borg mount showing the wrong file version?

[MartinKurtz]

first of all version is

$ borg --version
borg 1.4.0

i will be looking at 2 versions (though really just one, for brevity) of the same borg repo, one version being newer, one i have pulled from a zfs snapshot made on the 30th of november.

The older one looks like this:

$borg list <repo path>
1705_16022025                        Sun, 2025-02-16 17:08:41 [05fe4bd41704ba5a594fd5ddec47ab8fa3a6811bbd08e413f53fc9cfb1f667db]
...
shortened for brevity
...
MartinPC-2025-11-29T23:00:02.625868  Sat, 2025-11-29 23:00:02 [915a522e821dfc11a72a0b1c59730dedb4a82d6ac38b4de27a66dab1a75b461d]

the newer one like this

$borg list <repo path>
1705_16022025                        Sun, 2025-02-16 17:08:41 [05fe4bd41704ba5a594fd5ddec47ab8fa3a6811bbd08e413f53fc9cfb1f667db]
...
shortened for brevity
...
MartinPC-2025-12-20T18:00:02.097987  Sat, 2025-12-20 18:00:02 [b5295694e845c2d32c0e1d4b0f652eae94e04d5688719bca0648767d74582377]

The repos contain backups mainly for the last month

these are the files the issue occurs with

$ ls -l <loads of path>/*
-rw-rw-r-- 1 martin martin 25603324 28. Dez 12:26 "<loads of path>/HonourMode.lsv"
-rw-rw-r-- 1 martin martin    39240 28. Dez 12:26 "<loads of path>/HonourMode.WebP"
$ sha256sum <loads of path>/*
ab59b0ea708e39c1a1a05ca72eae3a6b73c97d2cd9fdfa90014b445f59b36c67  <loads of path>/HonourMode.lsv
012fdefaff015f53949ae54ea01f3a506ab623c18535f66aafbf81d0da6c9b0f  <loads of path>/HonourMode.WebP

As you can see the mtime is the 28th of December (2025) which is when (i presume) the savegame got corrupted. and the shasum is there to verify its not just a time displaying error, these are the 2 files this occurs with

now comes the interesting part:

first mount the borg repo to mp3:

borg mount <repo> mp3

then examine the files in question:

$ for d in mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-*T23*; do echo "Running in $d"; (ls -l $d/<loads of file path>/*; ); doneRunning in mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-07T23:00:02.701843
-rw-rw-r-- 1 martin martin 25603324 28. Dez 12:26 "mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-07T23:00:02.701843<loads of file path>HonourMode.lsv"
-rw-rw-r-- 1 martin martin    39240 28. Dez 12:26 "mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-07T23:00:02.701843<loads of file path>HonourMode.WebP"
...
abbreviated
...
-rw-rw-r-- 1 martin martin 25603324 28. Dez 12:26 "mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-19T23:00:01.614044<loads of file path>HonourMode.lsv"
-rw-rw-r-- 1 martin martin    39240 28. Dez 12:26 "mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-19T23:00:01.614044<loads of file path>HonourMode.WebP"

and the sha256sum

$ for d in mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-*T23*; do echo "Running in $d"; (sha256sum $d/<loads of file path>/*; ); done
ab59b0ea708e39c1a1a05ca72eae3a6b73c97d2cd9fdfa90014b445f59b36c67  mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-07T23:00:02.701843<loads of file path>HonourMode.lsv
012fdefaff015f53949ae54ea01f3a506ab623c18535f66aafbf81d0da6c9b0f  mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-07T23:00:02.701843<loads of file path>HonourMode.WebP
...
abbreviated
...
ab59b0ea708e39c1a1a05ca72eae3a6b73c97d2cd9fdfa90014b445f59b36c67  mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-19T23:00:01.614044<loads of file path>HonourMode.lsv
012fdefaff015f53949ae54ea01f3a506ab623c18535f66aafbf81d0da6c9b0f  mp3/MartinPC-2025-12-19T23:00:01.614044<loads of file path>HonourMode.WebP

it does the same thing with the older repo, ill ommit it because then the wall of text would become even larger, but i can provide it if necessary

so in short:

borg appears to be showing me a version of this file which is newer than the date the backup was made, even with a repo which itself was pulled from a zfs snapshot made before the file was modified.

