Invisible updates / silent updates to my app in the background not working always

[aayush-kapoor]

Hello, I'm developing an app that whose info.plist looks like this:

<key>SUAllowsAutomaticUpdates</key>
<true/>
<key>SUAutomaticallyUpdate</key>
<true/>
<key>SUEnableAutomaticChecks</key>
<true/>
<key>SUEnableInstallerLauncherService</key>
<true/>
<key>SUFeedURL</key>
<string>`my-appcast.xml`</string>
<key>SUPublicEDKey</key>
<string>`my-key`</string>
<key>SUScheduledCheckInterval</key>
<integer>3600</integer>

As you can see I've configured the app to check for updates every hour and download and install them automatically. New versions should run everytime app is quit and launched again.

The flow of sparkle, as I understand it, is that after configuring these settings, when Sparkle first detects an update available, it'll prompt the user the following dialog by default:

and then once the user selects the automatic update checkbox:

after this, there is no manual intervention needed for updating. The app will check for updated every hour, and if it detects, it'll download as well, as long as the app is running, and install on next Quit -> Relaunch.

This is the ideal flow!

But for a beta tester of my app, even after checking the automatic update checkbox, the tester doesn't get silent updates. They can manually download however. They leave the app running for hours, with network connectivity, but then still remain on their current version, even if I push an update.

I'm wondering how to fix this because the silent updates work for me on my computer. The app has always been sandboxed. But I suspect that the beta tester had a version of the app where I didn't configure Sparkle settings to be available for Sandboxed apps.
Not sure though if that's the reason.

I'm thinking of suggesting to the user to manually delete all prev versions of the app from their machine, download the latest app with the above Sparkle settings and then testing again with a new update.

Is that the correct way to go about this or am I missing something? Please let me know if the behaviour I laid in ideal flow is correct and if you may need any other information about my settings.
Thank you

[zorgiepoo]

When SUAutomaticallyUpdate and SUEnableAutomaticChecks are on, if silent updates can be done, updates should be downloaded automatically in the background and installed on quit. Users can opt out of automatic downloading if they uncheck the checkbox (and therefore defaults read my-app-bundle-id SUAutomaticallyUpdate or reading -[SPUUpdater automaticallyDownloadsUpdates] may be NO). Or they can opt out of automatic checking for updates although you probably haven't provided them a UI for it (and therefore defaults read my-app-bundle SUEnableAutomaticChecks or reading -[SPUUpdater automaticallyChecksForUpdates] may be NO). There may be a bug fixed with #2728 targeting 2.8 where the checkbox in the update alert shows as unchecked initially if you see the update alert with your configuration. Contrary to what you wrote, Sparkle should prefer to silently download/install the update rather than notifying the user for the first time. If a week has passed by without quitting the app, Sparkle will prompt for the update that has been downloaded though.

When updates cannot be installed silently on quit on the system (e.g. they require authorization to replace the app bundle with a user name & password, which can be simulated locally via sudo chown root path-to-my-app-bundle), the user should still be prompted for the downloaded update, which then can proceed to be installed manually.

The app has always been sandboxed. But I suspect that the beta tester had a version of the app where I didn't configure Sparkle settings to be available for Sandboxed apps. Not sure though if that's the reason.

There can be issues with how user defaults from containers migrate if a sandboxed app later becomes non-sandboxed. The other way should do the migration properly. I may just check what the SUAutomaticallyUpdate and SUEnableAutomaticChecks defaults reads as. That overrides the initial Info.plist keys. But if the checkbox looks like it's on, then it doesn't seem likely a problem.

Another thing is that Sparkle doesn't refresh/download new updates if there's already an update that's been downloaded/staged to be installed on quit.

If you run defaults delete my-app-bundle-id SULastCheckTime before launching your app (only for testing purposes), then when Sparkle checks for updates that should force it to check for updates and install the update silently if possible. This resets the last update check time so you don't have to wait a whole hour.

[zorgiepoo]

Note also even if an update has been downloaded automatically & staged to be installed on quit, the user can still do a manual update check and get the update prompt. The wording on the alert is subtly different, indicating the update has already been downloaded & ready to be quickly installed/relaunched.

[aayush-kapoor]

@zorgiepoo thank you for this, i missed this answer!

I have one final question - if we have all the silent updates keys defined to be True in info.plist, and the app detects and downloads new updates automatically, does Sparkle 2.4 only install on 'Quit'? Like if the app already has an update downloaded, is there any configuration that allows us to sequentially Quit the app so that it can install. Or will the user have to Quit/terminate the app manually to install that update?

I'm asking because a user of mine said that they want no interaction with the update downloader at all, and the app should manage all of it automatically. Even quits and relaunch should happen automatically so I'm wondering if Sparkle allows that or if I would have to create a script for it.

thanks a lot!

[zorgiepoo]

With automatic downloading of updates on, Sparkle silently updates when the app quits (often the user quits the app).

If the user hasn't quit the app in 1 week (I do want to make this more configurable some day), the user will get an alert. There are a couple delegate methods that allow you to intercept this:

https://sparkle-project.github.io/documentation/api-reference/Protocols/SPUUpdaterDelegate.html#/c:objc(pl)SPUUpdaterDelegate(im)updater:willInstallUpdateOnQuit:immediateInstallationBlock:

https://sparkle-project.org/documentation/gentle-reminders/

If updates require user authentication (e.g updating app bundle owned by root on disk), updates cannot be completely silent.