complete restore homedir hangs

[jonikelee <jonikelee comcast net>]

Trying out deja-dup for the first time.  To test a restore, I created a
virtualbox duplicate of my base install (manjaro) with a default
homedir, aimed deja-dup at it, hit restore, and had problems.

The biggest problem was that, late during the restore, deja-dup hangs
in a way that renders the vm useless - can't open an xterm, etc.  
The mouse works, and can raise menus, but nothing else.  Had
to reboot.  I tried this twice, using different restore time targets -
with a hang both times.

After rebooting, I tested to see if the restore had finished by
comparing file lists. All files were present - but there seem to be 
some indications that it still had things to do when it hung:
The mod times on a couple of restored files were the time of the restore 
itself - hours later than the most recent backup.  I'm guessing that 
deja-dup (or, duplicity) hadn't gotten around to restoring the metadata
on those due to the hang.

If this isn't a bug in deja-dup itself, I'd guess it was because the
restore was writing over all sorts of vital things in the homedir of
the logged in user, and ultimately caused something to lock up as a
result.

I also tried using duplicity itself to do the restore.  This
had entirely different problems.  Apparently because
deja-dup sets the base dir for the backups to /, duplicity will restore
to /home/me/home/me instead of /home/me, when told to restore /home/me.
If duplicity is instead told to restore at /, it refuses - which seems
entirely appropriate for security sake.  Why does deja-dup set the base
dir (called Localdir in the manifest?) to / instead of the home dir it
was assigned to backup?

What is the most successful way to use deja-dup/duplicity to completely
restore a homedir?  Starting from a system with a default-config'ed
homedir for that user?  Or, no homedir?  Or, empty homedir?  Logged in
as that user, or root?  Su'ed to that user from some other or root?

Thanks in advance for any help
-- Jon