# Ignition Designer - Connection Refused on Backup Restore **URL:** \ **Category:** Ignition\ **Tags:** designer, ignition81\ **Created:** [October 30, 2024, 11:17pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-designer-connection-refused-on-backup-restore/97981 "2024-10-30T23:17:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bradley.falzon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@bradley.falzon](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bradley.falzon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2024, 11:17pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-designer-connection-refused-on-backup-restore/97981/1 "2024-10-30T23:17:15Z")
Hey All, Recently I had to restore some tags from an old backup of our production Ignition instance (8.1.20). All running on Windows OS (shouldn't matter but the exact error message may differ). We have SSL/TLS configured in the production Ignition instance itself, so it's configured with the certificates and `Force Secure Redirect` enabled (not the default), this will become important later. I restored this backup to a fresh install of the latest version (8.1.44). This restore worked and in web config (when connecting via [http://127.0.0.1:8088](http://127.0.0.1:8088)) I could see all the settings have been correctly restored, but it didn't appear to restore the SSL/TLS certificates (I didn't realise this at the time). ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/2/9/290a1ee05a674f6a56f5428f8e049c9f3165175b.png) Note that `Force Secure Redirect` is still enabled, but cannot be disabled because SSL/TLS isn't configured. When I tried to use Designer to connect to this instance (also over [http://127.0.0.1:8088](http://127.0.0.1:8088)), I kept getting the error message "ConnectException: Connection refused: getsockopt". ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/a/e/ae025ee81929d8cc92d23644165b98e83a969a76.png) Running Notepad with Administrator privileges, I could disabled the `Force Secure Redirect` option in the file "C:\Program Files\Inductive Automation\Ignition\data\gateway.xml" by changing the option `gateway.forceSecureRedirect` from `true` to `false`. Documented here in case others have come across the same issue. I believe this is the same experience that this post describes: [Ignition Designer - Connection refused](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-designer-connection-refused/90993) Production screenshot showing our SSL / TLS configuration for comparison, upon restore some settings have changed, such as the port, but not the `Force Secure Redirect` which I think should have been. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/0/2/0201f023028214c7964ff757a1e0ef81b738ee3a.png) ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Krol](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/jeff_krol/32/69426_2.png) [@Jeff\_Krol](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Jeff_Krol)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 2:11pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-designer-connection-refused-on-backup-restore/97981/2 "2024-12-04T14:11:08Z")
Thanks for posting this! I had this issue just now restoring a production Gateway back to my local machine and I was able to resolve it immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Joshua\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@Joshua\_Brown](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Joshua_Brown)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2025, 8:09pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-designer-connection-refused-on-backup-restore/97981/3 "2025-09-15T20:09:22Z")
This is a problem that I’m currently running into. I’ve tried making changes to the gateway xml file through notepad, but the same error keeps appearing. Are there any other suggestions? ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2025, 11:54pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-designer-connection-refused-on-backup-restore/97981/4 "2025-09-15T23:54:38Z")
This topic is a bit hazy, as there's no indication that anyone understands that the designer won't make a connection to a backup gateway, whether active or not. The designer will only work with a master or an independent gateway. Intentionally. ---
**Author:** ![vlad.ilie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/54ee81/32.png) [@vlad.ilie](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/vlad.ilie)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2026, 6:54pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-designer-connection-refused-on-backup-restore/97981/5 "2026-05-19T18:54:09Z")
I have the same issue (on version 8.1.53); open a backup file and I get the get getsockopt error. However, when I try to modify the gateway.forceSecureRedirect flag to false the file automatically gets updated back to true. If I don't restart the gateway, the error persists. Any updates on this? ---
**Author:** ![Inken\_Kestler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bcef8e/32.png) [@Inken\_Kestler](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Inken_Kestler)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 3:28pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-designer-connection-refused-on-backup-restore/97981/6 "2026-10-07T15:28:47Z")
Thanks a lot. You saved literally my day. I accidentally deleted some tags and thought: No problem, I'll just take the latest gateway backup and restore it to my DEV gateway. Then I'll export the tags from the Designer and add them back to my PROD gateway. But I got exactly the same error message as you and was almost desperate. I was already starting to panic. Then, thanks to your tip, I was able to restore all the tags 😊 One more tip: After modifying the file, I had to restart the gateway before it worked.