Keep or undo a restore

After a restore, the plugin keeps the previous state of your website for 7 days. During this time you decide: keep the restore or undo it.

Step 1: Find the open rollback

As long as the decision is pending, two pages show the open rollback. On the Overview page, it is in the status tile:

1. A restore is applied and can still be undone until ….
2. Keep or undo it leads to the Restore page.

On the Restore page, the main tile is yellow and is called Restore applied:

1. The line names when the restore was applied and until when it can be undone.
2. The previous tables and folders are kept for 7 days. Keep the restore or undo it; after 7 days it is kept automatically.
3. Keep restore removes the previous state.
4. Undo restore brings the previous state back.

The buttons also work if you had to log in again after the restore.

Step 2: Check the website and decide

Check the website before you decide: the home page, the login, the pages and functions that matter to you.

Your choice	What happens	What is no longer possible afterwards
Keep restore	The plugin deletes the previous tables and the folders with the previous state of the files. The space becomes free.	Undoing the restore.
Undo restore	The plugin puts the previous tables, files and folders back in place. It deletes the tables from the backup.	Accessing what went into the database since the restore.
Do nothing	After 7 days, the plugin keeps the restore on its own, as soon as a scheduler calls the plugin next.	Undoing the restore.

Step 3: Carry out the choice

Keeping the restore

Click Keep restore. The plugin removes the previous state in steps, as with a backup.

1. The progress. The phase is called Removing the previous state.
2. Both buttons are disabled while the plugin is working.

The link below the progress is disabled during this: keeping cannot be aborted on the page. The same applies to undoing.

1. Restore kept. The previous tables and folders were removed.

The main tile is called Restore again. A new restore is now possible.

Undoing the restore

Click Undo restore. The plugin goes the same way as during the restore, only backwards:

1. Uploads and files in the root folder come back file by file.
2. In the maintenance mode of WordPress, the plugin puts the previous tables back in place, then core and code.
3. The plugin removes the applied state.

A confirmation of the website as during the restore is not needed: the previous state is a state that was already running.

1. The progress. The phase is called Undo restore.
2. Both buttons are disabled while the plugin is working.

1. Restore undone. The website runs on the previous state again.

The database from before applies again, with its user accounts. If your login becomes invalid in the process, log in again.

Step 4: See what happened

Switch to the Extended view and, on the Restore page, unfold the Recent restores tile.

1. What ran: a restore with the date of its backup, Keep restore or Undo restore.
2. The state, for example Undo open, kept, reverted, Failed or Aborted.
3. Duration names how long the operation ran.
4. The arrow folds and unfolds the tile.
5. The dot shows the result: green for successful, yellow for with warnings, red for failed or aborted.
6. Log opens the log of the operation.

If something does not work

If keeping or undoing does not start, the red message begins with That did not work: … and names the cause.

Cause in the message	What you can do
A job is already running.	Only one job runs at a time. Wait until it has finished, then click again.
This restore has no open way back.	The restore is already kept or undone, perhaps on its own after 7 days. The Recent restores tile shows the state.

If the message after keeping or undoing is yellow, there were warnings, for example because something could not be removed or could not be put back. The log of the operation names it; you find it in the Recent restores tile. Check the website afterwards.

Undoing also ends with warnings if the restore replaced the uploads in place. This is what the page looks like then:

1. Dismiss closes the message.
2. The message is yellow and reads Restore undone. The website runs on the previous state again. The message stays until you close it.

Good to know

• As long as the rollback is open, no new restore starts. The Restore entry in the menu of a backup then opens no preparation.
• Uploads that the restore replaced in place have no rollback. Undoing puts everything else back; the uploads stay in the state of the backup. More about this: Restore uploads when there is not enough space.
• After undoing, you get an email like after a failed backup. For that, On errors and warnings must be switched on in the notifications.
• If you delete the plugin while the rollback is open, the previous tables and folders stay on the server. So decide beforehand.

See also

• Restore the website from a backup
• The “Restore” page
• Read the log
• Uninstall the plugin
• Restore and import with WP-CLI

On the command line

WP-CLI not set up yet? How to install WP-CLI.

Both also work with WP-CLI. Without a job name, the restore whose rollback is open applies. Here too, the plugin does not ask for confirmation.

# Show the pending rollback with its deadline
wp cloneworx-backup restore status

# Keep the restore: the previous state is removed
wp cloneworx-backup restore keep

# Undo the restore: the previous state comes back
wp cloneworx-backup restore undo