Duplicity - oops they did it again

22

Yup, mine sploded again today too. Same as before. Downgraded and held.

[amarsaudon@mail:~]$ apt policy duplicity
duplicity:
  Installed: 3.2.0-ppa202608101744~ubuntu22.04.1
  Candidate: 3.2.0-ppa202608101744~ubuntu22.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.2.0-ppa202608101744~ubuntu22.04.1 500
        500 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/duplicity-team/duplicity-release-git/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.8.21-1build1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages
[amarsaudon@mail:~]$ apt list -a duplicity 2>/dev/null
Listing... Done
duplicity/jammy,now 3.2.0-ppa202608101744~ubuntu22.04.1 amd64 [installed]
duplicity/jammy 0.8.21-1build1 amd64

[amarsaudon@mail:/tmp]$ sudo apt install --allow-downgrades ./duplicity_3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1_amd64.deb
[sudo] password for amarsaudon:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'duplicity' instead of './duplicity_3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1_amd64.deb'
Suggested packages:
  ncftp python3-boto3 python3-kerberos
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  duplicity
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/399 kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,078 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
Get:1 /tmp/duplicity_3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1_amd64.deb duplicity amd64 3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1 [399 kB]
dpkg: warning: downgrading duplicity from 3.2.0-ppa202608101744~ubuntu22.04.1 to 3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1
(Reading database ... 131636 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../duplicity_3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking duplicity (3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1) over (3.2.0-ppa202608101744~ubuntu22.04.1) ...
Setting up duplicity (3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
Scanning processes...
Scanning linux images...

Running kernel seems to be up-to-date.

No services need to be restarted.

No containers need to be restarted.

No user sessions are running outdated binaries.

No VM guests are running outdated hypervisor (qemu) binaries on this host.
[amarsaudon@mail:/tmp]$ sudo apt-mark hold duplicity
duplicity set on hold.
[amarsaudon@mail:/tmp]$ duplicity --version
duplicity 3.1.0 June 16, 2026
[amarsaudon@mail:/tmp]$
1 Like
23

I’m tempted to replace duplicity with borg. Anybody already working on that?

24

And 3.1.0 doesn’t seem to be available any longer on launchpad for jammy. Where did you conjure up the previous version?

1 Like
25

What I did:

sudo apt install python3.10-venv
sudo apt-mark hold duplicity
python3 -m venv /opt/duplicity-venv
/opt/duplicity-venv/bin/pip install --upgrade pip
/opt/duplicity-venv/bin/pip install duplicity
/opt/duplicity-venv/bin/duplicity --version
sudo mv /usr/bin/duplicity /usr/bin/duplicity.broken
sudo ln -s /opt/duplicity-venv/bin/duplicity /usr/bin/duplicity
duplicity --version

Then reboot. And it should work again.

To later undo the change:

sudo rm /usr/bin/duplicity
sudo mv /usr/bin/duplicity.broken /usr/bin/duplicity
sudo apt-mark unhold duplicity
sudo rm -rf /opt/duplicity-venv
sudo apt-get upgrade duplicity -y
1 Like
26

Thank you. This worked for me. However, it’s still reporting version 3.2.0 with

duplicity --version

Is that right?

27

Did you remove the old duplicity before you installed the new one? I would expect that if “duplicity --version” reports the wrong one, you still have a problem.

For past duplicity problems, the backup status page ( admin / System / Backup Status ) would not show me a list of available backups, so it was obvious there was a problem.

If you can see that list of backups, and it grows each night, then you’re probably ok, whatever version you’re running.

28

Thanks for the prompt reply. After updating to 3.2.0 my backup and status page both broke in the admin panel. Now they are back, after following the hija’s steps. Maybe it is coincidental however, because I am getting an error running sudo management/backup.py

29

3.2.0 is just the latest release (see Duplicity 3.2.0 Release · duplicity / duplicity · GitLab), so you are good to go.

30

No it is not coincidental - the PPA package is just broken. Let’s hope they fix it soon so we can use the official PPA again.

31

After I posted my question above, I remembered that I still had a running test system where I hadn’t updated duplicity yet. I installed dpkg-repack on that system, rebuilt the duplicity 3.1.0 deb package, copied it over to my production system and was able to downgrade duplicity with that package.

Maybe this solution will help someone.

32

I managed to download a copy of 3.1.0 from https://launchpadlibrarian.net/865358581/duplicity_3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1_amd64.deb

5 Likes
33

I just filed a new duplicity bug report for this issue:

1 Like
34

Yes, thanks, it is working. I am still a little confused, but it wouldn’t be the first time. I thought that the original apt update brought us to 3.2.0 which was the one with the bug and we were going back to 3.1.0, therefore. Also, the backup script failed when I ran it from the command line.

However, the backup did run overnight this time, and I can still see both status pages again, so fingers crossed, it’s working properly. I will keep duplicity held in the meantime and monitor it. Thanks for your help everyone!

35

I have a backup device that pulls backups off my MIAB box so I did this to get at least one borg backup on the disk (untested)

My borg backup is twice as big as the old duplicity backup so I think the exclude isn’t actually working

# cd /home/user-data/backup
# mkdir borg
# cd borg
# export BORG_PASSCOMMAND="cat ../secret_key.txt"
# borg init --encryption keyfile .
# borg create --compression auto,zstd,22 --exclude 'backup/*' .::miab /home/user-data/
36

Thank you for this link, my status and backup pages are running again.
sudo dpkg -i duplicity_.deb
sudo apt-mark hold duplicity

sudo dpkg -i duplicity_3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1_amd64.deb
dpkg: warning: downgrading duplicity from 3.2.0.1-ppa202608151918~ubuntu22.04.1 to 3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1
(Reading database ... 135790 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack duplicity_3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking duplicity (3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1) over (3.2.0.1-ppa202608151918~ubuntu22.04.1) ...
Setting up duplicity (3.1.0-ppa202606161607~ubuntu22.04.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
Username@box:~$ duplicity --version
duplicity 3.1.0 June 16, 2026

Update === 08/18/26 – installing python3-gnupg fixed the issue.
Don’t forget to unhold duplicity.
sudo apt-mark unhold duplicity

Preparing to unpack .../python3-gnupg_0.4.8-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking python3-gnupg (0.4.8-1) ...
Setting up python3-gnupg (0.4.8-1) ...
Scanning processes...
Scanning linux images...

Running kernel seems to be up-to-date.

No services need to be restarted.

No containers need to be restarted.

No user sessions are running outdated binaries.

No VM guests are running outdated hypervisor (qemu) binaries on this host.
Username@box:~$ duplicity --version
duplicity 3.2.0.1 August 15, 2026
1 Like
37

This issue has now been fixed upstream. At this point, you should upgrade to the latest version of duplicity and undo any workarounds that were done for this problem.

38

I set it back right now and the backup is working again.
What’s strange though, is that the incremental backup, that’s usually below 5MB is suddenly 1.9GB, which is 1.4 times the full backup.
Does anybody of you see this strange behavior as well?

39

My backups broke again with this error:

DEBUG: sys.path=['/usr/bin', '/usr/lib/python310.zip', '/usr/lib/python3.10', '/usr/lib/python3.10/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages']
DEBUG: sys.executable=/usr/bin/python3
DEBUG: os.environ['PYTHONPATH']=None
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 5, in <module>
    from duplicity.__main__ import dup_run
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/duplicity/__main__.py", line 39, in <module>
    from duplicity import tempdir
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/duplicity/tempdir.py", line 35, in <module>
    from duplicity import config
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/duplicity/config.py", line 32, in <module>
    from duplicity import gpg
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/duplicity/gpg.py", line 35, in <module>
    import gnupg
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'gnupg'
Something is wrong with the backup:

Anything long term problematic about using this fix below for duplicity rather than holding or reverting duplicity version? Or is this error different than what everyone was fixing in the thread above.

40

The message at the following link to the Duplicity Update Broke Backups discussion which I posted using my individual account identifies the missing package as python-gnupg. The command lines that you quoted are from a portion of the the Updating System Software section of the Mail-in-a-Box Maintenance Guide that I updated earlier. Running those command lines in sequence should update your MiaB instance properly. Only if those command lines fail to produce a properly functioning instance should any package downgrade be considered. The root cause of the Duplicity 3.2 update problem has been fixed, so updating Duplicity normally should work reliably.

41

fyi: if you have a hold policy on duplicity it will break the upgrade v76 to v77

1 Like