2 years later and this video is still very much up-to-date. There are some changes to how to prepare a SD card (RPI has own app) but 95% of the content is up to date. Thanks for reassuring me that what I am doing is correct, especially given HA backup restore process doesn't provide any visual aid.
Great video. Home Assistant has a good backup and restore system. The Google Drive add-on makes this even better. I've had to do a restore on a few occasions: once I had an update that caused more problems than I had time to deal with so it was better to roll back; on another occasion I was upgrading from a pi to an x86 micro PC; and other times too. On all occasions the backup system has worked very well - do be patient though, and don't get caught out by IP changes.
Thanks Geoff! The IP changes are definitely a thing. When one thinks all is lost and it is only because the restored device is now on another IP than original.....
What if your backup is a year old (or older) does it matter what version of home assistant you are installing on the new device prior to restoring the backup? Thanks for making this video.
I implemented your video on backups to Google drive a few weeks ago so thank you for doing this follow up on how to restore from them. I’m running Home Assistant on an Intel NUC with SSD so to restore to that I guess I would need to connect the SSD directly to my laptop, do the restore and then put the SSD back into the NUC - or is there a better way of doing it?
You've got to get the HA image on the drive first, so that would make sense. Then once you have it back in the NUC and the restore screen comes up, you would follow the rest of the restore. This is similar to running an SSD on the pi. The HA image needs to get onto the SSD and then put back on the hosting device.
Firefox browser seems to have issues with restoring backups to Home Assistant… , my setup died last week (so card) could not get restore to work? Was using Firefox.. downloaded Chrome and it worked like a charm.
I was using the docker version on unraid for ha. I can slip the backup file into the directory but..there is no restore fuction anywheres when you log in. So that is when I found this video and reinstalled it. I hit f5 key and the refresh button on the tool bar. I sorta gave up. I don't understand why there is a backup section yet no restore abilities in it.
Finally had time to revisit this. So I tried my phone with crome and still don't see it with refresh. I also tried the ha core docker and the regular home assistant. I have version core-2022.7.1. Diff weird. My home assistant is version 2022.7.1. Not sure what difference is between the core and regular one. Looks like I will have manually renter the settings.
I did a partial restore from backup to few days earlier. I have hass on RPI 4 with an SD card. I only restored the homeassistant part. However, after that, the config folder is now empty. No configuration.yaml and nothing inside. The interesting part is that HA is still working, but without visible configuration files. I checked from the file editor and from SSH terminal - same thing. It is not possible to copy those config files back in. Other users also reported the same problem on HA community. Looks like a major issue to me.
There is a checkbox to backup the config files along with the rest. It is seperate thing so if you don't have that checked you might not be backing it up. Similarly, you need to check that box to restore the config files.
@@mostlychris HI, thanks for the reply, but that's not the problem in my case. I found out that it's a permission issue for the add-ons. The Terminal addon had a Protection Mode switch that needs to be turned off. For the File Editor, I removed it and reinstalled, then all started to work normally.
Great video. I have the OS in SD and the data file in SSD. I use Home Assistant Google Drive Backup. If I have to reset everything, what is the procedure? Thanks
Thanks chris thank you for responding to my previous comment and making this video. your amazing and as far as I know you are the only guy who have a video giving such detailed restore process thank you. One more thing you mentioned something about making your router to assign a particular ip to home assistant. Can you make a video on how to make router to assign an ip to home assistant or have you already done that?
Thanks for the comments! There are so many routers with so many different configuration screens that making one specific to my unifi USG might not benefit a large group--and you might have a completely different router. You can, however, set HA to static IP address once you restore.
Managing your users preferences for a device requires cookies. You cookies were stored under .158 but the new install was .157. Once you switched back to the .158, Home Assistant had access to the correct cookies.
I have HA instance running on proxmox Proxmox is running on an old dell laptop with HDD. It’s only a matter of time before it fails. Could I possibly clone this HDD onto an SSD, install it on the old dell laptop and have everything back up again or it’s more complicated than that?
