What is actually being backed-up by Library Back up? (Windows 10)

Engine DJ Software Engine DJ (Mac & PC)
1

I have to partitions C the windows partition and D with all my music. So there are two Engine database locations: C:…\Music\Engine Library D:\Engine Library

So now I’m wondering when you select Library Backup within Engine desktop, what actually is being backed up? I was expecting that both databases were being backed up. The one on C as well as the one on D. But this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Yesterday I was syncing from Engine desktop to an USB stick. Somehow the database of my laptop got corrupted. And all the music in the collection was gone. (Not on the disk)

I thought Restoring one of my many backups on C would do the trick, but now it seems like that only the library on C had been backed up.

2

I assume the database file?

3

I should haven been more clear with my question. :slight_smile: I mean does library backup only backs up the database file on drive C?

4

I believe it only backup the database on C:\

5

It’s the same for external drive music collection as well.

Ideally it should back up every instance of Engine database it finds on C and all connected source drives

That’s the way Serato does it.

Not sure if there is a feature request thread for this yet. If there is none consider starting one.

6

So actually there is no real backup. I had rather lost the data on C than D drive. Now I’ve lost countless hours of setting cue points. Fortunately a couple of months ago I’d manually made a backup, so not everything is lost.

7

I just had the same thing happen. I thought the backup was backing up the collection on my drive. IDK what good it does to backup C:

8

I store everything on a d:\ drive. Manually backup the whole unit to a third drive. It’s the easiest way to backup/restore. Had a SSD failure last year, just reinstalled windows, copied everything back to D:, installed and ran engine.

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9

DJs put years of effort in their pieces of music, cue points, loops and what not. Do not rely on Engine/Soundswitch backup function, always make manual backups! Buy a large external drive and copy

  • the music files
  • the (several) Engine databases (on several drives)
  • the soundswitch files, if you use SS.

Do NOT copy the Engine database as-is, because Engine will recognize the database file as a new source of music and you get all sorts of trouble. Change name or extension, or better compress it (with rar or 7zip). I ALWAYS have 3 compressed backups of Engine and Soundswitch as well as one backup of my music files.

If you really must restore a previous state, simply copy back the database/Soundswitch files. Note that you might get problems if you want to sync performance drives that are created AFTER you made the backup. Can work, but not necessarily.

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