this leads me to believe there is a potential bug with the way borg mount shows me files.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Please:

• reduce the amount of output to the necessary amount to demonstrate the issue
• add the commands you used to generate the output

[MartinKurtz]

abbreviated and edited for clarity

ThomasWaldmann changed the title [-]Potential Bug with Borg showing the wrong version of a file in Backups (Borg 1.4)[/-] [+]borg mount showing the wrong file timestamp?[/+]

additionally this doesnt seem to be a timestamp issue, the file in question also has the same sha256 checksum, despite definitely having been edited/overrwritten within the timespan of 2 months of backups i have looked at

[ThomasWaldmann]

What does borg list show for these files in the 2 archives?

[MartinKurtz]

What does borg list show for these files in the 2 archives?

For the newer archive which is the one that is current it shows a modification time of 2025-12-14 23:37-ish for one of the later backups, which i want to recover the version just before of. The version from the 28th isnt even in the version of the repo i kept here, yet mounted, it seems to show up anyway.

$ borg list Borg::MartinPC-2025-12-20T12:00:02.413881 | grep Honour
...
few lines omitted because they were not relevant
...

drwxrwxr-x martin martin        0 Sun, 2025-12-14 23:37:01 <path to file>
-rw-rw-r-- martin martin 25392742 Sun, 2025-12-14 23:37:01 <path to file>/HonourMode.lsv
-rw-rw-r-- martin martin    36432 Sun, 2025-12-14 23:36:55 <path to file>/HonourMode.WebP

a few backups earlier than that and i get previous versions of this file shown to me

$ borg list Borg::MartinPC-2025-12-12T23:00:02.497293 | grep Honour
drwxrwxr-x martin martin        0 Tue, 2025-11-04 18:34:15 <path to file>
-rwxrwxr-x martin martin 25093991 Tue, 2025-11-04 18:34:15 <path to file>/HonourMode.lsv

and the repo from the 30th of november:

$ borg list Borg::MartinPC-2025-11-29T23:00:02.625868 | grep Honour
drwxr-xr-x martin martin        0 Tue, 2024-12-31 14:01:08 <path to nonrelevant file>
-rwxr-xr-x martin martin  7961864 Tue, 2024-12-31 14:01:08 <path to nonrelevant file>/HonourMode.lsv
drwxrwxr-x martin martin        0 Tue, 2025-11-04 18:34:15 <path to relevant file>
-rwxrwxr-x martin martin 25093991 Tue, 2025-11-04 18:34:15 <path to relevant file>/HonourMode.lsv

so tldr, its not in the repo, its when mounting this issue does show up

[ThomasWaldmann]

Yeah, seems to be a mount issue (standard view).

If you are primarily interested in the versions of some specific files, you could also try the "versions" mount option. That builds the filesystem view a bit differently for that purpose.

[ThomasWaldmann]

This test does not reproduce the issue, tested on current 1.4-maint branch (quite similar to 1.4.3 release):

    @unittest.skipUnless(llfuse, 'llfuse not installed')
    def test_fuse_standard_view_history(self):
        self.cmd('init', '--encryption=repokey', self.repository_location)
        self.create_regular_file('test', contents=b'first')
        self.cmd('create', self.repository_location + '::archive1', 'input')
        self.create_regular_file('test', contents=b'second')
        self.cmd('create', self.repository_location + '::archive2', 'input')
        mountpoint = os.path.join(self.tmpdir, 'mountpoint')
        # mount the whole repository:
        with self.fuse_mount(self.repository_location, mountpoint):
            path1 = os.path.join(mountpoint, 'archive1', 'input', 'test')
            path2 = os.path.join(mountpoint, 'archive2', 'input', 'test')
            assert os.stat(path1).st_mtime_ns < os.stat(path2).st_mtime_ns
            with open(path1, 'rb') as f:
                contents1 = f.read()
            with open(path2, 'rb') as f:
                contents2 = f.read()
            assert contents1 == b'first'
            assert contents2 == b'second'

I also ran the test with the 1.4.0 code, no problem either.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Check if this is a scripting issue, e.g. missing quoting. Just run the commands manually.

