Gracefully fail if one of multiple repos is missing

[m3nu]

Discussed in #88

^{Originally posted by goebbe March 27, 2026}
Currently, I am looking for a good way to use the same config file for

• a backup to my NAS (that is scheduled to run regularly) AND
• a backup to a USB-disk, that I only attach from time to time.

With this setup, I face the following issue:

When the USB-disk is not attached / not mounted AND the scheduled backup is due,
there is a popup that proposes to initialize the (at this moment missing) USB repository.

Apparently vykar tries to get the information from the (un-mounted) USB-stick. Since the
repository is not mounted (the directory does not exist), vykar proposes to create initialize the repo.

Is there a way to prevent this type of behaviour?
What would be a good workaround?

[goebbe]

The following issue might be related - even though the framing is different: #63
I can use a hook to prevent vykar actions (backup, prune, ...) but there is no means to prevent vykar-gui to try to connect to the repo (for repo info and snapshots) - and throw error messages, for example if the repo on the home NAS is not available.

Perhaps a kind of hook / condition / config options that allows to check if repo is available?

1. for local backups/ USB-disk: Check if directory/ repo is available - before doing anything else
2. for remote repos: Check if repo condition is satisfied / can connect to repo - before doing anything else

For 2. it would be great if there would be a way to prevent vykar to even try to connect. (similar to a repo hook).
When travelling, I am often connected to corporate networks / hotel WIFI - and vykar trying to connect to other computers in the LAN (e.g. 192.168.0.x since this is the IP of my home NAS) - would not feel right.