Electron-builder: macOS auto-update without extra zip file

[develar]

There is no any reason to require ZIP file. DMG should be enough.

Stay tuned — delta updates using DMG files are coming next week :)

[Ajeey]

Will it matter if I have installed my app via pkg?

[develar]

You can ask us to support pkg but... https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/issues/1728#issuecomment-324072042 Depends on user demand / donation.

[develar]

To make clear — when this feature will be implemented, it will be very easy to support virtually any format, including pkg. Not because our position about DMG is changed, but because of backward compatibility (need to support both zip and DMG, so, old clients will be able to update).

[farfromrefug]

@develar i think this feature has broken zip auto update. Right now i am building my app with only zip on mac, and since this my latest.yml is not generated anymore
I pinpointed the issue to come from here:
https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/blob/58179b7e497b79b88145defe41d365ce19f89990/packages/electron-builder/src/macPackager.ts#L68
The ArchiveTarget is called with isWriteUpdateInfo to false, so my latest.yml is not generated anymore

[develar]

@farfromrefug By intention. If you need auto-update on macOS, you build both dmg and zip. Why do you build only zip and not dmg?

[farfromrefug]

Because i dont need dmg :D What's hard is that you broke support for it while it was there.
Also as i only use zip for now (even thinking about 7z to get smaller) building dmg and zip makes the build longer...

Now i am not against switching to dmg! But does it mean i can only use dmg ,and update files will still be built ? If so, do the distrib updater my clients have within their app already know how to install dmg updates?

Thanks

[develar]

I was not aware about such use case. Fix will be today evening CET (better if you will duplicate your comment as a new issue).

[farfromrefug]

@develar no problem, thanks for fixing this
Will create a new issue about the dmg thing

[XuluWarrior]

What is the current status of this issue?
I see a number of WIP commits from about a month ago but I get "Unhandled rejection Error: ZIP file not provided" when running against GitHub release with a DMG but no ZIP file.

[ilyaLibin]

Hi @develar
Are there any updates on that issue? Getting the same error.
Unhandled rejection Error: ZIP file not provided

[mark-buer]

Adding the following to my electron builder config allowed me to proceed:

mac:
  electronUpdaterCompatibility: '>=2.15'
win:
  electronUpdaterCompatibility: '>=2.15'

[develar]

Feature is not implemented yet. zip is still required for macOS auto-updates.

[damianobarbati]

Same as @ilyaLibin. Any update on this?

[brunolemos]

Bumping this issue, I see no reason to have both .zip and .dmg for users to download. I'd like to keep only .dmg so they can easily drag to Applications.

[vladimiry]

Friendly ping from my side :)

[shadeofgod]

eagerly looking forward to it.

[arekzaluski]

@develar any news on supporting differential update on mac?

[develar]

It is easy to implement (actually, only work on electron-updater should be done), but not easy to maintain. For electron-builder I can easily say — or donate, or forget about bug. Because electron-builder issue affects only you. But electron-updater issue affects all users of your application, so.... cost of error is very high.

So, as it is an opensource project, risk is too high. Any error report should be carefully handled in less than 24 hours. That's not feasible for now.

Also, please note, that recommended way to distribute apps for mac — AppStore (yes, I know, that publishing to AppStore it is hell).

[arekzaluski]

Thank you for a quick response. I really appreciate it. I understand your concerns. What about enabling this feature but making it disabled by default and marking it as experimental. That way people interested in (including myself) will be able to help in testing/maintaining/improving this functionality on Mac.

[philippkuehn]

If we didn't need a .zip file anymore, we wouldn't have to worry about this :) https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/issues/4299

[bypasses]

Still getting this issue for Mac updates any fix?

[feugy]

Forcing the zip file in order to update DMG can be problematic.
My application has an accent in its product name: this prevents 7zip from building a zip on Mac.
As I can not release a zip file, my DMG can not update...

[oldmtn]

Still have this issue

[pedro-surf]

Me too