[MartinKurtz]

i have also mounted and opened the backups manually , e.g. run borg mount and then look at the backups via the file explorer of my choice, this isnt a scripting issue, the issue appears then too

the exact version is here:
borgbackup/stable,now 1.4.0-5 amd64 [installiert]
as delivered by apt with debian trixie and the standard repos

i have the files i need, after finding them with borg list, i was able to extract them with borg extract, so i will now mount the repo once again and see what it says now

since extracting the files however, it doesnt do it anymore, is what i was going to say when i say until i saw it behave differently.

ls and borg list agree with one another:

i have mounted the repo with borg mount

$ borg list Borg::MartinPC-2025-12-20T18:00:02.097987 | grep Honour
drwxrwxr-x martin martin        0 Sat, 2025-12-20 17:37:04 <path to a file>/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode
-rw-rw-r-- martin martin 25426919 Sat, 2025-12-20 17:37:04 <path to a file>/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/HonourMode.lsv
-rw-rw-r-- martin martin   101222 Sat, 2025-12-20 17:36:57 <path to a file>/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/HonourMode.WebP

$ ls -l <path to a file>/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/*
-rw-rw-r-- 1 martin martin 25426919 20. Dez 17:37 "mp5/MartinPC-2025-12-20T18:00:02.097987/<path to a file>/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/HonourMode.lsv"
-rw-rw-r-- 1 martin martin   101222 20. Dez 17:36 "mp5/MartinPC-2025-12-20T18:00:02.097987/<path to a file>/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/HonourMode.WebP"

however what does not agree with another is sha256sum and edit time of what i see in dolphin and the cli (i will intentionally not shorthen the paths so you can compare):

$ borg list Borg::MartinPC-2025-12-20T18:00:02.097987 | grep "HonourMode.WebP"

-rw-rw-r-- martin martin   101222 Sat, 2025-12-20 17:36:57 home/martin/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/1086940/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/HonourMode.WebP


$ ls -l mp5/MartinPC-2025-12-20T18\:00\:02.097987/home/martin/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/1086940/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Larian\ Studios/Baldur\'s\ Gate\ 3/PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/HonourMode.WebP

-rw-rw-r-- 1 martin martin   101222 20. Dez 17:36 "mp5/MartinPC-2025-12-20T18:00:02.097987/home/martin/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/1086940/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/HonourMode.WebP"


$ sha256sum mp5/MartinPC-2025-12-20T18\:00\:02.097987/home/martin/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/1086940/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Larian\ Studios/Baldur\'s\ Gate\ 3/PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/HonourMode.WebP

5588eec0db2b95c22fef839b2d19dd3872fc6e47cb619cfc0ab290be96963202  mp5/MartinPC-2025-12-20T18:00:02.097987/home/martin/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/1086940/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story/ef1b692f-458f-7b91-f748-19e5f9075d8d__HonourMode/HonourMode.WebP

something does definitely seem to begoing on here, as i am still seeing different modified times as well as a different sha256sum of the file wether i look at the file with dolphin or bash,

i have reopened and refreshed dolphin, as well as remounted the borg repo, which seems to be causing no change

[ThomasWaldmann]

If shell (ls -l, sha256sum) and dolphin GUI do not agree, guess you have found a dolphin bug.

[ThomasWaldmann]

It could also be that something on your system is caching in an erroneous way. Maybe add your OS, kernel version, libfuse(3?) version, llfuse or pyfuse3 version to the top post.

[ThomasWaldmann]

I'll check our code in fuse.py whether there is some problem so that files of same path (but from different archives) can be confused with each other (like mapping them to the same inode).

IF there was such a bug, it would only affect the "mount a repo" use case, but likely not:

• the versions view
• mounting a single archive only (not the whole repo)