Intrusive updates on windows

Normally I wouldn’t go as far as looking for a product site/forum with such things but here we go. First of all, I’d like to say that I love Joplin, and have been using it to plan my projects recently in place of one note, decided to give opensource a shot in hopes of finding something to contribute to in future.

As you may guess by the title of this topic, I absolutely hate the regular intrusive update prompts. I’m in the middle of work and bam! Update request. Now don’t get me wrong, updates are awesome, but there is currently no known (at least to me) way to disable automatic update checking. So that’s my first feature request, add an option to choose how regularly you’d like to check for updates, or turn off checking for updates if you so desire [Pointed out to me].

The second issue is with the updates themselves. Adding insult to injury, after ‘shoving’ the updates down my throat everytime I open the program, once I download the update, I need to run the installer again. Would help if it could be similar to VSCode’s update system or other similar systems. The update installs itself.

Currently a frustrated customer tbh, but if you guys could make those happen, I believe the entire community would benefit.

Hi,
Can’t you uncheck the box “automatically update the application” (in the menu “tools > general options”)
Then, you decide when you want to make a check with “help > check for updates” ?

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Hey, thanks, hadn’t seen the option. That solves one issue, less frustrated now.

Sorry for being a noob

no problem :slight_smile:

there is no noob question here, may be a different could exist in the rendering, so in that case , asking is make sense

if that answers to your question, do not hesitate to "tick" the "reply solve the problem" so we'll know the question is solved

Done

Is there any way to get around this?

I can’t help, I don’t know VSCode. I’ve just noticed that, for example with notepad++, when an update is available, it runs the installer again too.

Ah yeah it does, the issue isn’t exactly running the installer, but rather having to do the installation manually, they all run some kind of installer.

You would like the installer to be triggered once downloaded ?

Absolutely. Yes. I think it is safe to assume that by accepting to download an update, the user wants to install it immediately. Otherwise they would just visit the site to download a version if they wanted to wait.

Slightly OT: Oh, if you're using Notepad++, definitely check out VS Code! It's like SublimeText, but free. :slight_smile: It's awesome.

And it really does handle updates very well (and it also is an open-source: it asks you if you want to download an update. Once that's done, it asks whether you want to reload. The window just refreshes and you can continue working, it takes seconds.

I have no idea how any of that is implemented, but VS Code is open source and implemented in Electron as well, so maybe someone who knows what they're doing would be able to "borrow" it. :woman_shrugging:

There’s currently no plan to add auto-installation of updates as it’s tricky to get right and would not be very useful for Joplin. In the past few days there was many updates but in general it’s not as frequent.

For sure L

He definitely should consider it.

Ah, alright, thanks Laurent. Yeah, been getting a lot of updates recently, good to know it’s not normally the case

Using Joplin on 5 devices (synced), and given the high frequency of Joplin updates, I’m also quite annoyed by the update dialogues. However, instead of entirely switchin auto-updates off, what about an option (that I have seen in other applications already) for reducing update checks to e.g. once a week? Then the user doesn’t have to remember to manally start the update, but is not overwhelmed with update offers either.

Daniel

Why not disable auto-updates and manually check from time to time? If you don’t need the latest versions right away there’s no need to enable auto-update. I do that with most apps as I’m fine running “old” versions.

The auto-update feature won’t be changed as it’s not worth it. Too much work for a tiny annoyance that can easily be switched off.

Sure, if it’s clear that this behaviour won’t be changed, switching auto-updates off will be the best option.
Thanks,
Daniel

please ignore - user error

I also noticed a slightly dangerous thing too: the portable version asks for update and will download the installer, which if installed can lead the user into thinking all the notes are lost (as the installed version uses a different default folder).

Right, that’s true. And that makes me think: it might explain all the mysterious disappearance of data that happen for some users. They use the portable app, then they unknowingly upgrade to the regular app, which has a different profile directory. And that makes it looks like all the data is gone.

I’m going to add an issue on GitHub to fix this.

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@vb0, I’ve checked but actually I see that I had added some logic to make the portable app update to download the JoplinPortable.exe file and not the installer. So normally it should work. Is your version definitely downloading the installer?

I use the portable version all the time; the auto-updater always downloads the correct exe as expected.

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