LoxBerry Update is the integrated update management for LoxBerry from version 1.0. With LoxBerry Update, your LoxBerry can be updated directly and automatically from the user interface. 

After a new installation of LoxBerry, you should run LoxBerry Update to the "Release" level, before installing plugins.

→ All What's New articles

The installation time of LoxBerry Update depends on your Raspberry model: Our experience on a Raspberry 1 is about 6 to 8 minutes, on a Raspberry 3 about 30 seconds to 1 minute. It also depends on the step width "from"→"to". 

After starting the update, it runs in the background. You can do other things during the update, only a reboot and plugin installations are prevented. 

In LoxBerry Update History you can open the logfile of the update. If the update is strill in progress, you can watch the progress in the log.

The LoxBerry-Core team, the developers of the LoxBerry platform, use the software package git, and the cloud platform GitHub for release management, and as issue/bug tracker.

Every change of the developers is commited and pushed to GitHub. At this latest commit level, also errors could be included, that hopefully get fixed with further commits.

Setting "Latest commit (at your own risk!)"

With this setting, you receive exactly the commit level of the LoxBerry-Core developers - maybe errorfree, maybe not. In new features, sometimes there are errors, that later get fixed during tests of the Core developers. Sometimes, new but unfinished functions get introduced, possibly only for prototyping, that are not in a stable state.

If you are not a LoxBerry-Core delevoper, and not a plugin developer, you should avoid this level, and only use it if you are asked from a developer to do so.

As soon as the LoxBerry-Core team decides, that development has reached a finished state, this is released as a "Pre-Release". A pre-release includes all changes to an exact point of time.

The pre-release usually is tested by the Core delevopers, the plugin developers and also from enthusiastic LoxBerry users. New features are included, but need some further testing by the community.

If you want to test new features, and support the Core team, use the "Prerelease" level. 

Any issues with the prerelease please report to the Core team.

After some time, if no troubles arise, the Prerelease is changed to be a "Release". "Releases" are tested good and are stable (or should be).

If we get issues at the prerelease state, we might release another prerelease, before setting a prerelease to the "Release" state.

For your live environment of your Raspberry, you should select the "Release" type.

Every update includes all changes of every update before. 

Max. 30 (Pre-)Releases

For technical reasons, LoxBerry Update only supports version jumps up to 30 pre-releases. If there are more than 30 pre-releases between your installed version and the current version, LoxBerry Update may fail. Every release and pre-release is counted for 30, independent of your Update setting.

A "Prerelease" normally directly is switched to be a "Release" when there weren't issues during the prerelease state. 

That means:

• A Prerelease with version 1.0.3 might get the Release 1.0.3 in the next week. The code is identical.
• A Prerelease always can be consistently updated to a newer Release or newer Prerelease. 
• In some situations, a Prerelease never gets a Release. E.g. the Prerelease 1.0.3.1 never got a Release. Updates are cumulative, so if you are on a Prerelease that never got a Release, you can update to any higher Release or Prerelease without an issue.
• All updates include all the changes from every older update. You can update your LoxBerry V1.0.2 to LoxBerry V1.2.4 and are getting all the new features.

Currently, new releases are published in a one month rythm, but there is no exact timetable. As developing happens in the spare time, this is also dependent to the season and the weather.

New sd card images are only created on demand.

New images are trailed to the second number (1.0, 1.2,…). 

Changes by LoxBerry Update are associated to the third number (1.2.3, 1.2.4).

If it needs more than one Prerelease before of a Release, it's numbered in the fourth position (1.2.4.1, 1.2.4.2). These Prereleases only fix problems of the featureset announced for the LoxBerry Update (e.g. 1.2.4.2 fixes something in 1.2.4).

A new sd image does not need to reinstall LoxBerry. A new image is equal to run LoxBerry Update to the same version. You can see a new image like a service pack, containing all  LoxBerry Updates.

It is not possible to do a downgrade of LoxBerry with LoxBerry Update. Every update runs update scripts that cannot be reverted. If you have an issue, please report it to the LoxBerry-Core developers.

You can use the LoxBerry Backup plugin to create images of your LoxBerry to easily restore to an previous state. 

The check for new LoxBerry Releases is part of LoxBerry's Healthcheck. If your LoxBerry uses an old Release, this will trigger a warning. The healthcheck does not trigger an error on old versions. If the Healthcheck could not run the check, it may trigger an error.