a month ago
Hello Railway Support,
I need help recovering data from a persistent volume that appears to have been overwritten. I’m asking whether you can restore the volume (or provide a snapshot) from before the data loss occurred.
What happened:
My Node.js app stores all user and application data in a single JSON file at /app/data/data.json on a Railway volume. The volume is mounted correctly and the app reads/writes the expected path.
On July 9, 2026 (around 17:53 UTC / 12:53 PM US Central), after a deploy, the app started with an empty database. Deploy logs show:
Mounting volume on: .../vol_jirjaplkp5mq8pz0
Data file: /app/data/data.json
Likely cause (for context)
A bug in an earlier version of the app could silently replace a missing or unreadable data.json with a blank database on startup. That may have overwritten the real file on the volume. We have since fixed that behavior and added automatic backups, but the damage appears to have occurred before those safeguards were in place.
What I’m requesting:
Whether a volume snapshot or backup exists for vol_jirjaplkp5mq8pz0 from before July 9, 2026 (ideally June 2026 or any point when the volume contained a larger data.json with user data).
Help restoring that snapshot to the volume, or instructions to mount/export the snapshot so I can copy a previous data.json back to /app/data/data.json.
If snapshots are not available, whether Railway retains any other backups of this volume from the deployment platform side.
Please let me know what recovery options are available and any steps I should take on my side.
Thank you,
Jesse
3 Replies
a month ago
Unfortunately, we're not able to restore volume data lost due to application behavior. For future protection, you can enable scheduled volume backups (daily, weekly, or monthly) from your service's Backups tab in Settings, which would let you self-restore if something like this happens again.
Status changed to Awaiting User Response Railway • about 1 month ago
a month ago
Data recovery needed for five-accounts-budgeting service before July 9th
I need to recover data that was lost before July 9th, 2026 at 18:44 UTC on my five-accounts-budgeting service.
Background: My application had automatic backup features added on July 9th at 18:44 UTC (deployment 0109e803-b5ee-48f6-9e41-3c9c752699e9). Before that deployment, the app did not have automatic backups enabled.
I lost critical data before those backup improvements were deployed, so the automatic backup system cannot help me recover it.
What I need: I'm looking to restore data from around July 9th at 12:00 PM CDT (17:00 UTC), which is before the backup system was added. I need to know if there are any other recovery options available, such as:
Direct access to files on the volume from before July 9th at 18:00 UTC
Volume snapshots or historical data
Any other recovery mechanisms
Project Details:
Project: ravishing-charisma (ec022ff7-faaf-4961-952f-e5af4ce7fbee)
Environment: production (3f32e9b9-3239-43b5-80f9-1ae43acd68ca)
Service: five-accounts-budgeting (c6fd2905-4ea8-40db-88b8-96ad31eafa34)
Volume: five-accounts-budgeting-volume (ec2c9bbe-8b2b-4bda-bab9-9a3863b2e207)
I was on the hobby plan at the time of data loss, so I understand volume snapshots may not have been available. However, I wanted to reach out to see if there are any other options for data recovery
Status changed to Awaiting Railway Response Railway • about 1 month ago
a month ago
We can see the volume is attached and healthy on your five-accounts-budgeting service, but we're not able to restore volume data after it was overwritten by your application. Since no volume backups were configured before the data loss, there isn't a prior snapshot to recover from. Going forward, you can enable scheduled volume backups from your service's Settings page so you can self-restore if something like this happens again.
Status changed to Awaiting User Response Railway • about 1 month ago
a month ago
This thread has been marked as solved automatically due to a lack of recent activity. Please re-open this thread or create a new one if you require further assistance. Thank you!
Status changed to Solved Railway • about 1 month ago