• What is Déjà Vu?
• How do I use Déjà Vu?
• Where can I backup my files?
• Why is my 'Backup' button disabled?
• How do I schedule a backup?
• How do I add more folders to be backed up?
• How do I restore files from a backup?
• How do I synchronize folders?
• How do I clone my system disk?
• How does Auto-Connect work?
• What is Safety Net?
• How do I view the backup log?
• Do I have to be logged in for the backups to occur?
• What happens if my Mac is powered off or sleeping at the scheduled backup time?
• Are you responsible for any loss of data from using Déjà Vu?
• How do I uninstall Déjà Vu?

Troubleshooting:

• Déjà Vu isn't working at all for me! What can I do?
• Why am I getting an error that says "One of the backup paths could not be found"?
• Why am I getting errors when backing up to a server?
• What do these error codes mean?
• Why am I getting "fnfErr (-43): File not found" errors?
• Why am I running out disk space?
• Why won't it accept my registration info?
• Why won't it remember my registration info?

• Perform scheduled or manual backups of important folders
• Produce a bootable clone of your system disk
• Mirror the contents of folders

• Click the lock and enter an Administrator password.


• Show Déjà Vu the folder(s) you wish to backup:

When:
How often the folder should be backed up (Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Manually).

What:
The folder you wish to backup; the source folder.

Where:
The folder where the files should be copied; the destination folder.

TIP: Any items which are unchecked in the first column will be ignored.

• Click 'Options' to set schedules, notification preferences and other backup options.


• Once Déjà Vu has performed at least one backup, you will be able to view the most recent backup log by clicking the appropriate button near the top of the window. A small icon next to each button indicates whether or not any errors were detected during the backup. A green checkmark icon means the backup finished successfully. A yellow caution icon means that one or more errors were detected during the backup. You can view the backup log to see them.

• Use Disk Utility or DiskWarrior (or something similar) to repair any potential problems with your startup disk.
• Use Disk Utility to erase the destination drive, using a volume format of Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
• You may need to change your Energy Saver prefs to prevent your hard drives from sleeping. (This seems to depend on the drive type and manufacturer, and may not be necessary.)
• Open Déjà Vu and select your entire startup disk in the 'What' column. Then select a destination disk in the 'Where' column.
• Click 'Options' and verify that 'Remote backup' is unchecked in the 'General' tab.
• In the same tab, check the option to 'Repair disk permissions'.
• Click 'OK' to close the Options sheet.
• Click the 'Backup' button to begin.
• After the backup has finished, select the new clone in the Startup Disk pref pane.
• Restart your computer.

• Open Déjà Vu and click 'Options'. In the 'General' tab, make sure that 'Remote backup' is checked for the type of backup you are working with.
• Next, select the 'Auto-Connect' tab. After checking 'Automatically connect to server', provide the requested information. In the 'Server' field, enter the server address using standard URL notation. When connecting to another Mac, the server address will begin with 'afp://'. When connecting to a Windows computer, it will begin with 'smb://'. Next, enter the name and password that you use to connect to the server. (Both fields are case-sensitive.) Finally, enter the volume name (also referred to as the "share name") in the 'Volume' field.
• Click 'Connect'. The remote volume should mount and become visible in the Finder. If nothing happens, refer back to the previous step and verify the information you entered.

When Safety Net is enabled, changed and/or deleted files will be archived in the Safety Net folder, which is in your Documents folder by default. Safety Net archiving will happen before the actual backup begins (i.e., before any files are copied). You can keep as many of these archives as you like, which will allow you to go back and retrieve a document as it existed, say, three days or three weeks ago. The file 'Index.txt' (found in the Safety Net folder), provides a full index of all archived files, and specifies which archive(s) each file may be found in.

• Turn on Fast User Switching if necessary, and instead of logging out from the Apple menu, select 'Login Window...' from the Fast User Switching menu (the rightmost menu in your menu bar). If you don't like the idea of leaving your account logged in, you could create a new user (in System Preferences->Accounts) and leave that user logged in instead.
• Alternatively, if you know what you're doing, enter the following command in a Terminal window:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin -bool true

(A restart will be required before this change will take effect.)

• If you're using Panther, you can open your Energy Saver prefs and schedule your computer to start up a minute or two before your backup begins. (This will also wake your Mac if it's sleeping.)
• Download and install Anacron, which will ensure that your backups are performed as closely as possible to the appropriate daily, weekly or monthly intervals, regardless of when your computer is actually on. It will periodically check for overdue backups and perform them as necessary. (This is very useful for laptop owners.)

1. If you had any scheduled backups, first open Déjà Vu and select 'Disabled' from the popup menu. This will remove the backup scripts from your system.

2. Drag the Déjà Vu pref pane to the trash. It's located here:

     /Library/PreferencePanes/DejaVu.prefPane

If you want to be thorough, delete these items as well:

     /Library/Application Support/Deja Vu
     Home/Library/Preferences/com.propaganda.DejaVuPref.plist

NOTE: If Déjà Vu is still showing up in System Preferences after performing Step 2, then delete the following file which has not been updated properly by System Preferences:

     Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.preferencepanes.cache

• Check the backup log for any errors. (Click the appropriate 'Most Recent Backup' button to view it.)
• Use Disk Utility or DiskWarrior (or something similar) to repair any potential problems with your startup disk.
• Use Disk Utility to repair permissions on your startup disk.
• Make sure you have the latest version of Déjà Vu installed.
• Restart your computer.

• Either the source or the destination drive is unavailable (unmounted or sleeping).
• You're backing up to a server, but you don't have 'Remote backup' checked in the Options-General tab.
• You're backing up to a server, and one or more of the following characters are present somewhere in the path(s) to your source folder(s): ' " ( ) ? * \. (If the name of your source folder does not contain any of these characters, then check the name of its parent folder.) You should normally be able to use most of these characters (with the exception of double quotes) when performing local backups, but they will cause problems when doing network backups and are best avoided.
• After a backup was scheduled, a folder name that was part of the backup path was renamed or moved, which is preventing the backup script from finding the destination path. The solution is to open Déjà Vu, reselect any folders which aren't displaying a folder icon, and quit System Preferences. (Your scheduled backups will automatically be updated upon quitting.)

The most important rule/restriction to be aware of when backing up to a server is that you will most likely only be able to successfully backup items which are owned by you. You can check this from the Finder by selecting a file and opening a 'Get Info' window (look under 'Ownership & Permissions'). This restriction means that you should be able to backup your entire Home folder to a server, but it will probably not be possible for you to backup much more than that (the entire hard drive, for example) when performing a network backup.

Obviously, a successful network backup will depend in part on the configuration of the server. Assuming the server is configured appropriately, it is important to realize that each file-sharing protocol has its own restrictions which may be causing you trouble.

If you're backing up to another Mac (via AFP), there may be a 31-character limit on file names. If you have any file names which are longer than this, you may be seeing errors because of it.

Certain applications may make changes to the filesystem behind the scenes. You can often eliminate these types of errors by quitting applications and/or having your backups performed during periods of relative system inactivity.