Restore Backup says file invalid

I have 2 MacBooks, one which I use for travelling. I work on the bigger MacBook Pro 16” at home. About to go away I made a backup, saved to a Dropbox account, from which I restore to the “travelling” MacBook Air 13 computer when I go away.

But now it’s refusing to restore from the backup. It tells me it’s an “invalid file format”. It restores fine to the machine on which the backup was created. And I get the same message when trying to restore from backups that have previously been successful Both are running Basecamp 4.8.12 and say their up to date. Both are intel based Macs running Most up to date version of Monterey.

Any ideas gratefully received

john

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5296248 over 2 years ago in reply to 5296248 +1

I’ve cracked it! The problem was the Mac Air was reading a cloud-based file in Dropbox. To save space I’d made all the Dropbox files on the Air online only. Once I changed the Garmin Backup folder to make…

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0 5296248 over 2 years ago

Sorry, should have added that I have already uninstalled and re-installed BC on the MacBook Air. Still says invalid file format when I try to restore from the backup

john

0 danham_ over 2 years ago in reply to 5296248

This is a stab in the dark, but have you tried installing BC on the Air as a new user? That way if corrupted prefs or other system issues are the problem, it may work.

0 5296248 over 2 years ago in reply to danham_

Hadn’t thought of that, worth a try… thanks Danham

0 5296248 over 2 years ago in reply to danham_

No joy there I'm afraid. It's strange, backup and restore works perfectly on one machine and not at all on the other...

0 danham_ over 2 years ago in reply to 5296248

Sorry to hear that. Have you tried making a test backup on the Air and restoring it on the Air to see if the process works? The other thought would be a brute force backup/xfer: move the Database folder from your Pro to your Air via thumb drive or network. Be sure to copy all of the database files before trying either experiment.

0 5296248 over 2 years ago in reply to danham_

Yes, idid try that - and backups made from the air restore fine - I don’t dare see if the Air backups will restore to the Pro as the Airs is a month or so out of date (since my last trip¡)

not sure I quite understand the moving of the database folder - where do I find that? I guess it would be a simple procedure to copy to Dropbox and then back to to the HD location, if a bit cumbersome.

0 danham_ over 2 years ago in reply to 5296248

Go here on your Air and copy the files in 4.8 somewhere safe, then grab copies of the same files from your Pro and put them in 4.8 on the Air, replacing the ones you moved to safety. [your user name]/Library/Application Support/Garmin/Basecamp/Database/4.8

0 5296248 over 2 years ago in reply to danham_

Thank you , but I can't find that folder... there is /library/application support on the main HD, but no Garmin folder within it. If I go to users/[my user name] there is no library folder - is it hidden? Do I need to make this folder visible in some way?

Sorry to be so helpless... I'm not that techie!

0 5296248 over 2 years ago in reply to 5296248

I’ve cracked it! The problem was the Mac Air was reading a cloud-based file in Dropbox. To save space I’d made all the Dropbox files on the Air online only. Once I changed the Garmin Backup folder to make it available locally as well (ie the file physically downloaded to the computer hdd) the restore works as expected

I found the clue here https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=hPAJX107xNA8ocF502mwt6

Thanks for your help - maybe this will help someone else in future!

cheers

John

0 danham_ over 2 years ago in reply to 5296248

John, just to finish this for posterity ;-) yes, the user library is hidden. In the Finder use the Go menu and hold down Option to see hidden folders.