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Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 2:05 am
by Protocol
Hi there.

Auto update is not working.
I tried a couple of times. Attached is the log.

PP Auto Update 02.jpg

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 2:26 am
by mjs
Updater failed for me on Beta19 as well.

Jeff will need to look into this tomorrow.

Thanks for reporting the problem Protocol.

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 9:56 am
by maxsverdlove
https://update.esumsoft.com/POPPeeper/d ... Beta19.zip

This doesn't appear to exist... Therefore, it fails.

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 9:58 am
by maxsverdlove
Perhaps the proper location is:

https://data.esumsoft.com/PPBeta/v50/PO ... Beta19.zip

Jeff, did you want us to manually download the beta19, or is there something you can do on your end so that we can test the auto-update function?

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 10:10 am
by mjs
There is something that Jeff can do to fix the Auto-Update.

Thank you for all the feedback and please be patient. :)

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 11:46 am
by Jeff
Sorry about the problem! It's been fixed now.

Go to main menu: Help / About and press Check Version to get the update.

There are 2 upload paths, one for the direct download and another for the update. I had uploaded the direct downloads but not the update; so I'll be re-considering this method... #-o

Re: Overwrite Newer Files With Older Ones

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 6:09 pm
by Protocol
Working now.
Why would the update contain a bunch of older files?
HtmlRef.png
HtmlRef.png (7.88 KiB) Viewed 23799 times
That file is the first of many the installer is asking to overwrite newer versions.

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 7:49 pm
by Jeff
This has been an ongoing issue and, in fact, I did some work today to try to mitigate it more. But the change that I made today will only affect .exe and .dll files because it will check the version of the files, which miscellaneous files won't have, so the timestamp method will still be used.

In general, the problem is with things like daylight savings time, which should only make the time difference off by 1 hour (this was addressed in b18), but yours is off by 16 hours, which I am really struggling to come up with an explanation for.

Can you let me know what timezone you're in? And can you think of any possible reasons that might cause a timing issue? For example, did you install the previous version in a different time zone, or was your system clock wrong or timezone set incorrectly and since fixed, etc.


For the record, the official timestamp of htmlref.dat is:
2013-10-13 17:06:20
hmmmm.... isn't that a coincidence... the same as your "update" timestamp...

I had been under the impression that the files were auto-correcting the timestamps to the user's timezone, but perhaps not. So this looks like a promising explanation... And the thing is, once you've got the files' "new" timestamp, you won't see this issue again because your files' timestamps now conform with any future update files' timestamps.

So I'll be looking into this and hopefully can get this resolved once and for all.

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 9:14 pm
by Protocol
So, are you saying for me to overwrite all the files?
I haven't done so as yet.

My time zone is: UTC + 10:00

No daylight saving.
I hate it. 😄

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 9:26 pm
by Jeff
Yes -- Overwrite the files.

Update on this:
I did a simple test: I changed my timezone to the other side of the world and then I installed PP using the exe and I installed PP to another folder by copying from the zip installation. I then changed my timezone back to my local to see what would happen.

The files in the 2 folders had completely different timestamps from each other. I could do some fancy timezone calculations, but I just don't think it's worth it (I'm having trouble remembering why I bothered to implement this timestamp comparison mechanism in the first place).

So, what I've done is changed it so that the update file would need to be more than 24 hours older than the installed file to prompt the user. This should cover the bases. Worst case scenario is that I have to release an update within 24 hours of a previous update and it wouldn't ask the user to update a newer file.

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Wed May 20, 2020 9:40 am
by maxsverdlove
just curious, but what's the harm in just having it always overwrite... it's the auto-updater... so, it wouldn't be downgrading. I could see possibly a manual installer having this need, but an auto-installer??? Wouldn't that by necessity download the latest version?

I guess you can say that having to overwrite files just for the sake of overwriting is "waste"... But with the speed of computers nowadays and the size of the files.... the benefits of "saving" is probably not worth it. And when you think of time... it probably takes the user more time to read the prompt, decide and click the button, then if it just wrote the darn files....

