Why downgrade your Video Management System?

Although it is never recommended to downgrade your Video Management System (VMS), there are certain cases where a user wants to downgrade their VMS after an upgrade to a later version. This article describes how to downgrade your VMS.

The VMS automatically creates a backup of the previous version database prior to every upgrade, so to downgrade the VMS, you will need to

1. Create a copy of this database,
2. Completely remove the VMS
3. Install the desired version
4. Restore the newly installed System from the backup database.

Downgrading the VMS

Make a copy of the system database

1. Stop the Server service.

2. Locate the Server database folder and move the ecs.sqlite database file to a safe location:
   For Windows:

   C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\<VendorName>\<BrandName> mediaserver

   For Linux:

   /opt/<BrandName>/mediaserver/var

   NOTE: This step must be repeated for every Server in a multiserver system

3. Open the backup folder and copy the last backup file to a safe location.
   Depending on whether the last backup was automatic or manually triggered, it will be named:

   ecs_<buildnumber>_<epochTimestamp>_timer.db 

   ecs_<buildnumber>_<epochTimestamp>_manual.db

Uninstall the current version and install the desired version

1. Uninstall the current installed version
2. Install and set up the desired VMS version on each affected Server in the System. Feel free to use the same System Name, or another one, it doesn't really matter as this will be restored by your ecs.backup file.
   
   NOTE: You can only downgrade to a build that matches with copied database build number.
    
3. After installation is complete, stop all Server services that are part of the System.
4. Move back to the Server(/var) folder
5. Delete the current ecs.sqlite file in the folder
6. Move to the database backup folder
7. Select the backup file you would like to restore from.
   The file you're looking for will have the same timestamp you upgraded to the version you are downgrading from.
8. Rename the database backup file to ecs.sqlite and move it to the folder where you initially deleted the ecs.sqlite file from
9. Repeat this for all Servers in the System
10. Restart all Servers
11. Open the Desktop client and login using the Local admin password or use the Cloud Owner account
12. After restoring the database, make sure all cameras/settings/etc. are accurate. 
    
    NOTE: Any changes made to the system after the backup file was created will be lost.