Vero 4k+ Kodi 19.1 update error installing bluezalsa

[Tunttis]

After an upgrade to August update, during the updating I received an error:

" An error occurred while installing the following package:
18-armv7-bluezalsa-osmc (3.1.0-2)
Please report this problem on the OSMC forum, making sure to include debug logs. Attempting to restart Kodi in 30 seconds…"

After restart, Vero4k+ just shows sad face and and reboots every 20 seconds.
I can’t establish SSH connection to Vero 4k+ to grab logs.
Is there anything else to be done than fresh installation?
Worthwhile mentioning that I’ve been testing the experimental bluetooth audio before to get headphones working.

[grahamh]

@Tunttis

I can’t establish SSH connection to Vero 4k+ to grab logs.

That’s the difficult bit. If you are using WiFi to connect, try a cable connection instead. If that fails, attach a USB keyboard and hit Esc when Kodi is trying to restart, you may get a console where you can log in. If you can get a console that way, read the last part of this post where it says how to remove previous versions of the BT audio packages.

[How-to] set up Bluetooth audio

[Updated November 2021] Bluez-alsa allows you to stream audio both to and from your OSMC device. We have now integrated bluez-alsa into OSMC as a replacement for our a2dp package which is deprecated. Our Kodi v19 builds include bluez-alsa. If you are still on v18.9, you can install it on Vero 4k or RPi 2/3 with: sudo apt-get install armv7-bluezalsa-osmc and re-boot to get the bluealsa service started. If you have previously installed one of our older BT audio packages, you will need to re…

It’s not normal for those old packages to stop Kodi from starting but it’s worth a try to get rid of them first. With the console, you should be able to back up your .kodi directory to a thumbdrive if you don’t have a backup. Then re-installing won’t be so painful if it comes to that.

[Tunttis]

Thanks for the prompt reply!

I think the best solution is to backup .kodi to a thumbdrive and do a fresh install.
I was able to get into console but as my Vero4k+ is normally run through Wifi → Can’t fix broken install as there is no internet connection. I was able to remove armv7-bluez-alsa-osmc.

I currently don’t have a proper adaptor to connect my PC monitor to Vero 4k+ so I tried to do the fix broken install blindly without monitor with wired connection with no luck.

What do I need to do in order to backup .kodi directory? Is there a guide / FAQ for this that you could point out for me. Sorry, I’m not so familiar with the console, I can use it but I’m not familiar with it.

Thank you

[fzinken]

@Tunttis

What do I need to do in order to backup .kodi directory? Is there a guide / FAQ for this that you could point out for me. Sorry, I’m not so familiar with the console, I can use it but I’m not familiar with it.

Well as you don’t have Network connection you would need to connect a USB Stick/Disk as the target for the backup.

You can then run:
tar -cvzf /media/<NAME OF THE DISK FOLDER>/kodi_backup.tgz .kodi/

Suggest to verify the backup afterwards on your PC before reinstall.

[Tunttis]

I ended up doing fresh installation without any backup as the .kodi folder backup didn’t work either.
Now with clean fresh installation everything working as expected.