Downgrading UnRAID from 6.12.x to 6.11.x

[Manni01]

Hi there,

 

Like many other users, I have many issues with the Dynamix S3 Sleep plugin since I upgraded UnRAID to 6.12.x. As the plugin isn't supported anymore (no replies from the devs in the Dynamix thread in months, no new version of the plugin since March 2023, I'd like to downgrade my two UnRAID servers to the last working version, which is 6.11.x. I don't see any other option as there doesn't seem to be a supported alternative to this plugin and the sleep feature is a key feature for me.

 

Please could you advise on the following:

 

1) Where can I source 6.11.x versions of UnRAID (I can only revert to a previous 6.12.x version that doesn't work).

2) One server is on the latest 6.12.6, the other on 6.12.3, please could you let me know of the steps I should be taking to make sure that I don't lose anything during the downgrade process, specifically going from 6.12 to 6.11.

3) I have never downgraded UnRAID, so any tips you could offer in order to do this safely would be welcome as well as links to any resource describing the downgrade process.

4) I will most likely be stuck with that UnRAID version forever, is there a way to disable the UnRAID upgrade notice?

 

Many thanks!

[itimpi]

There are instructions for  manually upgrading/downgrading to any Unraid release for which you have the zip file for the release here in the online documentation accessible via the ‘Manual’ link at the bottom of the GUI or the DOCS link at the top of each forum page. The 6.11.5 zip version is available from https://unraid.net/download

 

[Manni01]

2 hours ago, itimpi said:

There are instructions for  manually upgrading/downgrading to any Unraid release for which you have the zip file for the release here in the online documentation accessible via the ‘Manual’ link at the bottom of the GUI or the DOCS link at the top of each forum page. The 6.11.5 zip version is available from https://unraid.net/download

 

Thank you very much for your quick reply.

I downloaded the 6.11.5 zip from the link provided, followed the intructions to replace all the bz* files on the flash drive with those from the 6.11.5 ZIP, unfortunately when I put the flash drive back into the server, it's not recognised as a bootable drive, and for some reason I can't even get to the BIOS anymore.

I had copied the content of the flash drive before changing anything, but I got the same result after restoring the original bz* files from before the downgrade.

In case it matters, I accessed the drive from a win11 x64 pro laptop (Dell XPS 17 9720). I didn't do anything to the drive and it had no errors.

Suggestions? 

The only other backup from the drive (made from UnRAID) dates back to July 2022, unless more recent versions were saved automatically to the cloud. The array has changed since, as I added a few drives, but nothing else that's significant as far as I can remember.

[itimpi]

I have never heard of simply copying the bz* type files stopping the flash drive from booting.   I assume you did not format the flash drive (as that would require running make_bootable afterwards)?

 

Not being able to get into the BIOS suggests something else is going on at the hardware level rather than the Unraid level.    Probably need to resolve that first

[Manni01]

9 minutes ago, itimpi said:

I have never heard of simply copying the bz* type files stopping the flash drive from booting.   I assume you did not format the flash drive (as that would require running make_bootable afterwards)?

 

Not being able to get into the BIOS suggests something else is going on at the hardware level rather than the Unraid level.    Probably need to resolve that first

I've never experienced copying files making a drive not bootable either.

I've resolved the BIOS access, fast boot was enabled and made it tricky to get access. I disabled fast boot, checked that the flash drive was the bootable device, so it's definitely detected and selected as the only bootable device, but it doesn't boot.

How can I make it bootable?

Edited December 23, 2023 by Manni01

[itimpi]

34 minutes ago, Manni01 said:

How can I make it bootable?

Try running the make_bootable.bat file from the flash drive (in Administrator mode).   However that is only relevant if booting in legacy mode.

[Manni01]

1 minute ago, itimpi said:

Try running the make_bootable.bat file from the flash drive (in Administrator mode).   However that is only relevant if booting in legacy mode.

I had just tried, it doesn't help.

