# Discourse not respecting the number of S3 backups to keep

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-not-respecting-the-number-of-s3-backups-to-keep/135994>\
**Category:** Self-hosting\
**Tags:** backups, s3\
**Created:** [December 15, 2019, 10:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-not-respecting-the-number-of-s3-backups-to-keep/135994 "2019-12-15T10:10:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![ljpp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/ljpp/32/96506_2.png) [@ljpp](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ljpp)\
**Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 10:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-not-respecting-the-number-of-s3-backups-to-keep/135994/1 "2019-12-15T10:10:46Z")

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> [@Backups are duplicating and not respecting number to keep on disk](https://meta.discourse.org/t/backups-are-duplicating-and-not-respecting-number-to-keep-on-disk/107427):
>
> @Wingtip Our Discourse instance recently has started to misbehave with regards to backups. Among other things, it’s taking backups twice a day when it is set to take them every other day and it is not respecting the setting we have in place to only maintain a single backup on disk. This is causing the disk to fill up with large backups, leading to subsequent backup failures. Here are our settings: Here’s some of the recent backup activity: This results in inadequate sp…

Similar issue has re-occurred for us. Just noticed I have dozens of local backups (1.6GB each), while the setting is restricted to value 3. This has worked for years, but I do recall one incident a long time ago when a similar issue happened.

- Backups complete successfully
- Uploads to S3 are successful
- Running the stable branch. Just upgraded to 2.3.7 and rebooted.

Need to dig in deeper at a better time.

Ping @rizka

### Update:

The issue has started on 11th of September. That date does not match to our service breaks or anything we would have done for the site.

#### Update:

This is not an isolated case, as my other small sandbox instance has the same issue, it seems. This is in completely different infrastructure, hosted at Digital Ocean. Here the backups have not been deleted since September 16th. Uploads are successful here as well.

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