[IDEA] Complete configuration backup and restore

[camelreef]

Issue
You need to perform a fresh install every time moOde sees a new major version.
That means creating the configuration from scratch (names, audio device, renderers, sources, scans, playlists, IR remote, etc.).
It takes a massive amount of time to recover and be back at home.

Solution
If in-place upgrades for major versions remain impractical, please provide a way to export the current configuration in its entirety before blowing out the setup with a fresh install, then provide an import functionality of the old configuration once the new version is in.

Bonus functionality
Use an online service (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) for configuration backups and restores.

Possible complications
1. While I'm guessing that most of the settings visible through the web UI are easily accessible through the database, things like IR remote configs, on the filesystem may be more complicated to integrate in to a config backup/restore scheme
2. There may be a need for a mechanism dealing with capabilities/features/configurations differences between versions.

[Tim Curtis]

Raspberry Pi Foundation recommends fresh image when a new version of Raspbian is released. Scroll down to the "How do I get it?" section. I simply follow that same practice when releasing moOde.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/buster-...-raspbian/

Generally, within a major release of moOde we provide in-place updates which preserve settings. There is also the moodecfg.txt auto-config option. This is documented in the Setup guide.
https://github.com/moode-player/moode/bl.../setup.txt

Wrt save/restore configuration settings, its not as simple as export/import the SQL tables because many of the settings in the SQL tables have corresponding settings in .conf files. The actual process would need to be somewhat like the existing auto-configure where each setting is processed using the code that updates the corresponding .conf file. 

Another complication involves how to handle cases where the new version of Raspbian changes the location or structure of .conf files that moOde uses. This happened in multiple areas going from Stretch to Buster.

We might be able to enhance the existing auto-configure option to cover more settings. I'm open to suggestions.

[Tim Curtis]

Interesting idea. I'll add to the TODO list.

[agnellopinto@gmail.com]

Interesting idea. I'll add to the TODO list.

Is this feature available now. I am using 6.7


Need it dearly as after every Cold/hard SHUTDOWN my player stops rendering music giving "ALSA file not found" error.
It works fine for soft SHUTDOWN.
The only solution left is to reinstall mood and reconfigure the settings. This feature would at least make the reconfigure step easy.

[Tim Curtis]

Sounds like a hardware or SDCard issue. I would get that sorted out first.