As I had copied all the content with 6.12.6 from the flash drive to a folder, can I reformat the flash drive (as bootable) and copy the content back to it from the folder, without causing issues as I think the license is linked to that specific drive?

[Manni01]

Also how many partitions is the flashdrive supposed to have? I can see only one using diskpart.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Manni01

[itimpi]

Just now, Manni01 said:

I had just tried, it doesn't help.

As I had copied all the content with 6.12.6 from the flash drive to a folder, can I reformat the flash drive (as bootable) and copy the content back to it from the folder, without causing issues as I think the license is linked to that specific drive?

You can always recreate the flash drive and then copy back the config folder from your backup (which contains all your settings).

[Manni01]

Thanks, so how do I recreate the flash drive?

[itimpi]

1 minute ago, Manni01 said:

Also how many partitions is the flashdrive supposed to have? I can see only one using diskpart.

It is a single partition and it is formatted as FAT32 with a label of UNRAID

[itimpi]

2 minutes ago, Manni01 said:

Thanks, so how do I recreate the flash drive?

You can use the procedure documented here in the the online documentation accessible via the ‘Manual’ link at the bottom of the GUI or the DOCS link at the top of each forum page.

[Manni01]

11 minutes ago, itimpi said:

You can use the procedure documented here in the the online documentation accessible via the ‘Manual’ link at the bottom of the GUI or the DOCS link at the top of each forum page.

Thanks, but as you've confirmed that the partition scheme is correct (single FAT32 partition, UNRAID label) I'm not sure how it would help given that the make_bootable.bat doesn't help. Is there a downside to using the USB Flash creator, and do I have to use it on the same drive, or can I use it on another flash drive to keep the original untouched? I think there is a license issue if I use a different drive. One last question, is the config folder the only folder to copy from the backup? What if there are other folders/files on the original flash drive/backup folder? Thanks again for your help, much appreciated.

[itimpi]

You can always use the USB Creator tool and then copy the config folder across,  although in my experience the manual method is more reliable.    If you do it with a different USB then you will need to go through the licence transfer process

[Manni01]

I re-created the drive using the USB creator, copied the content of my backup folder that wasn't on the newly created flash (I have many other folders such as extras, logs, packages and files such as hardware and syslinux.cfg- etc). I got a security message on boot, probably because EFI was enabled (the folder was called EFI, not EFI- as on the original flash drive and in the backup). So I renamed it as EFI-, as per the instructions, and I got the same behavior as last time (no boot to flash, direct to BIOS as I make the USB flash drive the only boot option).

 

My question is what happens if I only copy the config folder after following the manual procedure (or the USB creator as I did)? What about the plugins, VMs, screen, etc. Will they be automatically downloaded if they are missing? I also have a couple of .rec files but I suspect these are not needed.

 

I'm just concerned about booting with just the config folder copied and then something going wrong because of the missing files/folders.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Manni01

[itimpi]

22 minutes ago, Manni01 said:

My question is what happens if I only copy the config folder after following the manual procedure (or the USB creator as I did)? What about the plugins, VMs, screen, etc. Will they be automatically downloaded if they are missing? I also have a couple of .rec files but I suspect these are not needed.

Copying the config folder restores all your settings (including plugins) so there is nothing to download and everything should work unaffected.

 

You can always start without copying the config folder just to see if the flash drive will even boot.   This can be quite useful in the event a config file has been corrupted and is causing problems (although that should not stop it booting.).

[Manni01]

Thanks I'll try to boot after re-creating the drive without copying anything.

 

Do I need to abort that first boot without my config, or is it safe if the boot completes?

[itimpi]

1 minute ago, Manni01 said:

Do I need to abort that first boot without my config, or is it safe if the boot completes

You should just check that the boot completes.   It should come up as if was a ‘new’ Unraid install with nothing setup or configured.   You can then just shutdown Unraid as you normally would.   At that point copy across the config folder and reboot to get all your settings/customizations back in place.

