--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "Myles Wakeham" <myles@...>
wrote:

> I have been able to restore the backup file on the same Linux system

that it

> was created on without a problem, so I believe the FBK file is ok.
>
> How can I determine what this error is referring to?

Finally found out what the problem is, and in the process may have
uncovered a suggestion for an improvement to Firebird/GBAK for the future.

The error I was getting was being interpreted by everyone as Error 11,
that the FBK file created from the backup was done with a different
version of Firebird than the one I was trying to restore with. I ran
a bunch of tests on systems that I knew were only using the same
version of Firebird, and detected that as this backup file was created
on Linux, and I was trying to restore on a Windows system, it would
only give this error when attempting to go cross-platform for the restore.

I was successfully able to restore the backup file when I did the
restore on a different Linux system running the same FB version. I
returned to the backup process and ensured that the -t (transportable)
flag was used in the backup. This made no difference at all.

However then I looked to how I was copying the FBK file from Linux to
Windows. I was using a command line FTP utility in Linux to copy it
to a Windows FTP server. I then tried using a Windows FTP client
after firing up a local Linux FTP server.

The file that I had copied over this way restored perfectly on
Windows, using the same Firebird 1.5 version that it was originally
created on.

So the problem was due to Linux to Windows file translations that were
not being correctly implemented with FTP from Linux to Windows, but
were correctly handled when FTP client was run on Windows against a
local FTP server.

Now that's all great stuff, and glad I have it working now. But what
is left over from all of this is that GBAK was giving an error
condition that doesn't seem to be consistent with the problem. I'm
not exactly sure where to find the master reference to these GBAK
error codes, but as a suggestion it would appear that if GBAK was able
to check the validity of the file before it attempted to run the
restore, and report if there were any issues relating to the file
validity, with as much detail as possible, I would have been able to
get past this problem much quicker. It may be that Error 11 supports
this exact error situation, but I was not able to find any reference
to it, which meant I had to come to the support forums for an answer.

Anyway I'm not sure of how to suggest this as a feature or enhancement
to the product for future revisions, but if someone could direct me to
whether I'm misinterpreting the error condition and where the error
messages are, or if this seems like a reasonable feature request, I'm
happy to post it in the appropriate place.

Thanks to everyone for suggestions and help.

Myles