deja-dup fails on backup to external drive with g_file_get_uri: assertion `G_IS_FILE (file)' failed

attaching console output with the error

attaching console output w/o the error after changing the backup target to a local directory

It will not back up to an external drive as described above, mine is an esata connection. In addition I tried to back up to an internal drive I use for another system (mint) and got the same result.It works fine on an internal folder.This phenomenon was not always present but changed as updates were installed going back to alpha2. It was working until the last update then failed again.
<email address hidden>, lucid, amd64.

I've tested some settings in gconf (/apps/deja-dup/). Changing '/apps/deja-dup/file/type' from volume to normal solves the problem. Maybe that's a workaround until a fix is released.

Steffen
you're right, this change ( volume to normal ) solves the problem. I continue doing test.

I'm having this problem as well, and doing the gconf change described by Steffen solved it for me, but I think the G_IS_FILE assertion failure is a red herring -- the actual error seems to be on the duplicity command generated by deja-dup.

Below is the command executed when I had 'volume' as the value of /apps/deja-dup/file/type. As we can see, in this case duplicity exited with value 2 (i.e. error).
** (deja-dup:25730): DEBUG: DuplicityInstance.vala:199: Running the following duplicity (25779) command: duplicity collection-status --exclude=/home/salgado/.wine ...<elided-bunch-of--excludes>... --include=/home/salgado --exclude=/sys --exclude=/proc --exclude=/tmp --exclude=** --gio --no-encryption
** (deja-dup:25730): DEBUG: DuplicityInstance.vala:552: duplicity (25779) exited with value 2

And here's the duplicity command (which completes successfully) executed when I had 'normal' as the value of the aforementioned config.
 ** (deja-dup:25963): DEBUG: DuplicityInstance.vala:199: Running the following duplicity (25974) command: duplicity collection-status --exclude=/media/548710d6-fa6b-4348-8c5d-49b1718fbb0f/backup/gorducho --exclude=/home/salgado/.wine ... --exclude=/tmp --exclude=** --gio --no-encryption file:///media/548710d6-fa6b-4348-8c5d-49b1718fbb0f/backup/gorducho --verbosity=9 --gpg-options= --archive-dir=/home/salgado/.cache/deja-dup --log-file=/tmp/deja-dup-ZTZOBV
** (deja-dup:25963): DEBUG: DuplicityInstance.vala:552: duplicity (25974) exited with value 0

Actually, I've just realized that the duplicity command might be wrong because of the same problem that the caused the assertion to fail, given that I don't see the assertion failure when it manages to backup successfully.

Fixed in trunk. The global GVolumeMonitor apparently was getting cleaned up and this caused GVolume objects to not return GMounts... Which all sounds bad. I'll open a glib task to remember to file a bug upstream. For now I've worked around it by just making sure that the global GVolumeMonitor is always ref'ed when used, so it doesn't ever go to zero refs.

Changing the value from "Volume" to "Normal" fixed the problem for me as well (https://bugs.launchpad.net/deja-dup/+bug/539393/comments/6).

Just out of curiosity, what caused this bug to appear?

I don't remember any deja-dup update, but this bug appeared on both of my computers about 2 weeks or so ago.

It is true that I changed the backup destination folder to external drive on the computer #1, but I haven't changed anything on computer #2, but this bug appeared there well.

Will there be an update of the 10.04 LTS package? I think this is important because Deja-Dup is the featured backup application in the Ubuntu Software Center.

Here's a debdiff to update to 14.1 (changelog below). If the SRU team would like just the bug fixes (no translation updates), I can prepare that too.

Whoops, forgot changelog:

Bug Fixes:
 • Fix backing up to an external drive (broken since a glib update)
 • Fix restoring a single directory that already exists
 • Fix a deja-dup-monitor crash if there is an error reading the configuration
Translations:
 • New Romanian translation
 • Updated Dutch, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, and Turkish translations

How do I use the diff file to update my install?

To apply the debdiff see here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuPackagingGuide/BuildFromDebdiff

I get the following error, which I do not know if it is related to this thread or not. Anyways, here is the error when I attempt to use deja-dup and backup to my external hard drive:

BackendException: Could not copy /tmp/duplicity-ZFmsLE-tempdir/mktemp-hknSVV-2 to/media/af2dd1ed-2b55-40eb-879d-5158ee37741e/duplicity-full.20100503T224853Z.vol1.difftar.gz

I am using Ubuntu 10.04; deja-dup installed from Synaptic (14.1-OubuntuOluc Backup utility), I installed the ppa.launchpad.net/deja-dup-team/ppa/ubuntu lucid main to my Software Sources today before installing deja-dup and then received the error above when attempting to use it.

