The right way to backup the entire configuration of EngPlayer

[Fenyx93]

Hi,

1. Before anything else thank you so much for taking the time to create the very best IPTV Player for Linux. I'm using it since a few months, after having tested every IPTV apps for Linux since years, and I really love it. My TV has no FAI-provided TV Box plugged behind, but only a 15 years old Intel i3 16GB RAM computer and this app works fine even if I have to restart it regularly because of the RAM consumption that make my OS swap and slow down. Apart of this little issue I'm glad that someone finally develop a reliable IPTV software for Linux.

2. That said... here's my question, finally: what's the best way to make a backup of the entire EngPlayer configuration? Is saving the /home/user/.var/app/io.github.falldaemon.engplayer directory elsewhere sufficient to get everything in the backup?

[yhay81]

Yes — for the Flatpak build, backing up the whole
$HOME/.var/app/io.github.falldaemon.engplayer directory is the safest way to preserve EngPlayer's own state, provided EngPlayer is stopped while you copy it.

The current code stores profiles and the SQLite databases under GLib's config directory (inside Flatpak this becomes .../config/EngPlayer) and its generated cache under .../cache/EngPlayer. Copying the whole app directory covers both, including favorites, scheduled recordings, playback progress, API settings, and profile data.

For example:

flatpak kill io.github.falldaemon.engplayer 2>/dev/null || true
tar -C "$HOME/.var/app" -czf engplayer-backup.tar.gz io.github.falldaemon.engplayer

Restore it only while the app is stopped, ideally after installing the same or a newer EngPlayer version.

Two caveats:

• Recordings, playlists, logos, and media files stored outside that sandbox directory are only referenced by path; back up those files separately.
• Flatpak permissions/portal grants are system state, not EngPlayer data. On a different installation you may need to grant background/filesystem access again.

So the short answer is: yes for EngPlayer's complete internal configuration and databases; no for external media and Flatpak permissions.

[Fenyx93]

Thank you for this complete and very useful answer.