Comment 3 for bug 324531

OK, I think I understand the sequence now.

It seems you have files left over from an incomplete/cancelled backup on your sever.
When Deja Dup starts up, it first connects and scans the files in the target location.
Seeing unused backup files (from the cancelled backup), it initiates a 'cleanup' operation before continuing with the backup.
For some reason, it can't connect to the SSH server for the 'cleanup' operation, and bails on you.

You say you cleaned up the files on the backend and tried again, with a fresh slate. Then, Deja Dup stopped halfway through with an error. I'd also be interested in a log for this error. It may be a different problem than this one.

But after it stopped halfway through on that fresh backup, the next time Deja Dup runs, it will try to clean up those leftover files (since it can't resume currently), and thus you get back into the cleanup loop.

Basically, it seems Deja Dup isn't correctly passing the password that it clearly knows (because it can log in to do the initial 'ls'). I'm looking into it. It's conceivable I introduced this in a recent version, which explains why it used to work for you.

Thanks for the log, and if you could get me a log for the other stops-halfway-through issue, I'd appreciate it!