Restore backup on different architecture

1st Official Post

    Hello. What special considerations need to be made when backing up LibreELEC on one architecture (e.g., an old x86_64 netbook) and restoring it on another (e.g., a new Raspberry Pi 4)? I've tried two methods: replacing the .kodi folder manually, and using the LibreELEC backup/restore functionality. However, a few things seem broken, regardless of method. For instance, the rsync binary does not work in the network-tools addon. Also, I cannot get inputstream.adaptive to work. Using the LibreELEC backup/restore functionality, I am able to uninstall it, but I cannot install it again. Looking at the log suggests it is not even trying to install it for the correct architecture (instead it is using the old one, x86_64).

    Code
    2020-06-14 10:55:08.472 T:2345644912   ERROR: Requested path https://addons.libreelec.tv/9.2.0/Generic/x86_64/inputstream.adaptive/inputstream.adaptive-2.4.5.1.zip not found in known repository directories

    EDIT: I tried again from a fresh sdcard image, then restoring a LibreELEC backup on the new machine. The binary add-ons are broken as before, and once I uninstall them I am not able to install them again. Platform-independent add-ons install just fine.

    Edited once, last by garrison (June 15, 2020 at 2:42 AM).

    • Official Post

    There are some audio/video config items in Kodi settings (guisettings.xml) that will be different due to hardware differences, but as you discovered the main problem will be binary add-ons, which must be removed before taking the backup that you want to migrate to the new device. Once you've restored you can reinstall them. When removing an add-on you can choose to completely remove or leave data behind. In theory if you leave behind your config(s) will be resumed on reinstall.

    Thank you for the reply. Is there a simple way of identifying which add-ons have binary components? (or do I need to do this from memory and hope that I have identified them all before saving a backup?) I would have hoped that I could simply uninstall and then reinstall any addons I have missed, after migrating to the new architecture. In any case, your suggestion already gives me something to work with, and I greatly appreciate it.

    • Official Post

    If I were doing it myself I would unpack the backup tar file on a clean install, stop Kodi, move sources, guisettings, thumbnail chaches and the userdata addon_data folders over, then restart Kodi and simply reinstall all add-ons. It probably takes longer to investigate each add-on and work out whether it's binary or not, than it takes to blindly do all of them. If you're familiar with copy/move Linux commands this is no more than 10 mins effort.