How to properly backup

[TaliaDias]

Is there a guide on how to make a backup of Jellyfin that is installed on Windows? A lot of the guides tell you to make a backup, like before updating, but I don't see any guide on how to actually do it. I found this page: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/testing/upgrades which seems like it might have the information in there, but it is more for going to different unstable releases, which I have no interest in.

Every time I update it seems like there are some small issues, but when I went from a 10.8.x version to 10.9 it seemed to really mess up for a few days. After 10.9.1 came out and I updated to that it still seemed to have trouble running sometimes, then it suddenly seemed to have fixed itself and is stable. I have been on 10.9.1 since then, just because I didn't want to mess with it again. I am getting pretty far behind in releases though, so I would like to get up to date to 10.9.6.

I have Veeam backing up my entire c:\ every night, so I am assuming the files are backed up there. But which files would I restore if I want to go back a version? And would I just uninstall the new version, re-install the old version (if I can find those install files), then recopy some directories from my backups? Is there in an easier way?

Thanks, for any help

[TheDreadPirate]

In Windows, C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin has all of your permanent Jellyfin data and the database.

[TaliaDias]

Cool, that should make it pretty easy to both backup and restore. Is there anything wrong that you see with these steps? Like, do I need to do anything special other than this?
1. Copy c:\programdata\jellyfin to backup location
2. Install Jellyfin update
3. Hopefully rejoice and stop at this step, if everything is good
4. If not good, uninstall Jellyfin
5. Install older working version of Jellyfin
6. Copy back c:\programdata\jellyfin from backup location

[TheDreadPirate]

Nope. That's pretty much it.

[TaliaDias]

Great, thank you!

[Teboho]

Apologies if this counts as a necro.

Does C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin\ include all the users and their profile pictures, passwords, etc please? So I can format my Windows machine and just keep the libraries in the same paths and everything will work fine after copying back?

I have told Jellyfin server to save the artwork into the media folders and also save trickplay images next to the media.

Thank you.

[TheDreadPirate]

In the dashboard, it will tell you where files are located. On a Jellyfin server where it is running as admin, C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin is where files are stored. When Jellyfin is running as a non-admin the files will be stored in C:\Users\yourUser\appdata\local\Jellyfin (or lower case jellyfin?)

[Teboho]

Thank you!