This Backup and restore is killing me!

I am attempting to use the Plesk BU to move from a standard 2.5.5 to a brand new RPM Plesk 5.0.5. This is just about driving me to drink. I follow the instructions to the letter, yet it runs into so many errors and nothing happens in the end.

"unable to add a system user ''bloss'':Error: empty argument HomeDir

then

Error occured during preparation for the object restoring.
Unable to create hosting for domain 'XXXXX.com': argument 'ipAddress' is undefined. at /usr/local/psa/bin/psarestore line 3171"

What does that mean please?

I have 8 IPs in the old server and 4 of those IPs are for IP based hosting. I have 8 IPS now for the new server...as of yet I have not moved any clients in there because of the restore failure.
The instructions for the ipmap are just not clear enough when moving to a non clean server.
what IPs do I put where the IP map asks:

#The following ip addresses are required for physical hosting on domains:?
Well I put the IP for the IP based domains and the equivalent of other IPs on the new server.

It successfully restores the databases and mailnames but then craps out when restoring clients and domains. Can any of you kind folks who have successfully restored to a non clean psa please post me a how to map the IPMAP.

In the end it does this:

Checking and fixing all restored data.

Check and fix client 'theblah.com'
Check and fix domain: 'theblah.com'
Check and fix hosting for domain: 'theblah.com'

If you can help by posting how you mapped your old IP to the new IPs I would really appreciate it. On the offchance that this continues to give me grief...

If I backup vhosts on the old server and restore in the httpd/vhosts of the new server, does it show in the PSA Gui?

Will appreciate some help or a lil nudge in the right direction. Thanks

I've not seen many problems with the backup/restore proceedure if based upon the one documented in the release notes of each Plesk version.

On the new server have you removed it's copy of Plesk? I'm assuming it's come with Plesk pre-installed??

I have not updated plesk before. By just reading around I don't think you can make a backup of plesk from standard version, then attempt to restore your plesk standard backup on your new RPM plesk server.

I think you have to do the backup FROM plesk standard 5.0

You need to backup your standard plesk, then
remove plesk, then install Plesk 'Standard' of 5.0 or 5.5, now
your backup is compatiable with your new standard 5.0 or 5.5 plesk server. So restore your files. once done. you need to:

backup your files again, then uninstall plesk again, THEN install the RPM version of plesk, then install your standard Plesk backup.

I think only a RPM plesk 5.0+ is able to use standard plesk backup files and only IF the standard backup is FROM a plesk standard 5.0+ install.

Don't take my word for it though, I have never upgraded plesk. But i have done lots of reading on it though. So search around... I think NightHawk said something about it.

- Mark.

The Plesk backup/restore utilities allow you to switch install type AND OS.

I went from Plesk standard to RPM on my box without any problem.

I'm getting the same exact errors on my system.
Can any one offer any help? Do I need to upgrade my old server to plesk 5.0 before I run the psdump utility?

A 2.5 backup will not restore to a 5.0 system. You would have to upgrade the 2.5 system to 5.0 before backing up, then you can restore it to the new server.