Language:
switch to room list switch to menu My folders
Go to page: First ... 8 9 10 11 [12]
[#] Wed Aug 26 2026 04:38:39 EDT from cjonline

Subject: Re: Recovering form Citadel DB crash

[Reply] [ReplyQuoted] [Headers] [Print]

Hi, I dont have a recent backup.. that's the issue.. I stopped using google drive for backups few months back due to the price increase.. I was in process of looking for alternative.

 

Tue Aug 25 2026 18:24:38 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: Recovering form Citadel DB crash
Hi, Can you please double check this as my cdb08 file is 4GB in size,
the rest of the files are much smaller in comparison -

The files are different sizes because they contain different tables. But they can't be recovered on their own. If you deleted the journal files (log.*) and maps (__db.00*) you've deleted the parts of the database that make it recoverable.

Please just restore your most recent backup. It is your best and only option right now.

 



[#] Wed Aug 26 2026 14:59:01 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Subject: Re: Recovering form Citadel DB crash

[Reply] [ReplyQuoted] [Headers] [Print]

If you don't have a backup, then I'm afraid you're out of luck.  When you deleted the write-ahead logs you deleted the very thing that makes the database recoverable.  Berkeley DB is exceptionally stable but obviously it can't re-create data that isn't there.

If there's something in those files that you really need, you might be able to use your system's "strings" utility to dump them into a text file, but the chances of recovering them back into Citadel is essentially zero.

I'm trying to be gentle here because you're clearly a loyal Citadel user and I appreciate that immensely, but your database is definitely unrecoverable and you have to start over.



[#] Thu Aug 27 2026 06:30:46 EDT from cjonline

Subject: Re: Recovering form Citadel DB crash

[Reply] [ReplyQuoted] [Headers] [Print]

actually, Gemini has been helping with Berkely and Citadel and we have managed to extract the emails from the database tables and import them back in with IMAP.   It's taking a while but a least I have most of what I need back. I also managed to scrape the tasks and contacts etc.

Wed Aug 26 2026 14:59:01 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: Recovering form Citadel DB crash

If you don't have a backup, then I'm afraid you're out of luck.  When you deleted the write-ahead logs you deleted the very thing that makes the database recoverable.  Berkeley DB is exceptionally stable but obviously it can't re-create data that isn't there.

If there's something in those files that you really need, you might be able to use your system's "strings" utility to dump them into a text file, but the chances of recovering them back into Citadel is essentially zero.

I'm trying to be gentle here because you're clearly a loyal Citadel user and I appreciate that immensely, but your database is definitely unrecoverable and you have to start over.



 



[#] Thu Aug 27 2026 19:19:24 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Subject: Re: Recovering form Citadel DB crash

[Reply] [ReplyQuoted] [Headers] [Print]


Glad to hear it. That's why I suggested using "strings" but if you can find other tools that work, that's good too. Like I said, you can probably scrape the text out of the files, there's just no way to recover directly back into a live database.

If you've just created a brand new installation of Citadel from the latest version, and started with a blank directory, you're actually not even using Berkeley DB anymore. Look in the data/ directory ... if you see "data.mdb" and "lock.mdb" instead of the same files you've seen before, congratulations, you're on LMDB!

Going forward, I'd like to remind everyone that the best ways to back up Citadel are:

1. If you have a filesystem that does snapshots, take a snapshot and back that up.

2. If you don't, you should shut down Citadel Server before beginning a backup.

<osborne> By the way, the new UI is just days away from feature complete, and I can't wait to show it to you! </osborne>

[#] Thu Aug 27 2026 20:17:01 EDT from Nurb432

Subject: Re: Recovering form Citadel DB crash

[Reply] [ReplyQuoted] [Headers] [Print]

cool

Thu Aug 27 2026 19:19:24 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: Recovering form Citadel DB crash



<osborne> By the way, the new UI is just days away from feature complete, and I can't wait to show it to you! </osborne>

 



Go to page: First ... 8 9 10 11 [12]