Electron-builder: latest-mac.json is not being created when publishing to Github

[adamsiwiec]

• Version:
  11.2
  1.7.1
  
• Target:
  Windows
  Mac

Whenever publishing to Github, there is not latest-mac.json included in the release, but there is a latest.yml file being published. This is also exactly the same in my dist directory: There is a latest.yml, but no latest-mac.json. Why is it not there?

[develar]

Version 11 is old. Latest is 13.9.0

[adamsiwiec]

Still doesn't work with the latest version.

[johngodley]

@adamsiwiec have you changed the Mac build target setting from default?

I had specified DMG only in my Mac target and had the same problem of no latest-mac.json being created. After changing the Mac target back to the default (which produces zip and DMG) then latest-mac.json is generated.

[develar]

latest-mac.json is produced only if zip in the target list. Default target for macOS is ["dmg", "zip"]

[adamsiwiec]

Why is it not produced just with a dmg? The latest-mac.json definitely needs to be created no matter what type of target you are using. This needs to be changed in my opinion.

[sidneys]

@adamsiwiec @develar

I have the same problem with the latest-mac.json not being generated if publishing is disabled.

As i have my own deployment script, setting "build.publish = null" results in no json being generated, and thus auto-update not working.

[develar]

As i have my own deployment script, setting "build.publish = null" results in no json being generated, and thus auto-update not working.

@sidneys In any case for auto-update you have to use at least generic provider configured.

@adamsiwiec Squirrel.Mac is used under the hood and, so, zip is required in addition to dmg.

[sidneys]

@develar

When setting "generic" as a provider, the build process aborts due to missing configuration (url, etc.), which is not needed in the first place in environments with custom publishing/deployment processes which would nonetheless use the auto-updating feature.

Is generation of these auto-update json files tied to configuring a publisher? If so, this should be made separate, for example by providing an build.autoUpdate = true option in order to disentangle the publish and auto-update features.

[develar]

@sidneys URL is required and will be used to generate update file — latest-Mac. What's wrong?

[sidneys]

@develar

I now added a generic provider and url to the package.json build config, like this:

{
    "publish": {
        "provider": "generic",
        "url": "https://github.com/sidneys/${name}/releases/download/v${version}"
    }
}

However, the resulting latest-mac.json automatically appends some automatically generated artifact file name to the url:

{
  "version": "3.9.96",
  "releaseDate": "2017-03-15T19:55:25.356Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/sidneys/pb-for-desktop/releases/download/v3.9.96/PB%20for%20Desktop-3.9.96-mac.zip"
}

How can i change the appended file name?

Thanks for your response!

[develar]

@sidneys GitHub cannot be used as generic server. Why our GitHub publisher is not suitable for you? Anyway — you are not forced to use it. Please disable publishing using CLI --publish=never and remove publish from config. GitHub provider will be detected automatically or set it explicitly.

[sidneys]

@develar

Aren't the "latest" JSON and YML files required for auto update, apart from publishing?

[develar]

@sidneys required and generated always regardless of publishing. Even if never.