I have a system running under Home Assistant OS on a Raspberry Pi 3B. The system has been running without any problems for some time.
The RPI 3B is running the newest version of the HA software:
- Core 2026.4.2
- Supervisor 2026.04.0
- Operation System 17.2
- Frontend 20260325.7
The following apps are installed: - File editor
- Studio Code Server
- Terminal & SSH
- Duck DNS
The system has also some integrations: Fibaro, Homely, HACS, Miele, Google Cast ++.
I want to move this configuration to my new Raspberry Pi 4.
I have done the following steps:
- Made a manual backup of my RPI 3B system excluding Media and Share folder and downloaded the backup file to my laptop
- Loaded the Home Assistant image for RPI 4 on a 60 GB SD card using the Raspberry Pi Imager application for Windows
- With the SD card inserted, the RPI 4 boots up as expected and after I while my browser shows the HA startup screen when I enter the url homeassistant.local:8123
- On the startup screen I have 3 choices, set up a new home, restore from a local backup or restore from HA cloud
- And here is where the problem starts. I have tried two methods and in both cases I end up with a locked HA on the RPI 4
Method 1
- I select the method “Restore from a local backup”
- I select the backup file that was created from the RPI 3 and downloaded to my laptop
- From the backup file I select all the components, Settings and history, SSL certificates and the 4 apps
- When I click Restore the restore process starts and my browser loosesthe connection to HA and is waiting to reconnect
- But the HA never comes up again. I waited for approx one hour.
- There are no error messages in the browser and in the terminal that is connected to the RPI 4 HDMI
- The output in the terminal seems normal saying that the system is Ready
- I am able to ping homeassistant.local
On the internet I found some hints saying “Restoring a backup made on Supervisor version 2026.04.0 may fail due to compatibility issues or missing add-ons that need to be installed first. It’s recommended to ensure all necessary add-ons are installed before attempting the restore”
So I therefor tried method 2
- I reloaded the SD card with a fresh HA image
- With the SD card inserted, the RPI 4 boots up as expected and after I while my browser shows the HA startup screen when I enter the url homeassistant.local:8123
- On the startup screen I now picked the choice “Set up a new home”
- I went through the steps: adding user, setting location ++ and I ended up with fresh running HA
- I checked the versions of the HA software and it was exactly the same as for the RPI 3 listed in the start of this text.
- I then installed all apps that I have on RPI 3 except Duck DNS. I dropped Duck DNS so I could connect from my browser with url homeassistant.local:8123 and not via the Duck DNS.
- I also set up the ip4 with a static ip on the local network. (Same as the RPI 3 but a different IP)
- Then I uploaded the backup file created on the RPI 3 stored on my laptop
- When the backup file was uploaded I clicked on the file to do a restore, but this time I only selected the component Setting and history (not SSL certificates and none of the apps in the backup).
- I clicked Restore and the restore process started and the browser lost connection to the HA
- The browser kept trying to reconnect without success. I waited for approx 1 hour and still no connection on url homeassistant.local:8123 (or :8123)
- I ended up with the same result as with method 1
- I could ping homeassistant.local:8123
- No error message in the browser.
- The terminal connected to the RPI 4 HDMI looks normal saying that the system is Ready
- But HA is dead!
What am I doing wrong here? Is it a problem to take backup from RPI 3 and restore it on RPI 4 when we have the same HA version on both units?
Regards Edgar