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June 2, 2026

Balena devices from before the Anthias rename keep or recover their playlist on upgrade

From Anthias 2026.06.1, a balena device installed before the Screenly to Anthias rename keeps its playlist and content when it upgrades. A device that already lost them gets them back when it starts 2026.06.1.

Before, such a device could come up with an empty playlist after an upgrade, and many did when Anthias 2026.05.2 rolled out. Nothing had been deleted. Its data was still under /data/.screenly and /data/screenly_assets, but Anthias reads /data/.anthias and /data/anthias_assets, so it started with a new, empty database. Raspberry Pi OS and Debian installs weren't affected, because the installer and the upgrade script already rename those folders.

Now the containers run that same migration against /data every time they start:

  • On a device that hasn't been migrated yet, the configuration, database and content move to the anthias names, and the paths inside anthias.conf are rewritten to match.
  • On a device that already came up empty, if anthias.db has no content and the old screenly.db does, the old database is copied into place. The empty one is kept as anthias.db.emptybak.<timestamp>. If anthias_assets is empty too, it becomes a link to the old media folder.

Anthias 2026.06.0 already included this migration, but inside the containers it stopped with an error before doing anything, so it takes effect from 2026.06.1. You don't need to do anything. The recovery only replaces a database with no content in it, so if you added content to an affected device after the upgrade, nothing is replaced, and the old database stays at /data/.screenly/screenly.db.