restic binary not found on macos

[moritzthecat]

on macos I installed npbackup 3.0.4 via pip in an venv and restic 0.18.1 via homebrew.
both programs can be run from same terminal. but npbackup cannot find restic.

npbackup-venv % npbackup-gui --log-file LOG                        
2025-12-01 01:41:12,914 :: INFO :: GUI: npbackup 3.0.4-darwin-UnknownBuildType-arm64-public-3.13-i 2025092901 - Copyright (C) 2022-2025 NetInvent running as thomas
2025-12-01 01:41:12,924 :: INFO :: Loaded config 5170DBB6 in /Users/xyz/dev/npbackup-venv/npbackup.conf
2025-12-01 01:41:13,301 :: ERROR :: No backup engine binary found. Please install latest binary from restic.net
2025-12-01 01:41:13,301 :: ERROR :: No backend binary found
2025-12-01 01:41:13,302 :: INFO :: Runner took 0.000397 seconds for snapshots
2025-12-01 01:41:13,567 :: INFO :: No valid snapshot list given
2025-12-01 01:41:26,055 :: INFO :: ExecTime = 0:00:13.141462, finished, state is: errors. 

from this post #124 I understood that I can set path to restic binary via environment variable
tried both
using cli % export NPBACKUP_BACKEND_BINARY=/opt/homebrew/bin/restic

and defining in environment tab

then added the environment variable ${NPBACKUP_BACKEND_BINARY} in pre-exec

But I still get error

2025-12-01 02:05:13,449 :: ERROR :: No backup engine binary found. Please install latest binary from restic.net
2025-12-01 02:05:13,449 :: ERROR :: No backend binary found

[moritzthecat]

after investigation of code I could use these steps to get restic binary recognized by npbackup ...

1. create dir "RESTIC_SOURCE_FILES" in venv site_packages
   # mkdir <path to your npbackup venv>/lib/pythonxyz/site-packages/npbackup/RESTIC_SOURCE_FILES
2. copy restic from homebrew to the newly created dir "RESTIC_SOURCE_FILES"
   # cp /opt/homebrew/bin/restic <path to your npbackup venv>/lib/pythonxyz/site-packages/npbackup/RESTIC_SOURCE_FILES
3. rename restic filename to follow expected naming convention by npbackup to something like this
   restic_0.18.0_darwin_arm64 in case of apple silicon

close here but still would be nice to hear better or suggested way

[deajan]

@moritzthecat Sorry for the late reply, working on other things in NPBackup currently.
If you install npbackup via pip, restic should be in your %PATH% variable, since the pip version won't ship with an inline version (doesn't make sense).
Did you install restic via brew or else ?

[moritzthecat]

as mentioned above ...

on macos I installed npbackup 3.0.4 via pip in an venv and restic 0.18.1 via homebrew.

yes, both npbackup and restic could be called from same terminal within the created venv.
but npbackup could not find restic.

pip did not install the RESTIC_SOURCE_FILES

for debugging I modified restic_source_binary.py

def get_restic_internal_binary(arch: str) -> str:
    binary = None
    logger.info("--> source dir: "+ RESTIC_SOURCE_FILES_DIR)
...

and this printed the path where npbackup expects local restic
--> source dir: /Users/xyz/npbackup-venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/npbackup/../RESTIC_SOURCE_FILES

interesting also that the right click to decrypt URL/path and password is not working, although master password is set.

[deajan]

I'd love to replicate that issue, since npbackup is supposed to fallback to binaries in path when no "local" restic is found.
It's normal that RESTIC_SOURCE_FILES doesn't come with pip version, because bundling that makes no sense.

What macOS version did you use please ?

[moritzthecat]

I am still on macos 15.7, with which I am extensively running Python3 in venv ... no problem
Python is 3.13.5

just did install npbackup in a clean venv ... same issue.

[deajan]

What's your output of type restic please from the same terminal you're running NPBackup from ?