Issue with OTA upgrades using Mender 3.5 generated artifacts on devices with Mender 2.0.0

I hope this message finds you well.

We are currently facing an issue with OTA upgrades on devices in the field. Our devices are using Mender client version 2.0.0, and we have recently upgraded our Mender client to version 3.5. After generating the artifacts using Mender client version 3.5 in Yocto, we encountered an error when attempting OTA upgrades on devices with Mender client version 2.0.0.

The error we are encountering is:

INFO[0000] Loaded configuration file: /etc/mender/mender.conf module=config
INFO[0000] Mender running on partition: /dev/mmcblk1p1 module=main
INFO[0000] Start updating from local image file: [syk-emg-image-test-mackinac-6ull-20240509115326.mender] module=standalone
Installing Artifact of size 108670976…
INFO[0000] no public key was provided for authenticating the artifact module=installer
INFO[0000] Update Module path “/usr/share/mender/modules/v3” could not be opened (open /usr/share/mender/modules/v3: no such file or directory). Update modules will not be available module=modules
ERRO[0000] Unknown device_type. Continuing with update module=installer
ERRO[0000] Reading headers failed: installer: failed to read Artifact: type_info provides values not yet supported module=standalone
ERRO[0000] installer: failed to read Artifact: type_info provides values not yet supported module=main

To address this issue, we made changes to the mender-artifactimg.bbclass file located at meta-mender-core/classes/mender-artifactimg.bbclass. Specifically, we added the following line:
MENDER_ARTIFACT_EXTRA_ARGS = “–no-checksum-provide”

Despite this change, we are still unable to perform OTA upgrades using Mender 3.5 generated artifacts on devices with Mender 2.0.0.

We would like to inquire if there is a way to install Mender 3.5 generated artifacts on devices with Mender 2.0.0. If possible, could you please provide guidance on the changes we need to make to achieve this OTA upgrade?

Your assistance in resolving this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and support.

Hi @vk7887,

The artefacts are generated using the mender-artifact tool, not the Mender Client. See the documentation here for more details: mender-artifact/Documentation at master · mendersoftware/mender-artifact · GitHub

So without diving into the history here, I would guess that the old client 2.0 just supports artifact format version 2, while now you are creating version 3 ones. So the only meaningful way is to generate a set of artefacts in the old version.

Greets,
Josef

@TheYoctoJester Thanks for the update, we have used below variable to generate artifacts of version 2
MENDER_ARTIFACT_EXTRA_ARGS = “–version 2”

Now we are able to install the mender 3.5
Thanks!