Five months after its previous 12.0.1 release, LibreELEC, a purpose-built OS designed specifically for running Kodi, has launched its second update to the 12.x series, version 12.0.2, which brings Kodi 21.2, and integrated Linux kernel 6.6 for ARM devices.
A critical shift in this release involves transitioning 64-bit capable ARM SoCs—such as Raspberry Pi 4/5—from the arm to aarch64 userspace.
In light of this, if you rely on the manual update feature in LibreELEC settings, you might notice no new 12.0 releases listed for devices that have switched architectures because only the new aarch64 images are available.
However, you can still perform a manual update by placing the LibreELEC 12 release file (“.tar” or “.img.gz“) in the “/storage/.update” directory and simply rebooting your system.
Keep in mind, if you are streaming content from services like Netflix or Prime Video, you must delete the Widevine CDN folder located in “/storage/.kodi/cdm” before launching these services for the first time on aarch64 architecture.
Once the folder is removed, the correct Widevine libraries for aarch64 will be automatically downloaded and installed upon first use.
Users deploying Docker containers from the LinuxServer.io add-ons should find that the migration to aarch64 is handled seamlessly. However, if you have been running containers installed directly from the console, you will need to remove any existing arm-based containers before updating.
After the update, you can reinstall aarch64 (arm64) containers to be compatible with the new environment.
Those using Raspberry Pi hardware for higher-frame-rate playback (50/60fps in H.264) may need to enable “force_turbo=1” or set “core_freq_min=500” in their “config.txt” file, avoiding any audio-video sync issues or skipping.
To get LibreELEC 12.0.2 for your hardware, visit the project’s download section. The release announcement provides more details about all novelties and changes.
Lastly, if you are upgrading from LibreELEC 9.x or older versions, keep in mind that a clean install is mandatory due to Python 3 changes introduced from LibreELEC 10.x onward (Kodi v19).
