Stuck on Beta 4 while Beta 6 is already out

DEVONthink
1

Hi,

I just queried DT for updates and the answer was:

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However, I can see that Version 3.0beta6 is already out. Any idea why I’m having this issue?

Thanks

2

You can always download their newest build from their download site.

3

Maybe a simple network issue or some caching between you and our server, e.g. by your ISP? As suggested just download the latest version from our website and replace your copy with the new one.

4

Hi all,

Thanks for the suggestions :slight_smile:

Yes, I know I can download the latest version and install it over the existing one, however I still would like to know why the updating mechanism isn’t working properly.

Any word from the devs would be great to hear, thanks.

5

This is a third-party mechanism making remote contact with our servers. It is not guaranteed to be bullet-proof, as no remote access process is going to be, given caching and/or network conditions and server responses.

6

Do you use LittleSnitch or any other tool that might block network traffic?

7

Hi @cgrunenberg, no, just built-in firewall (there’s no outbound connections blocker)

@BLUEFROG Not sure how I feel about your answer, because while what you say is technically correct, as an end-user I’d expect not having to deal with these sorts of glitches, and as an infrastructure developer myself, I couldn’t sleep well knowing I’m not providing my clients with a reliable solution.

8

This is no different than the foibles of Apple’s PDFKit in macOS. That is a standard framework we (and many people) use. However it is not perfect due to Apple’s attempts to create a universal framework for iOS and macOS. Short of developing our own framework from scratch - no small task - or licensing another - which would add to the cost of the software as still leaves us in the same position as we’re in now, we can work around some things, but we have no control over what Apple is doing with it.

Also, the percentage of times the updater framework is working as expected far exceeds the times it doesn’t.

9

I tend to appreciate the English saying No news, good news.

However, when it comes to software, it usually sucks.

Beta 7 was released on August, 29th and two days later DT still reports nothing new on the horizon:

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At least we have to give credit to the consistent failure of the update mechanism introduced on version 3.0, this never ever happened before with 2.x in the three years or so I used it.

I’m hoping this gets fixed with the stable release, I already have too many things to keep track in my life and certainly baby-sitting an application is not a welcome addition.

Thanks.

10

So, I wonder, what is unique about your setup? Judging from the forum, this doesn’t seem to be a common problem, but it has affected you twice.

Any ideas? Are you routing traffic, running a vpn, using a security suite, … I’m not knowledgeable enough to guide you to possible causes - but perhaps you are aware of some special setup you are using? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to blame you, just wondering why you are affected. Any ideas might help the folks at DT help you.

Jim, if the update mechanism couldn’t contact the server, would it report an error? Or just post a “no newer version” response?

11

Hi Blanc, thank you for stepping in.

The only additional network filtering applications that I’m using with the exception of macOS’ built-in ingress firewall are:

  1. AdGuard, but it shouldn’t interfere with DT’s own update process:

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  1. