Restore a JAR Installation

Before you begin, make sure you have a backup copy of the database that you want to restore. Note the location of the backup copy so you are sure to select the correct file during this procedure.

If you don't have valid backup files or your backup files are out of date, follow the instructions to Restore the Current Version Without a Database Backup.

If you're rolling back to the previous installation version after an unsuccessful upgrade, use the backup that you created prior to installation. If you ignored this prerequisite, locate an archived backup file in the directory that is set as the Backup location that corresponds with the version of your previous installation.
If you're attempting to restore the current installation, locate an archived backup file in the directory that is set as the Backup location that corresponds with the current version of your installation.

Restore an Installation from a Backup Copy of Your Database

To restore your database to the current or previous version, you need to remove your current database and replace it with a copy of the database that you want to restore to.

When you restore to a previous version of YouTrack, use a backup that corresponds to the version of the product that you want to restore. To successfully restore to the previous version, this backup file must not have been used as an upgrade source for the installation of a later version of the product.

To restore your database from a backup:

Stop the YouTrack service. For details, see Stop JAR Distribution.
Remove all the content from the database location directory. By default, the database is located in the ${user.home}/teamsysdata folder for the user account that runs the YouTrack service.
An administrator may have changed the default database location. For more information, see Change Database Location. You can also find the actual location of the database as follows:
1. Open the ${user.home}/.youtrack/app/internal/conf/installation.xml file.
2. In the file, find the conf-location property that defines a path to the conf subfolder of the data directory. The actual database location is the path to the parent data directory of the conf-location.
Extract the downloaded backup file to the ${user.home}/teamsysdata folder.
Make sure that your YouTrack service user has read/write ("rw") permissions for the unpacked files.
Run the JAR file that corresponds with the version of your YouTrack database.
- YouTrack starts with the data from the backup file.

Restore the Current Version Without a Database Backup

There are a few cases where you are unable to restore your installation from backup.

Your backup files are missing or out of date.
The backup files on your server became corrupted and are unusable.

You may also want to follow this procedure when, for example, you were able to recover your data following a server crash and there is information that was recorded in YouTrack that is not in your most recent backup files.

You can attempt to restore the current version of your installation using a valid copy of your database. This restoration procedure is only successful when your database files are not corrupted. You can restore to an earlier version of YouTrack only when you have copies of files that have never been used to start a later version of the product.

To restore your database without a backup:

Locate the most recent copy of your database. The default location of the directories is in the ${user.home}/teamsysdata folder for the user account that runs the YouTrack service.
Note that an administrator may have changed the location where YouTrack stores these files. You may also use copies of these directories that are stored in another location.
Stop the YouTrack service.
Remove all the content from the database location directory.
Move the copy of your database to the ${user.home}/teamsysdata folder.
Make sure that your YouTrack service user has read/write ("rw") permissions for this folder.
Run the JAR file that corresponds with the version of your YouTrack database.
- YouTrack starts with the data that was copied to the database location directory.

Last modified: 21 April 2023