Pool metadata Restore RESTORE_INCOMPATIBLE_VERSION

[f_schramek]

Hi,
i had a XCP-NG Hosts boot disk die on me today. And offcourse XO was on this host and this host

I've installed XCP-NG on a new disk and got XenOrchestra talking to the Backup Storage again. I've also got the old vm storage SR reattatched to the new xcp-ng .

When trying to restore the pool metadata, XO gives me a RESTORE_INCOMPATIBLE_VERSION error.
The backed up pool metadata shows a XAPI_Build of 24.19.2 ( "date": 20240919T08:48:21Z",) and the new install is the latest iso... so XAPI_build 26.1.11. ( date: 20260707T07:40:12Z). (I must have forgotten to update this one, because the other hosts where up to date.)

Is there any way of restoring the old pool data to the new host.

Thanks in advance
Felix

[poddingue]

That's a big jump, XAPI 24.19.2 to 26.1.11.
I think the guard is deliberate rather than a bug: a metadata restore overwrites the whole XAPI database, so XAPI refuses when the builds don't line up.
The docs at https://docs.xen-orchestra.com/xo5/metadata_backup#performing-a-restore warn about the overwrite but say nothing about version compatibility, which feels like a gap on our side.
I don't know if there's a supported way to replay an older metadata backup onto a newer build, and I wouldn't want to guess at hand-editing it.
Might be worth a mention to @Team-XAPI-Network, they can say whether a staged path exists, something like installing the matching older build, restoring, then updating.

Correct me if someone here has actually pulled this off.