Restore Mac mini backup to new Nucleus?

I’ve just got my new Nucleus Plus powered up and connected to everything. I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to import the backup from the Mini to the Nucleus Plus and I’m not seeing much information on that. Any ideas?

I can see and access both the Nucleus Plus and the Mini in the Mac Finder but unclear on how to proceed.

My setup:

  • music is stored on NAS
  • Nucleus Plus is connected to network
  • MacMini is connected to network

To be clear, I want to migrate the library from the Mini to the Nucleus Plus. The media will still live on the NAS.

1 Like

Looks like I found the correct instructions to migrate.

Read this Nucleus helpful links especially Step 2.
I made the mistake of logging in which eventually had the Nucleus rebuilding my database from scratch, without all the changes I’d made.

More references from Danny - Nucleus helpful links

Yah, I didn’t see the “restore” in the lower left either.

I believe if you halt things and just do a restore it will work. It did, based on my experience, take a long time for Roon to get everything back in order. You can play music but the appearance of the database will not return as it seems Roon goes through quite a bit in the restoration process. For instance you may see that everything in the Overview appears to be New under Recently Added.

I’m just noticing that. Thanks for the heads up.

Steve - does the library ultimately recover to the original state or is the Recently Added stuck this way?

I’m also noticing a lot of tracks/albums have mismatched metadata now (I mean, a lot).

What should happen, as I discovered, is that it returns to the way you saw it at the time of your backup. If no albums in Recently Added originally appeared as “New” at the time of your backup, then once you restore to the new target Roon Core server, it should also show no “New” albums and the order of Recently Added should also mirror what you had at the time of the backup.

As for metadata, what specifically are you seeing? Is it song names, album titles, artists, albums that need merging, etc.?

It’s been nearly 24 hours since I restored - and Roon doesn’t appear to do much now.

I’m seeing tracks/albums that are mismatched, e.g., Tribe Called Quest is actually showing as KISS.

Guess it may be time to try opening a case/ticket on the Support section by including, if I’m not mistaken, @support in your heading.

Yah, I’m going to try importing again. I also need to install an SSD since the stock 55GB is already 90% full.

We’ll see how it goes. Guess it wouldn’t be all that bad to start over. My library is pretty new anyway.

Danny had suggested I perform a backup from my prior system using a flash drive formatted exFAT. That seemed to work for me coming from my MacMini.

Hello @hedkase,

Let’s get your Nucleus up and running for you. Could you explain the steps you took to migrate your database from the Mac Mini to the Nucleus? I would recomend using this link as your guide on how to handle this process if you are going to start over.

-John

1 Like

Hey @john I nuked the entire database and started fresh. There were a lot of things going on that didnt look right. I’ll let you know how it goes from here.

Thanks!

@John - I’m still experiencing some odd behavior I hadn’t been experiencing when the Core was on the MacMini. This is after nuking my original database on the Nucleus. I even reinstalled the operating system. I also checked the music with a tag editor - all checks out.

  • Loads of mismatched tracks/albums
  • Albums are spread out, showing as several different albums with only a few tracks in them
  • Some double CD albums are only showing one of the discs

I’ve tried moving to a new Core (from a i7 W10 computer to a SGC i7 sonicTransporter) 2 ways both with mixed results:

First, I located my NAS on the new Core and it loaded all the music files. Then I restored my latest Database backup. I too had different cover art, files etc. with this method. In addition Roon now runs extremely slow on my iPAD and MBP…

Next, I reinstalled Roon server and then installed the same Database as above first and then located my NAS and brought the music files in. Basically the same result except that the messed up cover art and files are different from the above import! Roon still runs slow on iPAD and MBP (this really is getting tired BTW)

In both cases nothing else was changed in my system.

Letting the new Core “work” for a few days doesn’t change a thing

Finally, from suggestion in my posts on this issue that it has to be a network issue, I replaced my switch. It didnt change a thing …

So, it seems I’m not the only one having issues with this process, There has to be something bad going on moving to a new Core.
A definitive solution would be greatly appreciated and seemingly would be fundamental to Roon…

Hello @hedkase,

Could you take a screenshot of your “Clean Up Library” window? You can find it in Settings > Library > Clean Up Library

-John

Hey @John, Everything is at zero since I had already cleaned up the “deleted files”. Everything else was at zero.

I just went through a setup of a Nucleus+ that included a migration of my database and music files from a Mac Pro and had absolutely no problems with the following process.

  1. I installed a 4tb SSD on in the Nucleus+ and got it up and running on my network. My music files will be loaded on this SSD. I formatted the SDD from the Nucleus+ web admin interface.
  2. I disabled the “Music” folder on the Nucleus+ from the Roon Remote UX (in settings --> storage) so that it doesn’t try reading any music files why they are transferring.
  3. I stopped Roon Server Software from running via the Nucleus+ web admin interface.
  4. I reset the Roon Database & Settings (to ensure it was at a clean state) from the Nucleus+ web admin interface.
  5. I loaded my music files onto the SDD in the Nucleus+ (this is what took the most time as I have 2TB of music files).
  6. I created a new Roon backup from my Mac Pro to make sure I had the latest backed up & loaded it onto a USB stick.
  7. I restarted the Roon Server Software from the the Nucleus+ web admin interface.
  8. I plugged the USB stick into the Nucleus+ and restored the backup I had just made via the Roon Remote UX (settings --> backups) (I also keep the USB stick plugged into the Nucleus+ for future backups as it very fast this way.)
  9. I then setup the correct pointer to the directory with my music files from the Roon Remote UX (settings --> storage)
  10. Roon quickly scanned the files and the process was done. No muss, no fuss, no long processing time or any fixing of anything broken.

Hope that helps some of you having issues…

2 Likes