Bug: can't read registered tasks on windows

[zumm]

If scheduled task has double quotes in command arguments, resticprofile can't parse it (unschedule and status commands fail). This may happen if path to config needs to be escaped, for example:

resticprofile -c "C;\folder with spaces\profiles.yaml" schedule --all

This task is schduled:
Command: resticprofile.exe
Arguments: --no-ansi --config "C;\folder with spaces\profiles.yaml" run-schedule backup@default

And now we are unable to unschedule it:

resticprofile -c "C:\folder with spaces\profiles.yaml" unschedule --all
2025/07/31 00:06:50 loading task "\resticprofile backup\default backup": %!w(*csv.ParseError=&{2 2 235 0x21c7670})
2025/07/31 00:06:50 no scheduled jobs found

Problem is getCSV can't parse output of schtasks cuz output contains unescaped double quotes:

schtasks /query /fo csv /v /tn "\resticprofile backup\default backup"

"HostName","TaskName","Next Run Time","Status","Logon Mode","Last Run Time","Last Result","Author","Task To Run","Start In","Comment","Scheduled Task State","Idle Time","Power Management","Run As User","Delete Task If Not Rescheduled","Stop Task If Runs X Hours and X Mins","Schedule","Schedule Type","Start Time","Start Date","End Date","Days","Months","Repeat: Every","Repeat: Until: Time","Repeat: Until: Duration","Repeat: Stop If Still Running"
"HOSTNAME","\resticprofile backup\default backup","2025-08-01 00:00:00","Ready","Interactive only","1999-11-30 00:00:00","267011","resticprofile","resticprofile.exe --no-ansi --config "C:\folder with spaces\profiles.yaml" run-schedule backup@default","C:\Windows\system32","resticprofile backup for profile default in C:\folder with spaces\profiles.yaml","Enabled","Disabled","Stop On Battery Mode, No Start On Batteries","HOSTNAME\zumm","Disabled","Disabled","Scheduling data is not available in this format.","Daily ","N/A","N/A","N/A","Every 1 day(s)","N/A","Disabled","Disabled","Disabled","Disabled"

A possible solution is to use the /xml flag to get the output in XML format. However, this flag cannot be used together with /v.

[creativeprojects]

Well spotted!

Using schtasks.exe for scheduling is a recent improvement, that's probably why it's been missed (we were using the Windows API before but it had other issues)

I did look into escaping characters before, but Windows being a pain in the ass as it usually is, there's no full proof method.

• The ^ doesn't work in all cases with cmd.exe
• Powershell uses "`" instead (seems like Github has a bug with a single accent character as well)

[zumm]

I took a closer look for xml output. It lacks info about current status of task, such as:

• Status
• Last Result
• Last Run Time
• Next Run Time

As far as i can see resticprofile uses this info only to print task statuses to end user.

However, it does provide info about the task's run level, which is useful for testing the run-level option introduced in #546.

[creativeprojects]

As a primilarly Mac and Linux user, I do use command line interface for many things, and I do appreciate this information on the command line. I was using it when I still had a work Windows laptop.

I suppose most Windows users would be more used to go to the task scheduler and look out for this information directly from the app.

Would it work it we load the information from both CSV and XML?

[zumm]

Would it work it we load the information from both CSV and XML?

Main issue is we can't parse csv output of schtasks, so no, it wouldn't work. But we still can get same info from schtasks in list format by passing /fo list flag. However we will need to implement list format parser for it.

So there are three approaches:

1. We use list format output only. It fixes issue with double quotes, but we still lack info about task run level (which we don't really need outside of testing purposes).
2. We use xml format output only. It fixes issue with double quotes, but status command is less informative (which may break user setups that depend on this command if they even exist).
3. We use both list and xml format output. It needs more work, but it's more complete solution.

For third approch we will need to introduce someting like readTaskStatus (in pair to current readTaskInfo) and use it to display
task statuses to end user.

[creativeprojects]

I think we should probably go for option 1

Runlevel don't need to be displayed on the status, and we can keep the default when reading a task.

If we really need it later, I guess at that point we can start reading both formats

I can work on the list format parser if you're busy 😉

[zumm]

I can work on the list format parser if you're busy 😉

It would be nice cuz i don't think i will have time for that this week.