Conversely, another workaround is that you can rename/change your 
current backup location to the Deja Dup default rather than trying to 
get Deja Dup to recognize the current location. I haven't tested it but 
that should also work.

On Sat, Jan 5, 2019 at 2:11 PM, Michael Terry <email address hidden> wrote:
> Able to confirm, working on a fix. Marking as Critical, since it
> prevents restoring on a fresh system (a very common restoring use 
> case).
> 
> There is a workaround (change current backup location settings to your
> old backup), but it's not an obvious one.
> 
> ** Changed in: deja-dup
>    Importance: Undecided => Critical
> 
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the 
> bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1804744
> 
> Title:
>   restore from backup does not recognize custom backup directories
> 
> Status in Déjà Dup:
>   Confirmed
> 
> Bug description:
>   1. I back up my computer to my external hard drive
>   2. I reinstall my new distro
>   3. I install deja-dup and duplicity
>   4. I open deja-dup, and select restore
>   5. I select my external hard drive and the restore directory
>   6. Deja-dup fails with "no backup found" message and creates a new 
> backup directory on the hard drive
> 
>   This indicated to me that deja dup ignored the restore directory I
>   entered, and instead used the default directory, which did not 
> exist,
>   hence restore fails because the backend is told to look in the wrong
>   place for the backup! This seems like more a user interface issue 
> than
>   an issue with the backup.
> 
>   Here is the workflow I had to use to restore my backup:
> 
>   1. Set storage location to "local folder" and then manually 
> navigate to the folder on my external hard drive. If I did not do 
> this specifically, then backup would fail. Selecting the external 
> hard drive directly as the device and entering the folder in the 
> "folder" field also fails.
>   2. Select restore and again use "local folder" and manually 
> navigate to the folder on my external hard drive. If I instead try to 
> use the hard drive device listed and enter the backup folder in the 
> "folder" field, the restore also fails.
> 
>   This issue occurs on both Ubuntu 18.04.1 and ElementaryOS Juno.
> 
>   lsb_release -d
>   Description:	elementary OS 5.0 Juno
> 
>   dpkg-query -W deja-dup duplicity
>   deja-dup	37.1-2fakesync1
>   duplicity	0.7.17-0ubuntu1
> 
>   gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.DejaDup > 
> /tmp/deja-dup.gsettings
>   cat /tmp/deja-dup.gsettings
>   org.gnome.DejaDup last-restore '2018-11-23T01:39:44.556645Z'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup periodic true
>   org.gnome.DejaDup periodic-period 1
>   org.gnome.DejaDup full-backup-period 90
>   org.gnome.DejaDup backend 'local'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup last-run '2018-11-23T01:39:44.556645Z'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup nag-check ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup prompt-check '2018-11-22T12:34:36.095106Z'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup root-prompt true
>   org.gnome.DejaDup include-list ['$HOME']
>   org.gnome.DejaDup exclude-list ['/home/ethan/.local/share/Trash']
>   org.gnome.DejaDup last-backup ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup allow-metered false
>   org.gnome.DejaDup delete-after 0
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.Rackspace username ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.Rackspace container 'ethan-laptop'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.S3 id ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.S3 bucket ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.S3 folder 'ethan-laptop'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.OpenStack authurl ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.OpenStack tenant ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.OpenStack username ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.OpenStack container 'ethan-laptop'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.GCS id ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.GCS bucket ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.GCS folder 'ethan-laptop'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.Local folder '/media/ethan/porta_500gb/m1330'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.Remote uri ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.Remote folder 'ethan-laptop'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.Drive uuid '1919a422-d154-4e19-b551-f74b56cf1f0e'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.Drive icon '. GThemedIcon drive-harddisk-usb 
> drive-harddisk drive'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.Drive folder 'm1330'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.Drive name 'porta_500gb'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.GOA id ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.GOA folder 'ethan-laptop'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.GOA type 'google'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.File short-name ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.File type 'normal'
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.File migrated true
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.File name ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.File path ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.File uuid ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.File icon ''
>   org.gnome.DejaDup.File relpath @ay []
> 
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