I successfully was able to use deja-dup to make a backup of a test file and save it internally. Hopes this gives you more information.

well I am disappointed in that 14.1 was released on may 01 to fix errors including not being able to back up to external HD's and I am not able to do this. I wonder if I should post a question in the Questions for Deja-Dup Section. I fear this bug is not being monitored now that the fix was released. I will wait another day, and maybe post in the Questions. I am also beginning to wonder if it is a problem from my end.

Thouhts/comments anyone?

Thank you.

Mike, your issue is a different one than this bug. It looks like your issue involves the disk being full/not writable or something. Please file a new bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/deja-dup/+filebug

I'll note that the official PPA has this updated package/debdiff (with a different changelog entry) if people want to confirm it fixes the issue: https://launchpad.net/~deja-dup-team/+archive/ppa

I can confirm the PPA fixes the issue. I would suggest people use the PPA rather than change their gconf setting.

Thank you Michael, I continue to receive similar errors as above and cannot use deja-dub for backups to either of my two external HD's, or to a separate partition on the same internal drive. None are full. As others are reporting that the PPA fix corrects their issues with these, mine must be related to something internal. I am at a loss to what my problem may be; Maybe a permissions problem.

The PPA fixes the issue for me, too.

Hi,

I still can reproduce 571864 which is marked as duplicate of this bug. Could you please recheck it. I've reposted the problem and re-attached all the required info in the last comment to that bug.

It is working fine for me now. All my wrong.I had a professional in. He had to make a new directory for the ext. HD, correct the mount, change ownership and perms, and add the new mount point in /etc/fstab.

Just a note that Maverick has the fix via being updated to 15.1. Lucid is still waiting on an SRU review of the 14.1 update.

Michael, the debdiff in comment 11 looks fine, please upload.

Uploaded to proposed, waiting for archive admin approval.

Accepted deja-dup into lucid-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

Hm... No luck for me with the proposed update... :-/ The problem is still here. I'll try the workaround again.

Here's the errors that Deja Dup GUI spits out (and it's the same as before)...

Martin Božič, you now have a different error than this bug is about. Please file a new bug with those logs. That does seem pretty bad, though. Your backup looks corrupt in some way. I can help you try to recover in your new bug.

I installed proposed and it seems to work well.

Fix works for me too. Thanks.

I can confirm the fix worked here too, using an USB external hard drive.

It works for me too, in lucid I installed the deja-dup 1.4.1 from lucid-proposed and it fixed my issue.

In comment before I typed wrong, sorry version installed from lucid-proposed is 14.1.

Thank you Pablo. Lucid fix works.

--- On Thu, 5/27/10, Pablo Estigarribia <email address hidden> wrote:

From: Pablo Estigarribia <email address hidden>
Subject: [Bug 569418] Re: deja-dup fails on backup to external drive with g_file_get_uri: assertion `G_IS_FILE (file)' failed
To: <email address hidden>
Date: Thursday, May 27, 2010, 7:13 AM

In comment before I typed wrong, sorry version installed from lucid-
proposed is 14.1.

--
deja-dup fails on backup to external drive with g_file_get_uri: assertion `G_IS_FILE (file)' failed
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/569418
You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
of a duplicate bug.

Status in Déjà Dup: Fix Released
Status in The "G" Library - GLib: New
Status in “deja-dup” package in Ubuntu: Fix Released
Status in “deja-dup” source package in Lucid: Fix Committed

Bug description:
Bug Description:

Backing up to an external drive is broken. I use an external USB-harddisk for backups and deja-dup is failing on getting the URI of the backup-target (g_file_get_uri). That's why the duplicity command line is not complete (see attached console output with stout, sterr, DEJA_DUP_DEBUG=1).

If I change the backup target to a local folder everything works!

1. there is no log file in /tmp because of the error

2. --> attached files

3. deja-dup    14.0.3-0ubuntu1
    duplicity    0.6.08b-0ubuntu2

4. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

SRU Justification:

It is important to resolve this issue in a SRU due to Deja-Dup being a featured application in the Ubuntu Software Center. By prominently featuring Deja-Dup, it has become the de facto desktop backup solution for Ubuntu users. This bug prevents users from backing up to an external hard drive, probably the primary use case.

