I'm trying (unsuccessfully…so far) to restore my ITFlow server using both backups and database exports. I've read several threads and documentation about the restore process, but I'm encountering several errors during the process. I'll go through everything I've tried so far (probably going to be long) but any input is appreciated at this point.

TL;DR: Original Ubuntu 24.04 installation got messed up during an update that went sideways (since I didn't read the forum and jumped directly to backup restoral). I now have all the original Data from the first installation as well as a SQL backup, but cannot get the original VM to boot or restore the data successfully.

Initial Problem: Business as usual; logged into the server and updated to the latest version. I'm pretty sure it was for version 25.03.2 (which I didn't see the post that this shouldn't be run from webGUI). I forget what the initial error was, but it wasn't a big deal because I run nightly backups and this was the first login of the day. My plan was to restore from backup and go about my business.

Backup Restoral: I run daily backups using Veeam for my Proxmox VE. I restored the VM to the original location with the original ID and all that. The restore was successful, but when I went to boot it back up all I got was GRUB recovery. The OS wouldn't boot.

After a bunch of research I found out that (apparently) Veeam does not do well with encrypted LUKS (or I don't know enough to get it to work correctly). The problem I was running into was some sort of issue with it not asking for the decryption password during boot. After more research I sort of determined that the kernal was busted. I'm still unsure exactly what happened or why it wouldn't boot correctly, but some things I found pointed to essential Kernel libraries being missing so I was not able to get the restored VM to boot directly.

Data Access via Live CD: I booted into Ubuntu 24.04 live CD, decrypted, and mounted the original data volume. At this point, I tried to rebuild the partitions and get it to boot. That did not work.

I have access to all data from the original server via this live environment. I have transferred the /var/www/<mydomainitflow> and /var/lib/mysql to a new Ubuntu24.04 installation to attempt a re-build. The new server does not have LUKS enabled. I tried just overwriting the data and seeing if things would run, but that didn't work (I didn't expect it to).

I rolled another VM and installed a fresh instance of ITFlow and tried importing the database and files (without going through the WebGUI install process). I moved uploads and config.php, updated the database password in config.php, and brought over an older .sql backup file.

Attempts to import the database backup is met with several errors regarding tables, columns, or other sections of the database not existing. I'm sure this is due to a mismatch in the schema from when this backup was taken and the current version of ITFlow. I've tried deleting and recreating the database several times, but the import does not ever fully complete successfully.

The furthest I got was the login page showing up and becoming accessible with the correct "URL Key". But, when I input my login information I'm just met with error 401.

So, basically I've backed myself into a corner where my backup restoration failed and now I've got all the data and backup files from my installation, but I'm unable to get them imported to a working version of the software.