[Manni01]

Thanks, so I recreated a boot drive using USB Creator without checking the UEFI box, and there is still no boot.

I checked with a Win11 install USB drive, and it boots fine, so there is no issue with that.

No idea what's wrong. This server was working fine before I tried to copy the 6.11.5 files to the flash drive. Never had a booting issue before, and I had used the USB creator to create the boot disk initially. I'm stumped.

[Manni01]

I found the issue. I had to select the flash drive in the HDD BBS list in order to make it a non-UEFI boot option in the boot option. I have copied the full backup back to the flash disc and I've booted into the system fine. Phew! No idea why the boot config changed in the first place, as I had made sure to shutdown the server before taking the flash out and to use the same USB port on the motherboard, but at least I'm back and up and running. Will save a backup from unRaid and I'll try to downgrade again... Fingers crossed, I'll keep you posted, thanks again for your help.

 

[Manni01]

Downgraded both servers to 6.11.5, went without a glitch this time, and I did exactly the same thing (copied the bz*files to the flash drive).

No idea what went wrong, but thanks for sticking with me and helping me to get back in action. Much appreciated!

Now I just have to test the sleep s3 plugin on both servers, hoping that it will work as well as it used too.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Manni01

[Manni01]

s3 sleep seems to be working again as it used to, so that's great.

One downside to the downgrade to 6.11.5, common problems reports an issue with an update needed for the docker patch, but when I click on the update button it sends me to the app tab and I'm told that I can't install the community apps plugin as it needs 6.12.0 minimum. Apart from the lack of easy access/install of apps, and incompatible apps with 6.11.5, is there any downside to this or can I ignore this docker update and community app error? I don't really need any new app and as I won't update the OS, I guess that I won't need updates either as long as my hardware remains the same. Thanks

[JonathanM]

On 12/23/2023 at 4:18 PM, Manni01 said:

I won't update the OS

As long as you don't allow it to access the internet you should be fine. Just keep in mind that updates aren't only for features, they are security updates as well, so if you don't stay reasonably up to date you must be extra vigilant to keep it isolated from the internet and secured against computers in your LAN that could be compromised.

 

Sleep is a tough item to keep working, it would be better to figure out a way to allow a full clean shutdown, then WOL when needed. If properly configured it shouldn't take much longer than sleep / wake, and will be much easier to maintain.

[Manni01]

8 hours ago, JonathanM said:

As long as you don't allow it to access the internet you should be fine. Just keep in mind that updates aren't only for features, they are security updates as well, so if you don't stay reasonably up to date you must be extra vigilant to keep it isolated from the internet and secured against computers in your LAN that could be compromised.

 

Sleep is a tough item to keep working, it would be better to figure out a way to allow a full clean shutdown, then WOL when needed. If properly configured it shouldn't take much longer than sleep / wake, and will be much easier to maintain.

Thnaks for this. Sleep used to work absolutely fine until recent changes in the OS (it did take a while to get it to work initially, but it had been trouble-free for years). The servers are not accessible from the outside, they are only used locally, so security isn't that much of an issue. That being said, I still had issues with 6.11.5, so I re-upgraded to 6.12.6 and I think I might have found a way to make sleep work again by disabling docker, which I think was creating random MAC addresses when using sleep, so couldn't be powered back up reliably. Unfortunately powering off isn't an option as my MOBOs don't wake up from powered off, they only power up from sleep, it's a limitation of the MOBO/BIOS. Thanks for the advice!

Edited December 25, 2023 by Manni01

[thither]

On 12/23/2023 at 4:18 PM, Manni01 said:

One downside to the downgrade to 6.11.5, common problems reports an issue with an update needed for the docker patch, but when I click on the update button it sends me to the app tab and I'm told that I can't install the community apps plugin as it needs 6.12.0 minimum

 

Sorry to piggyback on the thread, but is there any solution for re-downloading the 6.11 version of community applications? I've also downgraded from 6.12 back to 6.11 (to fix some server crashes that started during 6.12) and I'm seeing the same thing.