#### Work-around ####

Changing the '/apps/deja-dup/file/type' gconf setting from 'volume' to 'normal' solves the problem. This can be done by browsing to that setting with 'gconf-editor' or with the following command in the terminal:

gconftool -s '/apps/deja-dup/file/type' --type string normal

To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/deja-dup/+bug/569418/+subscribe

This bug was fixed in the package deja-dup - 14.1-0ubuntu0.1

---------------
deja-dup (14.1-0ubuntu0.1) lucid-proposed; urgency=low

  * New upstream release
    - Fix restoring a single directory that already exists (LP: #563062)
    - Fix backing up to an external disk (LP: #569418)
 -- Michael Terry <email address hidden> Sun, 02 May 2010 09:20:49 -0400

Hello,

I am seeing a similar error again on lucid 14.2-0ubuntu0.1

The backup backup "Backing up...." dialog comes up and says "Preparing..." and then "Backup Failed".

I also had this issue with 14.0 and 14.1. fixed it but I am seening it again now. Does anyone else experience this or is it something on my end?

Here the output from the terminal:

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed

** (deja-dup:6619): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_duplicity_cmp_prefix: assertion `b != NULL' failed
** (deja-dup:6619): DEBUG: DuplicityInstance.vala:199: Running the following duplicity (6621) command: duplicity collection-status --exclude=/media/Expansion Drive/backup/pauls-mbp --exclude=/home/paul/.local/share/Trash --exclude=/home/paul/.Private --exclude=/home/paul/.recent-applications.xbel --exclude=/home/paul/.recently-used.xbel --exclude=/home/paul/.xsession-errors --exclude=/home/paul/.gvfs --exclude=/home/paul/.thumbnails --exclude=/home/paul/.cache --include=/home/paul --exclude=/sys --exclude=/proc --exclude=/tmp --exclude=** --gio --no-encryption file:///media/Expansion%20Drive/backup/pauls-mbp --verbosity=9 --gpg-options= --archive-dir=/home/paul/.cache/deja-dup --log-file=/tmp/deja-dup-K61RKV

** (deja-dup:6619): DEBUG: DuplicityInstance.vala:552: duplicity (6621) exited with value 0

** (deja-dup:6619): DEBUG: DuplicityInstance.vala:199: Running the following duplicity (6626) command: duplicity --exclude=/media/Expansion Drive/backup/pauls-mbp --exclude=/home/paul/.local/share/Trash --exclude=/home/paul/.Private --exclude=/home/paul/.recent-applications.xbel --exclude=/home/paul/.recently-used.xbel --exclude=/home/paul/.xsession-errors --exclude=/home/paul/.gvfs --exclude=/home/paul/.thumbnails --exclude=/home/p...

PS: changing the the /apps/deja-dub/file/type key from volume to normal did not fix this issue for me (it did before in 14.0)

Paul, you're experiencing a different bug from this one. Please file a new one. But first, try deleting ~/.cache/deja-dup. That may fix it.

Déjà Dup : 16.0
Maverick 10.10

BackendException: Could not copy /tmp/duplicity-dEiEly-tempdir/mktemp-nbBtH6-2 to /media/Backup 10.10 _ho/duplicity-full.20101221T213601Z.vol1.difftar.gpg

This bug is also happening to me in 20.2 and 21.4. I'm trying to back up to another HDD that is connected inside my computer (not external).

** (deja-dup-preferences:30681): CRITICAL **: deja_dup_config_location_add_volume_full: assertion `uuid != NULL' failed

Clearing ~/.cache/deja-dup or going into dconf-editor and changing settings from 'volume' to 'normal' don't fix the problem.

Once I get the above error, the program opens, but the buttons are all grayed out (excluding help).

Btw, I'm on Arch Linux, not Ubuntu.

I experience the same error "CRITICAL **: deja_dup_config_location_add_volume_full: assertion `uuid != NULL' failed" with the latest Ubuntu 11.10 and remote backup storage location (FTP).

My problem has mysteriously disappeared. But I'm sure it's still there since I experienced it.. but under different circumstances.

Not sure if it matters, but I'm also experiencing this problem in 13.04 with a directory on my BTRFS array as the backup target destination.