Dear community,
I have already posted the same question in the German-language forum (https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=469853), but have not received a response there, so I am posting it here as well - perhaps someone can help me.
We use automated course backup to back up our courses on a daily basis so that we can access a backup if necessary. Until now, we have always kept one backup and manually deleted the backups from the server after approximately 12 months. With the update from 4.1 to 4.5.5+, we wanted to test a new course backup concept: we are considering keeping 1 or even several backups, which would then all be automatically deleted after, for example, 180 days. The most important settings for this are:
- backup | backup_auto_max_kept: 1 (oder 2, 3, 4, 5)
- backup | backup_auto_delete_days: 180
- backup | backup_shortname: YES
- backup | backup_auto_skip_hidden: NO
- backup | backup_auto_skip_modif_days: NEVER
- backup | backup_auto_skip_modif_prev: YES
- backup | backup_auto_storage: Specified directory for automated backups
Result: The courses are backed up and older courses are deleted (for frequently changed courses, the number of courses set in "backup_auto_max_kept" always remains).
Unfortunately, automatic deletion after N days (backup_auto_delete_days) does not work. When this time is exceeded, the number of courses set in backup_auto_max_kept (e.g., 4) remains. However, when the course is changed again and consequently backed up, the course backups are deleted, but this one course backup of the changed course is added. As a result, the course backup is never completely deleted.
I can't find any tracker entry indicating that this is a bug. I noticed this behavior in Moodle 4.1 as well, but since we were using a different backup strategy at the time, it wasn't relevant.
Have you observed this as well, and do you perhaps have a solution? Unfortunately, testing is quite tedious, as you always have to wait a few days for the course deletion to take effect.
PS: Another idea would be to automatically delete the course backup of deleted courses after a certain period of time. This is not currently possible anyway. There have already been Moodle Tracker entries requesting this feature, but it has not been pursued (https://moodle.atlassian.net/browse/MDL-48808, https://moodle.atlassian.net/browse/MDL-48632)
thanks & best regards
Anton