Error restoring ...media families are expected according to the backup device

Version 10.2.9

One of our databases backed up with SqlBackupAndFTP 10 using a FULL + DIFF + LOG setup is having issues when being restored using NO RECOVERY before the logs are restored.

MSSQL produces the following error when we try to restore the logs using the MSSMS Restore->Transaction logs option. “The media set has 11 media families but only 1 are provided.”

Oddly if we restore using the Restore->Database option then it lets us apply the logs with no errors but something is obviously a bit wrong here.

Our other databases don’t have this issue and I believe are backed up in the same way.

To restore your transaction log backup please firstly restore last full backup, then last differential backups and transaction log backups which were made after the last differential backup.

Please find more details at https://sqlbak.com/academy/point-in-time-recovery/

Also, we recommend you to use SQLBackupAndFTP version 11 which has auto restore option.

I know how to restore a backup.

The issue is this part of the question…

As I mentioned, none of our other database have this issue.

Clearly something has gone wrong for it to believe there are 11 media families when trying to restore.

This error message can happen when the original backup was done as a striped backup where the backup stream was split into two destination files.

To solve this issue please make sure that you have specified all of the same files which were used to take the backup or take a back up again with one path selected and remove all other paths listed.

Then you can restore successfully.