The present invention relates to methods for operating a respiration apparatus and a respiration system, and also a respiration apparatus and a respiration system. The respiration system comprises a respiration apparatus and a computer software program for an external computer to operate the respiration apparatus. The respiration apparatus comprises a processor device and an apparatus software program and an apparatus configuration. The validities of the computer software, the apparatus software and the apparatus configuration are in each case characterized by a version. The versions are compared with one another to detect a version conflict. If invalid versions are present, the computer software is provided with a program component with a limit value and a plausibility rule, or the setting parameters are sorted into a first group and a second group. The setting parameters of the first group are retained.
