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What are /home/user/.cache/dconf and /home/user/.dbus? Why does their backup fail?

I tried following this 2013 answer (see code below) but while it allowed me to backup the above files, now I am told it couldn't backup /home/[user]/.dbus/session-bus.

deja-dup backup GUI reports inability to backup .dbus/session-bus

$ man chown
$ sudo chown user .cache/dconf
  [sudo] password for user: 
$ sudo chown user .dbus
$ man chgrp
$ sudo chgrp user .cache/dconf
$ sudo chgrp user .dbus

How do I fix it so it will not take my time closing an error message after each backup? Should I exclude these folders as eggonlegs suggested? Why are they not needed? Why would someone want to back them up?

DBinJP
  • 1,459

2 Answers2

2

You can make two sets of backup.

Frequent backup of files

  • Frequent backup of files, which is not complete (you can make it even less complete, if you wish).

    This is the backup that you run now, maybe you will modify it.

    Some files are used by the operating system, and will be modified during the backup, which will make the backup inconsistent - The backup will not match itself and not the system right after the backup. (There are methods to avoid this, for example to use other file systems than Ubuntu's standard ext4.)

    But the important files, your personal files and system tweaks can be backed up in this frequent backup.

Complete backup of the whole drive

  • A complete backup of the whole drive, which is less frequent, maybe 4 times per year or before and after major modifications of the operating system.

    This backup should be run when booted from another drive, for example a USB pendrive or CD disk with Clonezilla live.

    You can make a Clonezilla image, which is a directory with several files, where the big files are compressed. The image is 'complete', it can be restored to a new drive with at least the same size as the original drive, and the image can be stored in an external drive or in another computer via the network (ssh).

sudodus
  • 47,684
1

I had the same problem:

  • ~/.dbus was failing at being backed up, and
  • it was belonging to root:root

Thanks to this answer, I've deleted ~/.dbus, restarted, and run the Backup again.

The Backup is now fully working!

Note 1: the .dbus folder it's not been recreated yet, but it should be when needed (hopefully with the appropriate myuser:myuser permissions).

Note 2: the same fix applies to ~/.cache, but beware of doing it with ~/.gvfs, especially if there are network folders mounted!

Andrea Ligios
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