Why is upgrading through recovery mode safer

Ever since the beginning of CFW, nearly 95% of the people say, "always upgrade through recovery mode, it is safer," but not a single person knows why. From what I understand, recovery mode allows to install a firmware that is the current version (3.55 ofw with 3.55 kmeaw). However, that doesn't make it safer, that's just to avoid a technical limitation; what are the specific technical details why recovery is safer?

Don't say, it has less bricks (fallacy, not technical at all)

Is it me or does 95% of the people just copy what other people say on here and it just became a trend to say, "upgrade through recovery?"

Often times the ps3 will not let you install a FW (CFW or OFW) through the XMB if it has the same version as build nums or something take into effect (dunno what exactly causes it but this is from observation) so sometimes it is the only option. Recovery mode will ALWAYS work when XMB install works, but XMB does not always work with Recovery does.

Recovery mode is a before GAMEOS mode that does not load everything GAMEOS does. Because of this simple fact, it is always a preferred method of installing as it minimizes potential conflicts. Kinda like safe mode in Windows.

I do not be leave Recovery mode is any safer than XMB.

You see, when updating the firmware its first unpacked to the hard disk, once unpacked the PS3 restarts in a special firmware update mode. This special firmware update mode is the same for recovery or XMB update, its only the unpacking stage that is different. So its a false sense of security thinking its going to be safer to update from recovery than XMB.

As corpse101 said, sometimes its needed when not doing a normal update.

And yes, most people on here will just repeat what they have read.

That's what I thought; but the same potential conflicts that would exist installing official firmware would exist in installing cfw correct? The amount of bricks seen when installing OFW is almost 0% (the few out of millions that had something happened)

If that's the case, what are the potential conflicts that recovery mode would avoid that OFW couldn't avoid. The few bricks i have seen when installing firmware could not have been avoided using recovery mode.

I say this because, I'm tired of everyone making the path to installing newer custom firmware to be a mind**** to the average user. Rebug was able to install on XMB from pretty much any 3.55 firmware or below. There was no need to install X firmware or go to recovery mode (I know there are a few exceptions) and to the average user we probably scare the shit out of them.

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Originally Posted by Mathematician

...and to the average user we probably scare the shit out of them.

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I agree! I think I am a bit above-average to these things, and it still scares the crap of out me! lol

I appreciate the question being raised here and also value the information given by more experienced users. I think it's safe to say that it's a recommendation not a requirement. Now, I've only gone through the process of changing firmwares with my PS3 a few times [from: OFW 3.40 to OFW 3.41 to OFW 3.55 to CFW Kmeaw to TB CFW to OFW 3.55 to CFW Kmeaw]--I counted six times I changed firmwares and all through XMB--not Recovery Menu.

What I have experienced is that the XMB transfers the firmware from USB to Internal (perhaps a temp cache). Then it shuts down, and then restarts in Recovery Mode (or in the Recovery phase of the firmware installation--because it asks to install your controller with USB wire sometimes). So in a way the end process is completed in Recovery Mode--to my best guess.

And if we just use Recovery Menu from the get go, it will skip the XMB OS process to my best guess. It will still require to transfer the firmware from USB to the Internal HDD, right?

For those (like me) that hate to be pushing your On/OFF buttons to get into this mode:
A dev named Condorstrike created an application named: Condor Updater v2.0 that you can run from your XMB and it will boot you straight to Recovery Menu without having to do the on/off button process. More details can be found here: Condor Updater -- please note that it only works on Slims and some Phat models that are NOR flash (NAND is not supported.)