Manual upgrades/downgrades

Upgrades/Downgrades can be done manually :

• in case you want to reinstall a previous version
• in case the upgrades are broken
• in case you want to upgrade to a custom version

To upgrade/downgrade manually :

1. download the file boot.tar.xz of the version you want. The official ones are available here : http://batocera.org/upgrades (for older versions use https://mirrors.o2switch.fr/batocera/ and navigate to your architecture, then go to /stable/last/archives/)
2. a .tar.xz file is an archive format, like a .zip. Just unzip this file onto your SD card/USB key/s BATOCERA partition¹⁾ to replace existing files.

Or, starting with batocera.linux 5.23:

1. from SSH, adapt the url to the right architecture and run : batocera-upgrade https://batocera.org/upgrades/x86_64/stable/last (this example is for PC x86_64, please adapt the URL to the right architecture)

For batocera.linux 5.7 to 5.22:

1. from SSH, the command line would be: /recalbox/scripts/recalbox-upgrade.sh https://batocera.org/upgrades/x86_64/stable/last (for PC x86_64, please adapt to the right architecture)

These commands upgrade – or potentially downgrade – the Batocera system. Upgrading or downgrading doesn't remove any of your user data (ROMs, metadata…). Like never, ever.

If you get an error message telling you that you don't have enough space on your Batocera system partition when you upgrade, there might be several explanations.

One of them is that you have stored several splash boot video files on the /boot partition. Remove them, and try to upgrade again.

The other explanation: Your first installation was an older version, where the boot-partition was smaller (in newer versions of batocera the space had to be rised because of more features). In this case, you could either delete the “batocera”-file (it is just called batocera, without a file-extension, is about 1gb big and is located in the boot folder of the first/boot partition). After that, extract the boot.tar.xz file onto that drive and if successfull, rename the file “batocera-update” located in the boot folder to just “batocera”). But be aware, that you would have to do this manual workaround (update-procedure) every time, you want to update to a new version.

So it may be better, to backup all the files from your share-partition (roms, saves, bios, etc.) and start a fresh new install, by flashing the .img.gz file with for example balenaEtcher onto the drive, where you want to have batocera installed, then boot from it and copy back all roms, saves etc. to the share-partition of this new installation of batocera.