Restoring the Raima database

[willw]

I wanted to test restoring the Raima database from backup.

This is described in the v3.14 Help at System Management|Database|Online Backup|Restoring the data

The page describes stopping the project, removing the db/winccoa directory and then running
WCCOAui -n -p vision/restore.pnl
to start a panel to perform the backup.

This is where I run into trouble; nothing happens when I run this command. No panel is shown.

I have tried various things:

• Changing to the project directory before issuing the command line.
• Running the code from an elevated command prompt, or from a shortcut with "Run as administrator" checked.
• Creating a C:\\Temp directory (suggested further down the help page).

None of these make any difference.

Any clues as to what I am missing, please?

[leoknipp]

Hello,

maybe the problem is that the "-proj " parameter was not used when starting the user interface.
Please add this parameter when starting a WinCC OA process from the command line.

Why do you want to restore the database?
Have you made a online backup before when the project was running?

Best Regards
Leopold Knipp
Senior Support Specialist

[willw]

maybe the problem is that the "-proj " parameter was not used when starting the user interface.

Quite correct. Thanks for that. I was puzzled how the panel would deduce the context of the correct project, but had not thought to try the -proj param.

(I had missed the word 'console' in the help instructions item 3, plus the
WCCOAui -n -p vision/restore.pnl
looked to me like a complete command line, rather than the parameter string supplied to an entry in the WinCC OA console program.)

Why do you want to restore the database?

Two reasons:

• I wanted to be confident in the procedure, so I know what to do should I need to undertake it in reality for our customer
• I am evaluating ways of storing the whole project in git version control. I want to place sufficient files so that there is sufficient information in the git archive, given a copy of the WinCC OA installation software, it is possible to restore a project. The ASCII Manager is the obvious alternative, although it seems fiddly to operate. Perhaps this could be mitigated by saving configurations and calling its command line version from a script.

Obviously, whatever I do, the exported / backed up database will not tolerate merging, and have to be treated as an atomic entity.