How to back up Istaria

This is a small guide to understand how Istaria's game client stores your preferences, how to backup them and how to restore them.

Let's assume your game is installed under C:\Program Files (x86)\Istaria. The following text will use the placeholder <install dir> for easyness.

Basic Structure

The client's preferences data structure is very easy to understand. There are a few basic directories of interest, where all your data is contained at.

<install dir>\prefs

content of \prefs\

All your client configuration details are stored in this root directory, whilst each of your character preferences are stored in sub directories.

In this directory you can see some *.def files around. These reflect your global personal settings. Most of them can be configured using the 'Options' window ingame.

If you log in your character for the very first time, the client creates a subdirectory for your character. The directory name is structured and begins with your character's shard name (where you play on), an underscore and your exact character's first name (case sensitive).

Examples:

• \prefs\chaos_Elteria
• \prefs\order_elteria
• \prefs\order_Carmelia

<install dir>\resources_override

If you ever installed any Player Made Mods (mods), they are in here. The directory's structure can be chaotic since there is no real rule on how to install one or more mods.

<install dir>\screenshots

If you ever take screenshots ingame, they go here. You probably want to backup those at a point.

<install dir>\logs

The current chat log files, and crash log files. These will be moved to logs_old whenever you logged out and back in.

<install dir>\logs_old

Contains chat log files of recent logins. Keep in mind that only the 7 last log files are kept.

Backup Strategies

Manual Backup

Complicated: After you've logged out of the game you can basically just copy all of the above mentioned directories to a safe place. Problem with this strategy is: you have a chance to overwrite an older backup if you don't pay attention, or you may forget a folder, etc.

Simpler: A simpler way is to copy the whole <install dir> to somewhere. BUT: Each time you would copy 7-11 GB of data. Your hard drive will not love you for that.

Istaria client's internal backup mechanics

For each character, the client automatically creates backups of their preferences. These are located at <install dir>\prefs\<character name>\auto_backups. However, there are only each character's preferences backed up, but not the global settings, yet. (feature request pending!)

Istaria Companion

Istaria Companion

Istaria Companion is a third party tool which comes with a nice backup feature (see here).

The benefits are:

• You can schedule backups with it. You just need to be sure to start the tool prior to starting Istaria.
• There's a cool Istaria auto-start feature in the tool. So you basically would always start the tool first and won't even need to start Istaria anymore.
• The scheduler reminds you whenever a new backup is wise. You can define different time spans.
• The backup feature let's you choose what to backup. You can:
  • Make a bare-metal backup. This backs up your complete <install dir>
  • Make a prefs-only backup. Generally the best you can do with not so much data
  • Exclude folders you don't want to backup (for example the screenshots folder)
• The backup feature creates a compressed (zip) file, so your hard drive isn't unnecessarily filled
• The backup feature remembers the last backup's location, so once you've chosen your path, you don't need to care of that each time
• The backup feature automatically creates a filename representing the date of when the backup was done

Restoring

That is the most needed info, ain't it?

The general rule should be: Do not restore more as you need. If you did a complete <install dir> backup and you're sure you only need to restore a certain character's settings, don't restore just everything. If you did, you may run into severe damage or data loss because the backup may also restore a state of other characters you didn't want to revert.

Restore from Istaria's auto backup

Sometimes it may be necessary to keep parts of your character prefs. In that case you need to look into the auto_backups directory which is located under <install dir>\prefs\<character directory>\auto_backups. These backups are created whenever a relevant change is made to the appropriate setting.

There you can find several subdirectories:

• communications: Chat settings, like which channels you joined, aliases, coloring,...
• controls: Keyboard settings
• hotkeys: Hotkeys set up on your hotkey bars
• interface: All of your opened GUI elements (chat windows, hotkey bars, inventory, maps, etc.)
• inventory: Your inventories' setup
• knowledge: Saves the settings of your Knowledge Window's content, like your customized filters, etc.
• notepad_character: The contents of your character's notepad's private part
• notepad_global: The contents of your character's notepad's global part
• planning: You character's plot planning contents

The contained subdirectories are named 'current', where the last save from your last logout is stored, and 'previous' which holds earlier backups. These are limited to the last 100.

The 'current' file wears the correct name already, so you can simply seek out the place where they are located in your character's prefs subdirectory, and replace it. For the files under 'previous' you'll need to rename those accordingly, because they are numbered (Example: UICommunicationPrefs.def vs UICommunicationPrefs001.def). To see the most recent backup, please look at the file's date (not the appended number), or sort the files by date in your file browser.

Restore from Istaria Companion

The backups are in a compressed .zip file. On Windows/Linux you should be able to open them without third party programs. You can then browse them as if they were usual files and directories at your computer. Istaria Companion exactly reflects the <install dir> folder names so it should be easy to find what you need. Even if you needed an auto_backups file, it's there!

Tips, Tricks, and wise stuff

• If you are going to restore from a backup: first copy the to-be-overwritten files/directories to a safe place. If the backup fails by any means, you can then restore your previous state.
• Do not restore more as you need: you could replace stuff by mistake which you didn't want to revert!
• Do not replace a backup from character-1 to character-2 This may mess up things. (Hotkeys won't work, for example)
• Find a way to backup your stuff automatically and regularly. At least all three days should be wise.