Announcement

**Rupp** · January 17, 2023, 08:30 PM

Check your .bak files in the path C:\Program Files (x86)\HomeSeer HS4\Data\HomeSeerData.json to see if they have data. Do you have HS4 auto backups set up?

**mulu** · January 17, 2023, 09:10 PM

That just happened to me again a few days ago. HomeSeer is very sensitive in regards to how it is being shut down. When you shut down or reboot the system exit out of HS4. If you just shut down/reboot Windows you will get a list of running apps. When you then say reboot/shutdown anyways you might end up with a corrupted database and that leads to all events and devices disappearing. Unfortunately, you are out of control of this when Windows decides itself to shut down because it wants to install updates.

I wish HS wouldn't be so sensitive to things like that but at least they now have some reasonably good backup solution. Assuming you detect the issue within 1 week you can easily go back to a backup. If you don't have backups already enabled then you should do so. See these screenshots.

**jordonmusser** · January 17, 2023, 09:54 PM

As noted I do have backup setup but i was gone 4 days and for some dumb reason I only had 3 back ups.

The .json files are all empty

I put a battery backup on the PC to prevent this but I guess my windows scheduled restarts don't close HS properly.

So i am fked, starting from ground zero again?

**mulu** · January 17, 2023, 10:18 PM

I have been in this situation losing everything. It really sucks. But as Rupp said, check if the files C:\Program Files (x86)\HomeSeer HS4\Data\HomeSeerData.json\events.json.bak and C:\Program Files (x86)\HomeSeer HS4\Data\HomeSeerData.json\devices.json.bak contain any data. The might have a size larger than 0 but with no real data in it. So you need to open the files in something like notepad to take a look at them. However, from my experience there is probably nothing in there. At the time this happened to me I had a backup service but this service doesn't allow me to back up anything in the program files folder. But if you have any backup of that folder then check there. Maybe someone else has some suggestion if none of that helps.

**kenm** · January 18, 2023, 01:13 PM

Windows initiated reboots is a really bad idea. Windows doesn't have a mechanism, AFAIK, to wait for HS to finish shutting down before pulling the rug out from underneath it. If you have a large system with lots of devices, events, and plugins that all need to save to disk during a shutdown, the risk is pretty high that you're going to get data corruption.

For this very reason, I have a maintenance window where I check for Windows updates, and, if needed, gracefully shutdown everything on the HS machine, apply updates, and finally reboot. I do a full backup of the "HomeSeer HS4" directory before the graceful shutdown and after the reboot. These backups are saved forever in a digital attic. (i.e NAS)

**randy** · January 18, 2023, 01:56 PM

Take a look at this post about HomeSeer backup strategies. It might be helpful.

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All devices and events gone

All devices and events gone

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