Restore from a backup problem

[deleted]

So I was trying to restore GOS from a backup, and idk what the issue is here. For some reason, the size of the current backup is 20mb (the size of the previous backup was like 2gb). Idk how it happened, bc I selected all the options in the backup menu and it completed without any errors. Could the backup size actually be so small? Or that's the issue then?

I'm attaching some screenshots from the os installer. After all that, my settings applied, but none of the apps got downloaded. https://imgur.com/a/NKRJAiY

P.S. I did this backup while the bootloader was UNLOCKED. Could that be the problem?

treequell

GrapheneOS currently uses Seedvault for backups, but the backups with Seedvault are highly unreliable. It is likely that your data was not backed up correctly, and you will not be able to restore with that backup file.

gk7ncklxlts99w1

treequell I'm still waiting for responses on my post about backups, but so far no one has really explained how and why seedvault is unreliable. Some contradict this and say it is reliable.

[deleted]

So after playing around with it for a while, I finally found the issue. The thing is that you need to RESELECT your backup method even if it's already select it. If you fail to do so, then it would just create a 20mb UNUSABLE backup and tell you that everything is fine (until you actually try to restore from it). I think this is a major issue that can hurt even advance users (bc why would you reselect smth if it's already selected?).
In addition to that, you should probably format the drive before backing up to it (which I did), but grapheneos doesn't tell you to do so (which increases the possibility of f*cking up smth).
How could I tell the devs about it?

[deleted]

[deleted] I opened a github issue. Upvote to the moon https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/3620