Let me know the outcome of this question as I'd also like to migrate my HA set up to a VM running on Proxmox... I am hoping that it is as easy to do and that it includes all the automations, custom components, custom integrations using Hacs etc...
I would put a fresh Home Assistant image on the SSD for the hardware you are going to run it on, then take the backup from what it is on now and restore. You have to be careful about what USB accessories you might be running, such as zwave or zigbee sticks because those will likely not be addressed the same way and will need to be reconfigured in the integrations or add-ons that you are using them in. Experiment and see what happens. You can install this whole setup and do a restore before shutting down your current setup and if all goes to plan, put the new setup in production.
Great video! They are claiming to have made an SD card with SSD performance. Hopefully that also means reliability! 🤞 The refresh tip could definitely be handy!
Great video always useful. I want to use this tips to migrate from RPi3 to RPi4 and I wondering if the current configuration using Wi-Fi will suppressed the standard wired configuration when restore the back-up. I prefer to not use anymore the Wi-Fi for the HA server connection. Thanks
I think that if you have a network cable plugged into the Pi, it will take precedence over the WiFi connection and then HA will use whatever network transport is available. This is a PI thing and not a Home Assistant thing.
I get this error: 'Home Assistant Core.update' blocked from execution, system is not healthy - supervisor. So it can't be updated. Also, it cannot be restored. Please help me. Thank!
Thank you very much, The restore on a new SDcard worked great except the HA addons, like terminal en file manager needed to be started manual, but this want work. HA allways ask to start te addon ....
I'm currently using a raspberry pi to host HA however, I'd like to upgrade my instance of HA to a client PC. Could I do a partial restore of the config file?
Yes. Click on partial restore rather than full restore. Going from one architecture to another might not be as smooth as restoring back to the same device, so just keep that in mind. Make a backup of your PC version first and then if you brick it, you can restore from the last known good working copy and try again.
@@mostlychris I didn't try a phone. I suppose I could try my andriod phone, If I see the link i'll have to move the backup file to my phone. The browsers i used was chrome, firefox and the dreaded Ie. I will have to delete and reinstall the docker to try it again. I could just manually enter settings back into it quicker than this will take. The only long period of time will be the ip cameras. Just kinda crazy not much on the web on this, all info is on older version of house assistant. I really do not understand why they have a backup section..yet no restore features anywhere in the interface. I am able to put the backup into the backup folder through ftp..but yet no restore lol. I'm like that is just lame.
Hello mr Chris hope you're doing well, So i folled all the process witch you explais but i have one probleme witch i can't upload my backup i got this error "Please choose a Home Assistant backup file (.tar)" and my file is file.vdi, I want to switche from VM to raspberry. Have a blessed day.
Some good, generic info here - thanks! :-) Your title says ¨Inevitable SD card failure, ...¨. Yes, my experience too. RPi is a toy, except maybe for the new compute module. There is even a blogger who sells a T-shirt with ¨Its been ZERO days since I recompiled the RPi OS¨ on it. As far as RPi 3 or 4 is concerned, I have never been able to get them to work reliably although making the SD card read-only helps a bit.
Making the card read only does help a lot. I've got some ham radio related devices that run in read-only mode and they have lasted forever. However, Home Assistant needs to write data to the card so read only wouldn't work. I like that t-shirt. I'll take one, lol.
2 years later and this video is still very much up-to-date. There are some changes to how to prepare a SD card (RPI has own app) but 95% of the content is up to date. Thanks for reassuring me that what I am doing is correct, especially given HA backup restore process doesn't provide any visual aid.
Thanks!
This video in particular started me following your and was extremely helpful in my decision to go to SSD!
Thank you for the sub and thank you so much for the thanks!!
Great video. Home Assistant has a good backup and restore system. The Google Drive add-on makes this even better.
I've had to do a restore on a few occasions: once I had an update that caused more problems than I had time to deal with so it was better to roll back; on another occasion I was upgrading from a pi to an x86 micro PC; and other times too. On all occasions the backup system has worked very well - do be patient though, and don't get caught out by IP changes.
