I am running a C7 hub that manages lighting, HVAC, and intrusion for my second home. Because I am rarely there, I have been hesitant to take hub upgrades and am still running v2.3.2.141 (July 2022). I am there now and would like to upgrade before I get (even more) ridiculously behind.
That said, what are the best practices for making such a significant upgrade?
I subscribe to Hub Protect and see a backup that was created this morning. Is that all I would need to completely roll back?
I am running 40+ WebCore pistons. They manage all aspects of the house including the Blue Iris surveillance system, and it has taken years of tinkering to get them just right. Are these included in the backup, and would they be restored if I need to roll back? Losing them would be disastrous.
What other steps should I take before upgrading?
Am I a fool for even attempting this?
Thanks for any suggestions and, more importantly, for any information on how to avoid potential disaster. And pardon my ignorance— I was a longtime ST user and had to fly back to the US and migrate from ST to HE when ST announced they would be killing WebCore. I’ve pretty much ignored HE since then because “it just works.”
This has come up a few times recently, updating from very old firmware. In the end the users just go for it, update, and I believe had no issues that were reported.
I would first check your diagnostic tool version to make sure it is up to date in case things go sideways. Use endpoint HUB.IP/hub/cloud/updateDiagnosticTool to force it to update (if your old platform has that endpoint, not sure). Looks like current version should be 1.1.131
Take a local backup and save to your PC.
Then you should be safe to go for it.
If you run into issues, I recommend DO NOT jump right to restoring a cloud backup. Restoring a backup DOES NOT roll back the hub platform. Normally for rolling back you just go to the diagnostic tool and use the restore previous button, and select a previously installed platform. In your case, you may also need to soft reset and then restore your LOCAL backup because I think there were some back end database changes since the platform version you have now. You should not need a cloud back up at all but its good to have for an emergency.
You will also want to check and update the zwave radio firmware on the C7 after updating. See there special instructions:
Webcore pistons should be included in any local or cloud backups (in the hub database). For extra precaution there is a way to export all your pistons in one batch as a separate backup for just webcore, but I am not sure how since I do not use Webcore.
There is also a rare chance your hub may appear "reset" after you update if the database does not migrate correctly due to changes made. If that happens just restoring the local backup from BEFORE the update should load everything back into the database and get you back going. The z-wave and zigbee radios would not be touched so devices should keep working once database is loaded.
The local (hub database) backups are not tied to a specific platform version, you can in theory load any backup into any platform version. The version listed with the backup is just FYI, and does not need to match up with the running platform.
Thanks for your reply. It's very helpful. One question, though. When I go into the Diagnostics tool and select Restore Previous Version, I'm only given the option to restore version 2.2.6.140. I was expecting a drop-down that would allow me to select a specific version.
Do you know if the method of selecting a specific version works for all previous versions? I'm concerned that the version I'm running may be too old and is no longer archived and/or available.
The restore previous menu has the last 4-5 platforms that were installed on the hub. It is showing you the image files that are still cached on the hub but it only keeps so many. The version you are running now will show up there after you update.
I am not sure how far back that downloadPlatform endpoint goes. I know it goes pretty far back, they keep all the old builds available. That endpoint itself may possibly not work for you currently, I am not sure when it got added, but it would work after updating if you needed to download an old version again.
I don't know how far away that 2nd home is, but for me I would only update while I'm physically in the house, unless you have a means to remote power cycle the hub(not reboot).
well becuse, Murphy is my uncle.
Just use Backup Piston(s) on the main page of Webcore, if you want that extra security. It saves them to a file on your local machine, and you can open that file to restore them if needed.
