# Did I overwrite my site settings with a cross-instance backup/restore?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/did-i-overwrite-my-site-settings-with-a-cross-instance-backup-restore/358786
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Tags:** backups
**Created:** [March 25, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/did-i-overwrite-my-site-settings-with-a-cross-instance-backup-restore/358786 "2025-03-25T16:05:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@johnr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/johnr)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/did-i-overwrite-my-site-settings-with-a-cross-instance-backup-restore/358786/1 "2025-03-25T16:05:29Z")
My company is evaluating Discourse and I have created two instances, A and B. I wanted to check out the backup/restore functionality as it might apply to different instances and restored a backup from instance A to instance B.
It appears that the data was successfully migrated from A to B, however it also appears that some site settings were overwritten. For example, instance B is now using SSO to sign in when that was not enabled on B before. The admin accounts were different between A and B, and I no longer appear to have access to my admin account on B.
I have tried u/admin-login with the original app.yml’s DISCOURSE\_DEVELOPER\_EMAILS value with no success (“Unknown email address” and eventually “You’ve performed this action too many times…”). I have been trying different things like launcher rebuild app, but I can’t seem to make any progress in getting to the admin panel of instance B.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! How can I get back into my admin account on instance B?
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2025, 4:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/did-i-overwrite-my-site-settings-with-a-cross-instance-backup-restore/358786/2 "2025-03-25T16:17:01Z")
SiteSettings are a part of a back-up, why wouldn’t they be? They contain critical info for running a specific site.
on the command line, within the container you can run:
`rake admin:create` to create a new admin user so you can get in.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2025, 11:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/did-i-overwrite-my-site-settings-with-a-cross-instance-backup-restore/358786/3 "2025-03-25T23:19:58Z")
> [@johnr](#):
>
> it also appears that some site settings were overwritten
All settings are replaced except those set in the yml file. See [Configure an S3 compatible object storage provider for uploads f](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configure-an-s3-compatible-object-storage-provider-for-uploads/148916) for an example of doing that. Also, that’s a convenient way to restore one backup to another server. There is also a topic about setting up a staging server with examples. [Set up a staging server](https://meta.discourse.org/t/set-up-a-staging-server/225951)
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### Author:  [@johnr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/johnr)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2025, 12:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/did-i-overwrite-my-site-settings-with-a-cross-instance-backup-restore/358786/4 "2025-04-02T12:35:38Z")
Thanks so much for the quick replies and follow-up information! You have a lot of good information in these forums. Cheers!
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2025, 12:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/did-i-overwrite-my-site-settings-with-a-cross-instance-backup-restore/358786/5 "2025-05-02T12:35:42Z")
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