I sincerely hope you never have to face this, but I wanted to share this handy solution in the rare event that you need to use it.I was recently asked to help repair a broken Tableau Server where, somehow, the server application and data files were spread across different drives and as a result the server was unstable and the ‘tabadmin backup’ command refused to work.Worse still, there were no backups that we could use to restore from. Up a certain creek without a paddle? Yep that sounds about right! However, with a little help from our friends at Tableau Support, I was able to recover the server to a stable state.Before we get into the method, I want to highlight that the moral of the story here is make sure you are regularly backing up your Tableau Server! While the method below will also work, this is seriously a
last resort. There really is no substitute for a scheduled ‘tabadmin backup’ every night or every weekend, and if you're not sure how to do that then read
this post.
1. Rename the Tableau folders so that we may use them as a point of fallback
Specifically, you want to rename the Tableau folders in C:\\Program Files and C:\\ProgramData, or if you installed to a separate drive, rename the original install folder location, e.g. D:\\Program Files\\Tableau\\Tableau Server\\
2. Uninstall the current Tableau Server
You will get errors here, because we renamed the folder previously, just click through them and complete the uninstallation.
3. Perform a clean installation
Since we renamed the folders in the previous step, no folders were deleted and the new installation was treated as a completely fresh install.
4. In the old, renamed folders, locate the folders named ‘dataengine’ and ‘pgsql’, and copy these over to the to the new installation folder, overwriting the existing folders of the same name
These folders contain all of the repository and all the data extracts which really is all we need to get our server back.
5. Update the repository password. Run the following command on the server…
‘tabadmin regenerate_internal_tokens --passwords && tabadmin config’This is the little bit of magic that will allow the content in the old folders to work with the new installation, by generating a new password for the repository.
6. Start the Tableau Server and rebuild the search index
You may notice some things are missing initially when you fire up the server, so go to the Status page and click on ‘Rebuild Search Index’. This will prompt the server to re-scan the repository and a server restart or log out and back in again should fix any missing content.
7. Confirm that the tabadmin commands (ie: stop/start/backup) all function as expected
All finished? Server back up and running? Great, you can wipe that sweat off your brow! Now is a good time to do a ‘tabadmin backup’ and store that backup somewhere safe!
