How to backup "everything" on SBT?

[erland]

However, will this enable you to restore everything, if for some reason, the update servers or whatever is on the internet are not accessible through the touch? In particular, Firmware / Kernel, Installed Apps...?

Custom firmware can be installed by connecting the Touch a LMS on a computer where you have manually put the correct firmware files in the <Cache>/updates directory. Unless I've missed something the kernel is part of the firmware.

It's also possible to put firmware on a USB stick and insert in into the Touch, it will then upgrade/downgrade to the firmware on the USB stick when it boots.

On the Touch itself, it might be a good idea to backup the contents of the /etc/squeezeplay and /etc/squeezecenter directores as they contain all settings which you might want to restore.

I think the list of installed Apps might only be stored on mysqueezebox.com, but I'm not completely sure. However, most/all? of the apps are provided through mysqueezebox.com so if Logitech's servers aren't available they aren't going to work anyway.

What bothers me a bit is, that a factory reset does obviously only revert settings and apps back to default, but not the firmware. So what if a nightly firmware or an experimental Kernel messes up the touch, so that the internal restore tool does not work anymore? How can the thing be reinstalled from scratch?

If I remember correctly there are some way which you can force different kind of resets depending on how long you hold the reset button on the back of the Touch, but I can't find the information at the moment, thought it was somewhere on the wiki but I can't find it so if anybody else knows where it is please let us know.

Of course, if the firmware mess it up really bad so the boot code executed in the beginning of the startup doesn't work, then it's going to be hard for you to correct it yourself. But as long as you only load it with firmware provided by Logitech or Triode I wouldn't worry too much about this as I know they tests these parts a lot to ensure it doesn't cause these kind of issues. I'm not saying the firmware is bug free, I'm just saying that the risk of it containing bugs that makes it impossible to downgrade/upgrade to another firmware version is really low.

As far as I understand, this is simply a piece of gear made to live as long as Logitech supports it, and one has to live with that.

Which is basically the same as any other hardware from any other manufacturer. BIOS upgrades for your computer, operating system upgrades for your computer, firmware for your router is only updated as long as the manufacturer supports it. My TV and Receiver comes with the firmware they have from the factory and there is no easy way to upgrade it at all. So the Squeezebox isn't much different than any other hardware in this regard.

The only difference is that the Touch uses the mysqueezebox.com service for a lot of its "Apps" functionality, and this would be lost if mysqueezebox.com is shutdown.
If Logitech would shutdown mysqueezebox.com (which I'm sure they will not do anytime soon), I trust they would still keep the firmware available, at least for manual download and installation. All this worries in the forum about Logitech completely shutting down mysqueezebox.com is very premature, they simply can't do it as long as they have devices which are within their warranty period, at least not unless they can offer the customers an alternative solution.

The Touch with it's built-in server or with a LMS running on a computer will continue to work for locally stored music without mysqueezebox.com, the only issue is that the stuff in the "My Apps" menu is going to stop working unless there is a third party plugin available that provides the same functionality.

[diego]

... If I remember correctly there are some way which you can force different kind of resets depending on how long you hold the reset button on the back of the Touch, but I can't find the information at the moment, thought it was somewhere on the wiki but I can't find it so if anybody else knows where it is please let us know...

In my experience, and I have used it many times, when you hold the buttom 10 seconds, it starts factory reset. Does nothing else, even if you press it longer. But I might be wrong...

... Which is basically the same as any other hardware from any other manufacturer. BIOS upgrades for your computer, operating system upgrades for your computer, firmware for your router is only updated as long as the manufacturer supports it. My TV and Receiver comes with the firmware they have from the factory and there is no easy way to upgrade it at all...

I can reinstall my old windows 3.1 to my old notebook with the backup image I have for this purpose any time in case something would mess up... the SBT is a computer, so it would be nice to have the same functionality. However, you are right, if a DVD player gets an error in its firmware, you probably won't get it to work anymore at home either.

[JohnSwenson]

In my experience, and I have used it many times, when you hold the buttom 10 seconds, it starts factory reset. Does nothing else, even if you press it longer. But I might be wrong...



I can reinstall my old windows 3.1 to my old notebook with the backup image I have for this purpose any time in case something would mess up... the SBT is a computer, so it would be nice to have the same functionality. However, you are right, if a DVD player gets an error in its firmware, you probably won't get it to work anymore at home either.

As has been mentioned you can always load a firmware version from a USB stick or SD card even if the flash is trashed, as long as the equivalent of the BIOS (the boot loader) is intact. If you are woried about logitech not supporting things in the future, grab a version of the firmware you like and put it on a USB stick and keep that in your fireproof safe. (you probably want a CD or stick of the matching server as well) That should keep you going for a LONG time no matter what else happens.

If the bootloader gets trashed recovering is a little more difficult. You need to open the Touch up and attach a special cable which attaches to a serial port on your computer running special software that will program a new bootloader into the Touch, not something most users are going to do. Fortunately the probability of the bootloader going bad is VERY low.

John S.

[aubuti]

In my experience, and I have used it many times, when you hold the buttom 10 seconds, it starts factory reset. Does nothing else, even if you press it longer. But I might be wrong...

That's it, pretty much. A short press just does a reboot, and a press-and-hold in the range of around 10 secs to infinity does a factory reset.