Restoring a Backup Database
Things go wrong. Hard disks die; power fluctuations fry your data; even a tiny flaw in your disk media can corrupt a database. Fortunately, if you've set up your CatBase backup system, you can quickly revive a backup of the database and be up and running again in no time.
Backup and Restore Settings
If you have not already set up a Backup schedule, please see the Automated Backup and Restore Tutorial.
Automatic Backup Restore
You can tell CatBase to automatically restore your database if it is damaged. This is done in the Backup & Restore settings area (see the above-mentioned Tutorial).
Each time you start CatBase, it will check the integrity of the database. If problems are found (i.e. if the database has somehow become damaged), it will automatically restore the last backup and apply the Log file to it, as long as those options have been selected in the Backup & Restore
Settings.
Manual Restore
You might need to manually restore a backup. For example, perhaps you made a major amendment to the database and then discovered that you'd done it incorrectly, and you want to revert to the last backup. This is easy to do.
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Quit CatBase if it's running (in Multi-User versions, log all Clients out and Quit the CatBase Server).
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Restart CatBase in the usual way, but hold down the Alt (or Option) key on your keyboard as it starts up. Note: if you are using CatBase Multi-User, you must do this on the server. You'll see the Maintenance and Security Center dialog:
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Select the Restore button on the left of the dialog.
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The Restore page opens:
Of course, yours will show a list of backups of your database rather than the CatBase Demo shown here.
There may be a number of Backup files with the .4BK file extension. The number of backup files CatBase keeps is determined by the settings in the Backup Preferences.
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Select the backup file you want to restore. This will probably be the most recent one (with the highest number), but you might want to restore a previous backup file.
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The dialog updates:
Path
Shows the location of the selected backup file. Click the Show button to open the folder that the backup file is saved in.
Date and Time
Tells you exactly when the selected backup was made.
Content
Shows a list of the items that were included in the backup. Un-check any that you do not want to restore. The one with the .4DD file extension is the actual database.
Destination folder of the restored files
Shows where the files are going to be restored. If you want to change the location, click the ... button and select another folder.
Integrate one or more log files after restore
After a fresh backup has been made, CatBase creates log files which contain the details of every single modification made to the database (as long as the Use Log File option in the Backup Settings has not been in-selected). So if you're restoring a backup that was made at 1AM this morning, the log file will contain details of every modification made between 1AM and the time that the database stopped.This means that the only work you should lose will be unsaved changes. Select the Integrate one or more log files after restore option to apply those changes to the restored backup.
Click Restore to restore the backup.