An observation rather than a question - but perhaps somebody can enlighten me with an explanation or improved workaround.
I have Moodle 2.9 courses that I wish to recreate elsewhere in Moodle 2.5 (or lower) instances. If I restore the backups directly into a Moodle 2.5, it fails with that once-familar old error: error/moodle/tmp backup directory not found
However, I can restore the 2.9 backups into a Moodle 2.6 instance, then backup that course within the 2.6 instance, then use that 2.6 backup to restore the course into my 2.5 instance; and this all works OK in the sense of creating the course, maintaining all the content, and avoiding the above error.
So I can restore down from 2.9 to 2.5, by using 2.6 as an interim stage; but it's a lot of work, and duplication that way. Any better alternative?