Thanks Geoff! The IP changes are definitely a thing. When one thinks all is lost and it is only because the restored device is now on another IP than original.....
What if your backup is a year old (or older) does it matter what version of home assistant you are installing on the new device prior to restoring the backup?
Thanks for making this video.
Thank you Chris for sharing how to actually use the back up. Very helpful.
Sure thing!
I implemented your video on backups to Google drive a few weeks ago so thank you for doing this follow up on how to restore from them. I’m running Home Assistant on an Intel NUC with SSD so to restore to that I guess I would need to connect the SSD directly to my laptop, do the restore and then put the SSD back into the NUC - or is there a better way of doing it?
I also did the google back up after watching his video
You've got to get the HA image on the drive first, so that would make sense. Then once you have it back in the NUC and the restore screen comes up, you would follow the rest of the restore. This is similar to running an SSD on the pi. The HA image needs to get onto the SSD and then put back on the hosting device.
Firefox browser seems to have issues with restoring backups to Home Assistant… , my setup died last week (so card) could not get restore to work? Was using Firefox.. downloaded Chrome and it worked like a charm.
I tried chome and still couldn't get the alternative restore link to pop up
Interesting. I have had my share of different browser brand behaviors. Make sure ya'll are doing a hard refresh of the browser.
I was using the docker version on unraid for ha. I can slip the backup file into the directory but..there is no restore fuction anywheres when you log in. So that is when I found this video and reinstalled it. I hit f5 key and the refresh button on the tool bar. I sorta gave up. I don't understand why there is a backup section yet no restore abilities in it.
Finally had time to revisit this. So I tried my phone with crome and still don't see it with refresh. I also tried the ha core docker and the regular home assistant. I have version core-2022.7.1. Diff weird. My home assistant is version 2022.7.1. Not sure what difference is between the core and regular one. Looks like I will have manually renter the settings.
Thanks for an excellent and complete explanation of this process.
I did a partial restore from backup to few days earlier.
I have hass on RPI 4 with an SD card.
I only restored the homeassistant part.
However, after that, the config folder is now empty. No configuration.yaml and nothing inside.
The interesting part is that HA is still working, but without visible configuration files.
I checked from the file editor and from SSH terminal - same thing.
It is not possible to copy those config files back in.
Other users also reported the same problem on HA community.
Looks like a major issue to me.
There is a checkbox to backup the config files along with the rest. It is seperate thing so if you don't have that checked you might not be backing it up. Similarly, you need to check that box to restore the config files.
@@mostlychris HI, thanks for the reply, but that's not the problem in my case.
I found out that it's a permission issue for the add-ons.
The Terminal addon had a Protection Mode switch that needs to be turned off. For the File Editor, I removed it and reinstalled, then all started to work normally.
Thank you Chris , your video helped me a lot as I faced this problem so many times and you maid it easy for me to solve it. Great man!
Great video.
I have the OS in SD and the data file in SSD. I use Home Assistant Google Drive Backup. If I have to reset everything, what is the procedure? Thanks
Thanks chris thank you for responding to my previous comment and making this video. your amazing and as far as I know you are the only guy who have a video giving such detailed restore process thank you. One more thing you mentioned something about making your router to assign a particular ip to home assistant. Can you make a video on how to make router to assign an ip to home assistant or have you already done that?
Thanks for the comments! There are so many routers with so many different configuration screens that making one specific to my unifi USG might not benefit a large group--and you might have a completely different router. You can, however, set HA to static IP address once you restore.
@@mostlychris Thank you chris
Managing your users preferences for a device requires cookies. You cookies were stored under .158 but the new install was .157. Once you switched back to the .158, Home Assistant had access to the correct cookies.
Ahh. That makes sense. Thanks for explaining!
Its normal the small size of the backup?
I have HA instance running on proxmox
Proxmox is running on an old dell laptop with HDD. It’s only a matter of time before it fails.
Could I possibly clone this HDD onto an SSD, install it on the old dell laptop and have everything back up again or it’s more complicated than that?
