# MinIO Version Pinning and xl Meta Compatibility

**Applies when:** changing MinIO image tag, debugging MinIO startup failures, or resetting MinIO volumes.

- MinIO does NOT support downgrades. Once data is written by a newer version, older versions cannot read it.
- The xl meta version is a storage format version embedded in MinIO's data files. Version 3 was introduced in 2025 releases.
- Previous pin `RELEASE.2024-11-07T00-52-20Z` could not read xl meta v3 data written by a `latest` pull.
- Current pin: `RELEASE.2025-09-07T16-13-09Z` -- the last free release on Docker Hub before MinIO stopped publishing (Oct 2025).
- `curl` was removed from MinIO Docker images after `RELEASE.2023-10-25T06-33-25Z` (UBI micro base). Healthcheck must use `mc ready local` instead of `curl -f`.
- If MinIO volume data is truly unrecoverable (corrupted, not just version mismatch), the nuclear option is `docker volume rm cpv3_minio` -- but this destroys all stored media files.
- MinIO GitHub repo was archived Feb 2026. Future images may need to come from alternative sources (alpine/minio, self-build).