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Wed May 20, 2020 4:33 pm
by Jeff
maxsverdlove wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 9:40 am just curious, but what's the harm in just having it always overwrite... it's the auto-updater... so, it wouldn't be downgrading. I could see possibly a manual installer having this need, but an auto-installer??? Wouldn't that by necessity download the latest version?
Thanks for making me reconsider this -- I've decided to remove the check completely and it will just overwrite existing files.

I guess you can say that having to overwrite files just for the sake of overwriting is "waste"...
It wasn't even that -- as long as the update file was the same or one hour older, it would overwrite the existing file without prompting. Like I said before, I don't remember the reason I implemented it in the first place, but if I had to guess -- there are certain installation files (e.g. graphics/icons), that the user may want to change, and I don't have a problem with that (it's why I made them external files instead of internal resources) and so I think that this timestamp-diff was supposed to address that (ie. preventing the installation from overwriting a custom graphic). But even that theory doesn't make sense because any updates to the graphic in the installation would give it a new timestamp and then wipe out the user's change. And IF that was the illogical reason for implementing the timestamp-diff, it has since been superseded by providing alternate user paths for custom graphics.

So, ultimately, I couldn't think of any legitimate reason* why there would be a newer file already installed, and could potentially cause incompatibilities anyway. So, removed. Done. No more issues. Knock on wood.

Of course, because of the way this works, this change won't go into effect until after you update to b20; so updating to b21 will be the first version it is in effect. Meaning anyone updating from b19->b20 may still be affected.



* - Ok, there was one legitimate reason recently. Just the other day, I sent an update of a file to lakrsrool and then I released b19 (which had been built earlier and still had the older file). So lakrsrool got the prompt during auto-update for this particular file. Had he skipped the file, all would have been well as it would have kept the newer file I had sent him. But, he didn't (based on previous discussions we've had with this and my suggestion that you should always overwrite) and so he ended up with the older file. But this was such a special case that I don't consider it worthy of being a valid argument to keep the time-comparison; and, in fact, because his reaction was to overwrite it, it just goes to show that the prompt is more trouble than it's worth.

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Wed May 20, 2020 7:14 pm
by Protocol
Hi maxsverdlove.

The reason the installer prompted for an overwrite was because it was asking if I wanted to replace newer files with older files.
Potentially, you could be installing a regression. At least that is how I saw it.

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Wed May 20, 2020 7:32 pm
by mjs
^ that is correct -- but as it stands now, Jeff has decided to eliminate the "Overwrite" dialog prompt all together (as explained in his post above).

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Wed May 20, 2020 7:55 pm
by Jeff
Protocol wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 7:14 pm The reason the installer prompted for an overwrite was because it was asking if I wanted to replace newer files with older files.
In your case, the files were identical and it was just a difference in timezone causing the prompt.
Protocol wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 7:14 pm Potentially, you could be installing a regression. At least that is how I saw it.
maxsverdlove is correct in suggesting that that scenario should never happen (barring developer error and, let's face it, that is bound to happen eventually [especially considering the original purpose of this topic]).


btw, I did remember a legitimate reason for the overwrite prompt, and there's a good chance that this explains the original purpose of it:
Profile Picture

Profile Picture is the only plugin that is included in both Pro and the Plus Pack. Profile Picture's version always gets incremented with each Pro release. But -- there's not always a Plus Pack update for every version of Pro. This results in an older version in Plus Pack compared to Pro.

Because of the order that things are installed by the auto-updater, Pro will be installed before Plus Pack. This means that Pro will install ProfilePicture v5.0.19, and then Plus Pack will try to install ProfilePicture v5.0.8. This scenario is very likely to happen if you haven't already installed the Plus Pack.

However, this scenario is no longer applicable because I recently removed the ProfilePicture files from the Plus Pack (it's still included as a Plus Pack feature). And I had removed them to avoid this very problem.

Note: at the time of this writing, the Plus Pack has not been updated since their removal, so the current Plus Pack v5.0.0.2008 still includes Profile Picture files.

Re: Auto Update Not Working

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 12:41 pm
by maxsverdlove
Just wanted to post that update to v21 worked without any problems....