Move backup between targets

I have a backup that was created on hostA to an external disk, then copied to hostB. I then attempt to connect (list snapshots, check etc) to this copied backup from hostB and get “Fatal: wrong password or no key found”. The password is correct because I have verified it against the backup on the external disk that was copied over, and the key is part of the backup, so I’m not sure what the problem is.

Is there a mechanism in restic for “adopting” a backup created on one medium and then transferred to another? The obvious use case here is creating the backup to a removable drive then copying it to a remote location when physically present in order to avoid the slow/unreliable/metered network that might be between the two endpoints.

TIA

Hey, welcome to the forum.

What you described (creating a repo on one machine, then using it on another one) should work right out of the box. I think may have discovered a bug. Would you mind to fill out an issue on GitHub? Please include details about the operating systems used, and also the file system on the external drive.

I can imagine a couple of things going wrong, but in order to see what’s really going on I’d like you to try to recreate the situation with a very small test repo with a simple password containing only unimportant data (create on host A, verify that it doesn’t work on host B), then ZIP (or tar) the repo and attach it to the GitHub issue so I can have a look.