Updating OpenELEC

This article describes the process of updating OpenELEC to the latest build.

Updating OpenELEC isn't like updating any other operating system you'll have used before. There's no package manager, and no terminal usage. In fact, updating OpenELEC is more like updating the firmware on your broadband router!

Update Methods

There are three methods available:

• Automatic updates (the prefered method)
• Manual updates
• No updates

If "Automatic updates" is enabled, OpenELEC will check online for an update. If it finds one the update will be downloaded and unpacked. You will then be notified that a reboot is required to apply the update.

Note: Automatic updates will now be available for installation of beta, release candidates or stable releases.

If "Manual updating" is selected then you will need to provide the update to OpenELEC. This is ideal if the OpenELEC machine is not internet connected as you can download them elsewhere and provide them to OpenELEC. The process for manually updating OpenELEC is provided below.

If "No updates" is selected, the system will not update itself - even if the updates are provided to it.

Manually Updating OpenELEC

First of all, head over to the downloads page and download the latest release of OpenELEC. Use your favourite archiving utility to extract the files from the archive you've downloaded (7zip is my favourite Windows archiver).

Now, from your PC, open a Explorer window and browse to the IP address of the OpenELEC machine (if you don't know what the IP address is, go to the menu of the OpenELEC machine, and browse to the main item "System" and then its subitem "System Info". This will open a page that shows the IP address amongst other information.

So type this into the address bar of the explorer window. For example, if your IP address is 192.168.1.92, browse to:

 \\192.168.1.92

Once the window appears, open the "Update" folder share. There shouldn't be anything inside this share, unless you have another update pending.

From the folder you extracted the new release into, open the target folder. Inside you should find four files. Grab KERNEL, KERNEL.md5, SYSTEM and SYSTEM.md5 from here (dont ignore the MD5 files) and copy/extract them to the Update share on the OpenELEC machine.

Finish

Once the files have been copied, reboot the OpenELEC machine. OpenELEC will recognize the new system files and update them internally. A second reboot will follow automatically to activate the new system files.

Downgrading

If for whatever reason the new build is not working properly on your OpenELEC machine, you can also downgrade to a lower version in the same way as you do an upgrade. All provided that the Samba server is still working properly.

Copy the two files, KERNEL and SYSTEM, into the Update folder, and reboot your OpenELEC machine. The downgrade process will continue the same as the upgrade process would.