UPDATE: In my situation, the problem was caused by using a backup directory ("/var/backups") that my user did not have permission to write to. A simple chmod fixed the issue, but this manifested itself in deja-dup as a unicode error. Please consider adding a check/caveat to the code to provide a more helpful error message in cases where permission is denied.
UPDATE: In my situation, the problem was caused by using a backup directory ("/var/backups") that my user did not have permission to write to. A simple chmod fixed the issue, but this manifested itself in deja-dup as a unicode error. Please consider adding a check/caveat to the code to provide a more helpful error message in cases where permission is denied.