Moving HAOS to a different hardware platform

Installation Home Assistant OS
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1

I currently have HAOS running on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ with microSD.

I’m considering moving it to something a little faster, for example, my Odroid N2+.

Is there a way to do this ? And if so, what would be the best way ?

As a test, I tried setting up a Virtualbox VM on my PC. Once it booted up, I opened a browser on the host, and logged in to its web UI (at http://vmip:8123). I selected the link “Alternatively you can restore from a previous backup”. I then selected a TAR backup from my HAOS Pi 3B+ installation.
But I got a pop-up stating “Unsupported file format - Please choose a Home Assistant backup file (.tar)”. I suspect there must be more to it than this.

I have never tested the restore process, even on the same hardware platform, though, something that’s still on my to-do list.

2

Backup files are compatible between install methods. Don’t use a password on your backup. And obviously restored addons wont work unless you use an install method on the new system that supports them.

3

I’m not using a password on the backup.

I am using backup add-ons for Google drive and Samba. Those generate TAR backup files. The restore function in HAOS in the VM didn’t accept those files, though. I guess the content must be different than standard HAOS backups.

What’s the procedure for changing hardware platform ?

If a backup is done locally through HAOS onto the SD card on the Pi3B, I would need to get the backup file off to another location, so I can restore it onto the new platform. I don’t believe I can get the file off HAOS without some sort of add-on.

4

And I’m not certain what you mean by “install method”, either.

5

See https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/#compare-installation-methods

Are you trying to restore the individual tar files inside the main tar file?

Don’t do that. Use the overall tar file. Read this:

6

No, I’m not trying to do that. I’m only trying to restore the top-level tar file.

Steps I followed on my Pi 3B+.

  1. Went to Settings / System / Backups
  2. Selected “create backup”
  3. Waited about a half hour (!) for the backup to be created
  4. Once complete, I clicked the vertical … menu, and “download backup” to get the file onto my Windows PC
  5. On my PC, fired up the Virtualbox VM running HAOS (Linux)
  6. Logged into http://:8123 in my browser
  7. Clicked “Alternatively you can restore from a previous backup”
  8. Selected the tar backup file I downloaded in step 4
  9. I got a pop-up stating “Unsupported file format - Please choose a Home Assistant backup file (.tar)”.
    Is the HAOS backup not compatible between different hardware platforms ?

FYI, I’m using Core 2022.5.4 on the Pi . HAOS 7.6 Supervisor 2022.05.1 .

The VDI image I downloaded is for HAOS 7.6 .

7

It has nothing to do with the hardware.

Try using a dummy account to set up the new system (it will be overwritten in a moment).

Install the SAMBA or SSH addon and upload the backup.

Try restoring from Settings > System > Backups.

8

Yes - use the method that Tom suggested. There is a bug (which I thought was fixed) that prevents restoring backups over a certain size during install.

I always need to install the base system, install SAMBA, copy over the backup then restore from local.

1 Like
9

Thanks. Do you have a reference to that bug ? And what is the size limit ? My backup is 715 MB.

10

Tom,

Thanks.

I tried with a dummy account. Then went to Settings → Systems → Backups . Clicked the vertical … menu and “upload backup”. I got the exact same problem as when using “Alternatively you can restore from a previous backup”. The tar file (which was generated by “Create backup” under Settings → Systems → Backups ) was not accepted. Same error I reported already multiple times : " “Unsupported file format - Please choose a Home Assistant backup file (.tar)”.

Is there no way to restore the backup without an add-on ?

I had issues with the Samba add-on related to the fact that my Windows username has a space in it, and the add-on doesn’t support it. Maybe I’ll give it another shot.

I will look at how to upload the backup with the ssh add-on.

11

Use WinSCP. It’s free.

12

Thanks. WinSCP worked. After setting up the SSH add-on, I was able to upload the backup. Once uploaded, I was able to restore it.

It seems that the “Upload backup” functionality from the browser is broken.
Is there a fix for this ? I’m on the latest HAOS release available to download.

The VM on which I’m trying to do the “upload backup” is :

Home Assistant Supervisor 2022.05.1

Home Assistant OS 7.6

Kernel version 5.10.108

Agent version 1.2.1

13

Log an issue on Github if it’s not working - it’s a long time since I had to do a restore so I can’t comment.

14

Opened Restore fails with "unsupported file format" · Issue #3639 · home-assistant/supervisor · GitHub

1 Like
15

Still not working in 2022.9.x. Uploading a backup over certain size during onboarding just silently fails without any indication, whisking the user to a “create new account” screen.

16

Having the same issue here. HOWEVER, ill save you a trip down to github: use CHROME instead of Firefox (workaround)

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17

Sounds ridiculous, but - when I went from an HA Blue to a NUC, I decided to just re-do everything from scratch. I had lots of odd errors and warnings and nonsense on my old system, so I wanted a nice clean, new system. It took me probably 30-40 hours worth of work. The way I saw it, no need to import old problems into a new system.

I know it’s not what you asked, but just wanted to throw this out there as something to consider.