>
    <li>Note that cluster metadata downgrade is not supported in this version since it has metadata changes.
        Every <a href="https://github.com/apache/kafka/blob/trunk/server-common/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/server/common/MetadataVersion.java">MetadataVersion</a>
        has a boolean parameter that indicates if there are metadata changes (i.e. <code>IBP_4_0_IV1(23, "4.0", "IV1", true)</code> means this version has metadata changes).
        Given your current and target versions, a downgrade 