Pi 4 to 5

On the RPi4:

touch /storage/.update/.nocompat
cd /storage/.update
wget https://releases.libreelec.tv/LibreELEC-RPi5.arm-11.0.6.img.gz
reboot

On reboot the RPi4 updates to the RPi5 image, and on completion and second reboot it attempts to boot the RPi5 image. This will either fail or half-work so it's best to pull power on the RPi4 as the second reboot starts. Now transfer the SD card to the RPi5 and things should work.

Or .. do a clean install and manual copy/paste migration of any essential content from the RPi4. The boards use different images so unlike previous RPi2 > RPi3 migrations you cannot simply swap the card.

Quote from chewitt

On the RPi4:

Code

touch /storage/.update/.nocompat
cd /storage/.update
wget https://releases.libreelec.tv/LibreELEC-RPi5.arm-11.0.6.img.gz
reboot

On reboot the RPi4 updates to the RPi5 image, and on completion and second reboot it attempts to boot the RPi5 image. This will either fail or half-work so it's best to pull power on the RPi4 as the second reboot starts. Now transfer the SD card to the RPi5 and things should work.

Or .. do a clean install and manual copy/paste migration of any essential content from the RPi4. The boards use different images so unlike previous RPi2 > RPi3 migrations you cannot simply swap the card.

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I finally got around to taking my Pi5 (that I ordered as an impulse purchase when they were first announced) out of its box. Trying to use this method to upgrade from my Pi4 to Pi5 without loosing all my config/settings, and on the first reboot I get the UPDATE IN PROGRESS screen, but "Decompressing image file..." never seems to complete, and instead it seems to just give up due to lack of space and boot normally and I still have to version 11.0.6 that runs on the Pi4 (but not on the Pi5, trying the SD card on that and it just gets into a reboot loop every time it tries to boot).

After issuing the wget command and the file downloads, if I do a df -h I get the following:

Since I'm dual-booting using PINN, I suspect PINN has messed about with the partition sizes on the (8 GB I think) SD card during the latest update (which was needed to get it to work on the Pi5).

If the 407.7 MB free in /storage isn't enough to decompress the update, How much do I need? I can probably do something with GParted to steal some space back from /flash or maybe even the retropie partition (since that won't be working on my Pi5 anyway).

I've no idea about PINN or what complications it might add. These days I would leave the RPi4 connected to the network and clean install the RPi5 with a current image, then scp the Kodi userdata content you want from old device to new device.

It wasn’t PINN in the end, it was just that the 407.7 MB free space was no longer enough to expand the update in /storage before it gets written to /flash. I must have just been lucky in the past that updates have always worked no problem, but I suspect that maybe the Pi5 LibreELEC update image is larger than the Pi4 one I’d updated to most recently? Anyway… I used PINN to backup and restore to a larger SD card and now all is good. Update went just as expected. 1st reboot in the Pi4, let it expand and update then on second reboot, switch off and swap card to Pi5, and it boots up no problem.

Quote from chewitt

On the RPi4:

Code

touch /storage/.update/.nocompat
cd /storage/.update
wget https://releases.libreelec.tv/LibreELEC-RPi5.arm-11.0.6.img.gz
reboot

On reboot the RPi4 updates to the RPi5 image, and on completion and second reboot it attempts to boot the RPi5 image. This will either fail or half-work so it's best to pull power on the RPi4 as the second reboot starts. Now transfer the SD card to the RPi5 and things should work.

Or .. do a clean install and manual copy/paste migration of any essential content from the RPi4. The boards use different images so unlike previous RPi2 > RPi3 migrations you cannot simply swap the card.

Worked like a charm in less than 2 minutes. Perfect.