Manual Update & Rollback

If an automatic update fails or you need to revert to a previous version, you can restore from the backup that SeqDesk creates before each update.

Rollback from Backup

Stop the server

Stop the SeqDesk process:


# If running via systemd
sudo systemctl stop seqdesk
 
# If running directly
# Kill the Node.js process

Restore files

The automatic backup is stored in .update-backup/ in the SeqDesk directory. Restore the backed-up files:


# Restore compiled application
cp -r .update-backup/.next/ .next/
 
# Restore dependencies
cp -r .update-backup/node_modules/ node_modules/
 
# Restore database schema
cp -r .update-backup/prisma/ prisma/
 
# Restore static assets
cp -r .update-backup/public/ public/
 
# Restore package manifest
cp .update-backup/package.json package.json

Sync the database schema

After restoring the old schema files, re-apply the committed migrations:


npm run db:migrate:deploy

This ensures the database schema matches the restored application version.

Restart the server


# If running via systemd
sudo systemctl start seqdesk
 
# If running directly
npm start

Database Considerations

SeqDesk updates do not overwrite your PostgreSQL data directly
Database migrations are forward-only — rolling back may require restoring a database backup if the update added new tables or columns
If the database is corrupted, restore from your own backups (not included in the .update-backup/ directory)

Manual Update

To manually update without the built-in system:

Back up the current installation


mkdir -p manual-backup
cp -r .next node_modules prisma public package.json manual-backup/

Download the new version

Download the release package from the update server or your deployment system.

Apply the update

Extract the new files into the SeqDesk directory, overwriting existing files.

Install dependencies


npm install --production

Run database migrations


npm run db:migrate:deploy

Restart


sudo systemctl restart seqdesk

Backup Strategy

The built-in backup only covers application files. For a complete disaster recovery plan:

Database — regularly back up PostgreSQL using your database snapshot or dump strategy
Configuration — version-control seqdesk.config.json
Sequencing data — the data directory is not managed by SeqDesk; use your own backup system
Pipeline outputs — back up the pipeline_runs/ directory if needed