· How do I do a complete restore of my Music Database from a USB backup.?
Good day Roon Support,
I just finished installing the UEFI Boot version of ROCK. Before I did this I did a manual backup to my USB drive. Everything went smoothly. Rock is up & running but my Music Library is not there. This was expected. So my question is How do I do the restore from my USB drive? I went into settings and selected Backups and then Restore in the Roon App. I’m very much confused on what folder to select to restore my Music Database. I tried the RoonBackups folder and that didn't work. I tried the folder that is in the RoonBackups directory. There are tons of directories that are hexadecimal numbers. There’s got to be 50 to 100 of them. Help!! How do I do the restore of my music library? What folder(s)do I need to select.?
The backup manager will look for backups in this folder and you can choose the one to restore (there may be only one if you created a new, separate backup; in my case it’s many because these are automatic incremental backups):
I did exactly that and I’m getting an error message from the Backup Manager.
“There was an error retrieving the backup listing (InvalidRoot).”
Please check the backup folder and try again.
This does not sound very encouraging. I’ve been doing backups every morning for probably a year and it looks like they are all worthless??!!! I also noticed that you have a lost+found directory
This depends on the disk format of the USB disk. I’m using the Linux ext4 format, which is native to Roon OS (as Roon OS is based on Linux) and it has a lost+found by default.
If you use another format, the lost+found won’t be there but it doesn’t matter.
Ok that’s strange but I don’t think it’s terminal. I’ll leave this to official support before I say something that incorrect, but I’m very optimistic that they can get you back on track.
(For now, keep this as a friendly learning lesson that backups should be tested before one needs them. )
Screenshot is below. Here’s some background information……..
I just updated my RoonOS/ROCK to run in UEFI bootmode instead of BIOS BOOT so that I could get the latest and greatest version of ROCK. Prior to doing that I did a manual backup so I thought I would be good. The directions said after re-installing ROCK I could do a restore and that would restore my Roon Music Database…Well that’s not working out….I plugged the USB into my Windows Laptop and here is a screenshot of that. I really appreciate you helping me. It’s Cinco de Mayo so I will buy you a margaraita!!
Thanks for the additional info and screenshot! If you could, please bring your server back online and we’ll enable diagnostic mode to take a deeper look.
Until then, that roon_backup_root file is the key. It’s a marker file that tells Roon this is a valid backup location. Your backup structure looks correct, so the issue is likely which folder you’re pointing Roon to.
The InvalidRoot error means Roon couldn’t find the roon_backup_root marker file in whatever folder you pointed it to. If you were selecting one of the hex subfolders, that’s the problem, those are individual backup snapshots, not the root location.
When Roon asks you to choose a backup location, you need to select the RoonBackups folder itself (the subfolder containing the roon_backup_root file), not any of the hex subfolders inside it.
Step-by-step:
In Roon, go to Settings → Backups → Restore
Click "Add Backup Location" (or browse/change the folder)
Navigate to your USB drive → select the RoonBackups folder and confirm
Roon should now detect the _roon_backup_root_ marker and list your available backups
You'll then see your backups sorted by date — pick the most recent one
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