MySQL Bugs: #23168: Backup dataloss if schema expands

Bug #23168	Backup dataloss if schema expands
Submitted:	11 Oct 2006 9:00	Modified:	26 May 2009 13:24
Reporter:	Andreas Påhlsson (Basic Quality Contributor)	Email Updates:
Status:	Unsupported	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Administrator	Severity:	S4 (Feature request)
Version:	1.2.4rc	OS:	Linux (Linux)
Assigned to:		CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
If the database schema is expanded with new tables/procedures/etc after a backup definition is made, the new tables/procedures/etc will NOT be backed up.

From a technical point of view this might seam reasonable, the definition contains exactly what is going to be backuped. If the schema changes, you have to create a new backup definition. This is however not what a user expects. The user has selected a database and pressed the arrow button to add it to the project. He will expect the full database to be backed up, regardless of changes in its internal structure.

This will surely lead to dataloss.

How to repeat:
Open MySQL Administrator.
Select Backup from the left pane.
Press the New Project button.
Select a suitable database to backup.
Press the right arrow
Press Save Project
Close MySQL Administrator
Add a table to the databse
Open MySQL Administrator.
Select Backup from the left pane.
Select the newly created Backup Project
Expand the database object in the Backup Content pane.
New table is missing from backup.

Suggested fix:
Two options:

Make new table/procedures/etc included in backup by default.

Make the fact that all tables in the database isn't backuped more visable. (The checkbox is greyed out as it is now. A big red warning sign would be better. :)

Thank you for the bug report. Sorry but I don't think is a bug instead a
feature request to define a check option for backup always the whole database
otherwise another user could says: I want to backup my database partially
without including new tables and just the tables selected when I created the
backup project. Thanks in advance.

Consider this scenario:

User installs an application that uses MySQL for storage.
User creates a backup for said database.
User upgrades application.
User makes daily backups.
User lose database in rare but tragic lost-two-of-my-raid-disks-accident.
User restores database from backup.
User happy.
User starts application.
User gets error message 'table not found'.
User angry.

The problem is that the software (MySQL Administrator) does not do what the user THINKS it does. It's all about the user. The user thinks he has selected the database for backup, but infact he has selected all the current tables in the database for backup.

How many users have already made this false assumption?

Change the default behaviour and inform the current users about this feature that unfortunately can lead to data loss.

Thank you for the bug report.

Many thanks for writing a bug report. We are on the way to implement full functionality of MySQL Administrator into MySQL Workbench. Unfortunately you are using an unsupported platform. More informations about supported platforms you will find here:

http://www.mysql.com/support/supportedplatforms/tools.html

More informations about MySQL Workbench you will find here:

http://dev.mysql.com/workbench/