Let me know the outcome of this question as I'd also like to migrate my HA set up to a VM running on Proxmox... I am hoping that it is as easy to do and that it includes all the automations, custom components, custom integrations using Hacs etc...
I would put a fresh Home Assistant image on the SSD for the hardware you are going to run it on, then take the backup from what it is on now and restore. You have to be careful about what USB accessories you might be running, such as zwave or zigbee sticks because those will likely not be addressed the same way and will need to be reconfigured in the integrations or add-ons that you are using them in. Experiment and see what happens. You can install this whole setup and do a restore before shutting down your current setup and if all goes to plan, put the new setup in production.
Will this restore everything, including the Custom Configuration and all associated folders... HACS custom_components etc...
If you have them backed up it should. My HA goes back to exactly the way it was at the point I made the backup.
Great video! They are claiming to have made an SD card with SSD performance. Hopefully that also means reliability! 🤞
The refresh tip could definitely be handy!
I would like to see SD with the performance and reliability of an SSD.
@@mostlychris 🤯
Great video always useful. I want to use this tips to migrate from RPi3 to RPi4 and I wondering if the current configuration using Wi-Fi will suppressed the standard wired configuration when restore the back-up. I prefer to not use anymore the Wi-Fi for the HA server connection. Thanks
I think that if you have a network cable plugged into the Pi, it will take precedence over the WiFi connection and then HA will use whatever network transport is available. This is a PI thing and not a Home Assistant thing.
I get this error: 'Home Assistant Core.update' blocked from execution, system is not healthy - supervisor. So it can't be updated. Also, it cannot be restored. Please help me. Thank!
Thank you very much, The restore on a new SDcard worked great except the HA addons, like terminal en file manager needed to be started manual, but this want work. HA allways ask to start te addon ....
I found the solution, a warm reboot did not solved the problem, but a could restart of my Odroid solved the problem, all addons are oke now. 😃
I'm currently using a raspberry pi to host HA however, I'd like to upgrade my instance of HA to a client PC. Could I do a partial restore of the config file?
Yes. Click on partial restore rather than full restore. Going from one architecture to another might not be as smooth as restoring back to the same device, so just keep that in mind. Make a backup of your PC version first and then if you brick it, you can restore from the last known good working copy and try again.
I tried the refresh on 3 browsers..it won't show up the restore link on the main login screen on initial boot.
Hmm. That is interesting. What about on a different PC or phone if you have that option?
@@mostlychris I didn't try a phone. I suppose I could try my andriod phone, If I see the link i'll have to move the backup file to my phone. The browsers i used was chrome, firefox and the dreaded Ie. I will have to delete and reinstall the docker to try it again. I could just manually enter settings back into it quicker than this will take. The only long period of time will be the ip cameras. Just kinda crazy not much on the web on this, all info is on older version of house assistant. I really do not understand why they have a backup section..yet no restore features anywhere in the interface. I am able to put the backup into the backup folder through ftp..but yet no restore lol. I'm like that is just lame.
Hello mr Chris hope you're doing well, So i folled all the process witch you explais but i have one probleme witch i can't upload my backup i got this error "Please choose a Home Assistant backup file (.tar)" and my file is file.vdi, I want to switche from VM to raspberry. Have a blessed day.
Change your browser to Chrome - this worked for me!
Some good, generic info here - thanks! :-)
Your title says ¨Inevitable SD card failure, ...¨. Yes, my experience too. RPi is a toy, except maybe for the new compute module. There is even a blogger who sells a T-shirt with ¨Its been ZERO days since I recompiled the RPi OS¨ on it.
As far as RPi 3 or 4 is concerned, I have never been able to get them to work reliably although making the SD card read-only helps a bit.
Making the card read only does help a lot. I've got some ham radio related devices that run in read-only mode and they have lasted forever. However, Home Assistant needs to write data to the card so read only wouldn't work. I like that t-shirt. I'll take one, lol.
Thank you
You're welcome.
Super video! But never use SD card, use SSD!
Agreed. I have an SSD. This would apply to restoring on that medium as well.