Broke Recalbox-OS by downgrade

[Frosch]

I've done something rather stupid (in retrospective :D) and broke my Recalbox-OS (Running on a Pi 3):

Updated to 4.0.1, changed update-channel to unstable and updated to 4.1. It worked, the release was awesome
After some time I thought "Well, now I don't need all the unstable releases, I'll just get the next stable version when it is released", so I changed the channel back to stable... Then I installed an "update" (that probably was actually a downgrade) and now the Emulationstation won't boot. (Ending in kernel panic "not syncing: Attempted to kill init! exitcode=0x00007f00")

I still can get into recovery, so I could just reinstall from there. So, now my questions:

• Is there any other way to recover from this?
• If not, is there any chance to backup my roms/saves/etc. directly from the SD?

Thanks in advance!

P.S. Maybe it would be good to add a warning when changing the update-channel in the future..?

[korni]

Same Problem... ;(

[BuToNz]

Had the same problem, thankfully was only using a test SD card and not my fully configured one.

[DjLeChuck]

Hi,

It's not possible to recover rom here. You must reinstall all your card.
However, you can backup your data if you mount your SD Card on a Linux/macOS which can read the recalbox partition natively. On Windows, you must use a third party software to do this (I have no name in mind sorry...).

For the futur, the best is to have a dedicated card for unstable tests or, at least, use an USB key to store your data.

I believe the team is working on a more "secure" way to handling updates to not be in this case.

[Substring]

A reinstall through noobs might work, no idea.

Concerning roms : you can get them back from a linux system

[Frosch]

Hi,

It's not possible to recover rom here. You must reinstall all your card.

Yeah, I thought so... well, I'll reinstall it

However, you can backup your data if you mount your SD Card on a Linux/macOS which can read the recalbox partition natively. On Windows, you must use a third party software to do this (I have no name in mind sorry...).

@Substring @DjLeChuck
When mounting the SD-card, I have settings, boot and root partitions. From what I know, the data should be in /root/recalbox/share, right? Or is this just linked upon boot? Because it is completely empty...

For the futur, the best is to have a dedicated card for unstable tests or, at least, use an USB key to store your data.

I believe the team is working on a more "secure" way to handling updates to not be in this case.

Any info on whether changing back to stable from unstable is planned to be possible in the future? If not, I'll just stay on stable...

Thanks for the responses!

[Substring]

@Frosch So, what you wanna know :

• the SHARE is usually a 3rd partition, mounted on /recalbox/share. If you installed with noobs, it's typically /dev/mmcblk0p8
• The unstable -> stalbe switch will be valid in only 1 case : both are on the same version. If you expect a rollback from 4.1 to 4.0.2, tha's a big NOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOOooooOo Code is made, should soon be available in a next unstable release

[Frosch]

@Substring said in Broke Recalbox-OS by downgrade:

• the SHARE is usually a 3rd partition, mounted on /recalbox/share. If you installed with noobs, it's typically /dev/mmcblk0p8

Yup, now I see it but can't mount this. /dev/mmcblk0p8 seems to be broken...
Well, fresh install: here I come!

• The unstable -> stalbe switch will be valid in only 1 case : both are on the same version. If you expect a rollback from 4.1 to 4.0.2, tha's a big NOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOOooooOo Code is made, should soon be available in a next unstable release

That's clear to me
My question was if it is planned to have a release in the future where both channels will be (at least for a specific time) on the same version, so we have the chance to switch back to stable without breaking the system? Or will the unstable always "outrun" stable?
Just wondering...

[Substring]

@Frosch That was the case for 4.0 : when the first stable was launched, yehre was an unstable 4.0 (that soon became 4.1)

For the very specific case of the jump 4.0 -> 4.1 we got f***** up because of a change of the kernel version : 4.1 -> 4.4