Electron-builder: electron-updater does not update app, ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED error

[naheller]

• electron-builder version: 19.45.2
• electron-updater version: 2.16.1
• target: ["zip", "dmg"]

I am trying to use electron-updater for a Mac app release. I've built on top of basic-electron-react-boilerplate and added in electron-builder and electron-updater.

My workflow looks like this:

1. Make changes to code
2. Push code to repository
3. Run npm run build which is short for webpack --config webpack.build.config.js
4. Run npm run publish which is short for build -p always, which spits out my dmg, zip, latest-mac files, etc and publishes them to a GitHub Release.
5. Download and install dmg (an initial release v0.0.1, so no updates available yet)
6. Repeat steps 1-4, and when my first update v0.0.2 is uploaded as GitHub Release, reopen v0.0.1 and expect it to update to v0.0.2, which it does not.

my main.js:

and my error message:

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Let me know if you'd like any additional details, like my package.json or otherwise.

[tylerlong]

Where did you publish your app to? Is the latest-mac.json file publicly accessible?

[naheller]

@tylerlong Thanks for your reply! The npm run publish command publishes latest-mac.json to my GitHub Release, along with many other files, as shown below:

[naheller]

I should also add that this is a private repository, but I do have my GH_TOKEN set as an env variable. Do I need to add any additional permissions for the updater to look into a private repo?

[develar]

macOS apps has own set of env. terminal env are not available for apps. Please use https://github.com/sindresorhus/shell-env

And I hope that you understand what do you do using private repo for updates. Separate user must be used and private option is set in the GitHub publish options.

[naheller]

Thanks @develar

What do you mean by "I hope you understand what do you do using private repo for updates"? What else do I need to do for private repos besides setting the GH_TOKEN env variable?

Will this address the error I shared above?

[develar]

What do you mean

API Token allows to do everything. So, you must create special user and limit user access.

Will this address the error I shared above?

shell-env will.

[develar]

@naheller Have your read https://www.electron.build/auto-update#private-github-update-repo?

(yes, I am going to add note about shell-env to docs).

[naheller]

@develar By "special user", do you mean GitHub user? Many people who will use my app don't have GitHub accounts. This is my first time using auto-update, so I'm not sure about special user access.

I am looking at the page you linked. Is the private option set as follows?

Thanks for your help!

[develar]

@naheller It seems you don't understand that auto-updater requires token on a user machine to work.

Only for very special cases — not intended and not suitable for all users.

See https://www.electron.build/auto-update#private-github-update-repo

So, just use Digital Ocean Spaces or Amazon S3.

[naheller]

@develar Ah... I see. GitHub Releases would have been perfect, but I will try those other solutions. electron-release-server might be a good option in the meantime for testing.

Thanks for your help

[develar]

https://github.com/ArekSredzki/electron-release-server is not definitely an option because it requires non static server. Electron updater supports any http server, nothing else is required.

[develar]

Well, you can just create an empty public repo and use it to release artifacts;)

[naheller]

I could do that with an empty repo? Don't releases need to be tied to a certain branch?

[develar]

@naheller It will looks a little bit crazy, but works. https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder-binaries/releases is an example of such repo.