Question 403 "forbidden" after restoring files

[thewedge]

Server operating system version

CentOS Linux 7.9.2009 (Core)

Plesk version and microupdate number

Version 18.0.56 Update #4, last updated on Nov 7, 2023 08:04 PM

After restoring a file from backup and restore can't see site. Get error Forbidden. You do not have permission to access this document. This use to work without fail, but now this backup and restore system is broken beyond repair. At no time should files backed up by your system be forbidden and not functional after restore. I looked at the permissions of the files and they look the same to another site I have with Joomla so there should be no reason why the files are not active and work right off the bat.

 

[Peter Debik]

What type of restore did you do? Files/directories only? Or website including all configurations? Did you remove existing content before the restore? What is the ownership of your document root directory (owner and group), it should be <subscription user>:psaserv, mode 0755. What is the ownership of your document root content, it should be <subscription user>:psacln.

 

[thewedge]

The system is set to auto backup but using incremental, which doesn't work right and don't know why it even exists. Whether you remove all of what was in the httpdocs file or not, it doesn't restore anything that works. I would think that if you restore an incremental backup, it should find all of the relevant pieces over time and restore a full working site. It states that it is doing this, but it doesn't. I had to go and find the last full backup and restore that, which lost tons of updates and I had to go back into the site and fix all previous work. I now am setting it to full backup not incremental. This needs to be fixed immediately so that if other people are restoring an incremental backup it works correctly and produces a fully functioning site.

 

[Peter Debik]

I cannot confirm such behavior. The whole point of incremental backups is that you have one full backup and increments to that full backup. When you restore an increment in Plesk, it first restores the full backup on which the increment is based, then it restores all increments in order from the full backup until it reaches the newest increment. At the end of the restore you have exactly the fully functional website.

My question above was, what you restore. The symptoms you describe all point to doing selective restores instead of restores that cover the full website and database(s). In selective restores, e.g. restores that only restore the database, it is well possible that parts are missing, because only part of what has been backed up will be restored.

If you feel that something is wrong with the software, I recommend consulting Plesk support at https://support.plesk.com by a ticket, so that an engineer can check it directly on your server. Besides that, a general issue with backups or restore is unknown.