Table of Contents

Ubiquiti - Controller - Downgrade Controller

ALERT: This is NOT supported, so at own risk!

You cannot downgrade controllers unless you have a backup from the controller version you want to downgrade to (or older).

Always make a backup (suggest - settings only) to your PC before upgrading or downgrading so you can get back where you were.

NOTE: If you do not have a backup - then you will need to factory reset your devices, adopt and configure like a new setup.

Make a Backup

Make a controller backup of settings only from the Backup tab and save it to your PC - so if anything goes wrong - just factory reset and restore.

Downgrade the Controller

SSH into the Cloud Key's IP and load the previous controller. 

ssh ubnt@192.168.1.10
ubnt@192.168.1.10's password: 
apt purge unifi -y
rm unifi_sysvinit_all.deb*
wget https://dl.ui.com/unifi/5.14.23/unifi_sysvinit_all.deb
dpkg -i unifi_sysvinit_all.deb
rm unifi_sysvinit_all.deb

NOTE: Replace the version in the wget line with the version you want.

Import your settings backup

NOTE: If you get an error when you try to restore the backup:

  • “There was an error uploading the backup file. The backup file you are trying to load is from a newer version of the UniFi Controller and cannot be used with this controller”.

The restore is not functioning because you're uploading a newer controller backup on an older controller, that is not supported.

To resolve this issue, update the firmware to a version higher or equal to the version of your backup.

Check Logs

If you have issues, then check the logs: 

/usr/lib/unifi/logs/

tail /var/log/unifi/server.log