>
> I would suggest that the first thing you try is to turn verbose mode on:
> fb.setLogger(System.out);
> fb.setVerbose(true);
>
> If you do this, I expect that you're going to get output similar to what
> you got using the GDS layer directly:
> gbak: ERROR: cannot open backup file

localhost:c:\backups\FIRSTTEST.fbk

> gbak: Exiting before completion due to errors

I tried fb.setLogger & Verbose = true,
I get following error...
gbak: ERROR: cannot open backup file localhost:c:\backups\FIRSTTEST.fbk
gbak: Exiting before completion due to errors

Same result as previous code I used.

>
> On the other hand, when I test this here (Firebird 1.5.2 on Linux), I
> get a GDS exception if there's a problem reading the backup file on the
> other side. Whether this is a difference between Firebird releases or
> Firebird on different platforms is a mystery to me.
>

I got same GDS exception when the backup file did not exist and
I was using LOCAL backup (using true localhost, not remote host).

When I try to restore same backup file locally on remote computer,
like this
gbak localhost:c:\backups\FIRSTTEST.fbk localhost:c:\backups\New.fdb

I get following error:

gbak: ERROR: file c:\backups\FIRSTTEST.fbk is not a valid database
gbak: Exiting before completion due to errors

Thanks,
Ashok