(pg)))
	self.menuProgress.setVisible(True)
	else:
	# self.status_icon.setIcon(self.icon.BIT_LOGO)
	self.menuProgress.setVisible(False)

It reads the current "snapshot message" from a file:

backintime/common/snapshots.py

Line 96 in 99081af

def takeSnapshotMessage(self):

So to change the status message of the systray icon the message file's content must be changed, I guess (= not tried) with:

backintime/common/snapshots.py

Line 151 in 99081af

def setTakeSnapshotMessage(self, type_id, message, timeout=-1):

I tried with "Snapshot.setTakeSnapshotMessage(1, 'FOO BAR')" but without success. This message appears in the status bar of the main window.

The message is only shown while a snapshot is taken otherwise the systray icon is closed again (it is not running permanently - which is what I would implement in the future to also get rid of the root systray icon issues due to hijacking the X11 session of a user).

[aryoda]

@rafaelhdr Thanks a lot for your contribution and helping us to improve BiT!

@rafaelhdr @buhtz I am wondering if the validation logic to check for existing includes does really work in every scenario, esp. when the include path is mounted via a user-callback the validation is only possible (valid ;-) after the user-callback is called.

I know this a quite rare scenario (using a user-callback as well as mounting the include folder - normally I mount the target folder - not the includes root folder) but we should test this before merging the PR.

For a simple user-callback example see https://github.com/bit-team/user-callback/blob/master/user-callback.diagnostics

The BiT function to mount for using a profile is this:

backintime/common/pluginmanager.py

Line 165 in 99081af

def mount(self, profileID = None):

[buhtz]

I do see. This is a longer story.

[aryoda]

BTW: I think to correctly test the mount/unmount user-callback calls via the BiT GUI my old patch must be applied:

#724 (comment)

Perhaps it is time to push this patch now as work-around (even though it is in-efficient because it mounts/unmounts far too often)...

[buhtz]

@rafaelhdr @buhtz I am wondering if the validation logic to check for existing includes does really work in every scenario, esp. when the include path is mounted via a user-callback the validation is only possible (valid ;-) after the user-callback is called.

You mean if the "backup source" is an external drive for example and present all the time?
So the check should be done after the user-callback script was executed?

[aryoda]

@rafaelhdr @buhtz I am wondering if the validation logic to check for existing includes does really work in every scenario, esp. when the include path is mounted via a user-callback the validation is only possible (valid ;-) after the user-callback is called.

You mean if the "backup source" is an external drive for example and present all the time? So the check should be done after the user-callback script was executed?

Yes, check for existing include folders after the user-callback script was called to "mount" everything.
An external drive would be one scenario but more realistically a network drive (if the source is not permanently mounted but only mounted for BiT and after the backup unmounted again).

Or another example: The source is an encrypted container (TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt) and shall be mounted only for backups

[rafaelhdr]

Thank you for all your help, guys 🙏

About the Systray, I think I got the idea. I was able to run it locally, and I will try to add something.Thank you for the directions.

BTW, I just noticed the systray after you guys mentioned it. I was able to make it work after adding an extension to Gnome (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/615/appindicator-support/). Do you think it is worth mentioning in the docs?

About the user-callback suggestion, I think I got it... Just to be sure, these are the logs from my local tests:

$ backintime backup --profile-id 4

> Back In Time
> Version: 1.4.4-dev.7472f54d

(...)

> WARNING: The following folders are missing: /home/rafaelhdr/Mocks2
> INFO: Lock
> INFO: Mountpoint /home/rafaelhdr/.local/share/backintime/mnt/7AE1B8E6/mountpoint is already mounted
> INFO: Take a new snapshot. Profile: 4 khadas 2
(...)

So, this WARNING: The following (...) should be happening after the INFO: Mountpoint /home/(...), right? With that, we could be sure it is properly mounted...

[rafaelhdr]

Hey guys,

Thank you for all the support. I was able to display the error with this:

We could consider it as an error, right? (if not, I could replace the 1 here self.setTakeSnapshotMessage(1, msg))

And I moved the check for after the mount. I hope it is good.

Let me know if you think we could change it, but also feel free to change anything :)

[aryoda]

FYI: I am AFK for one week and will review this PR when I am back...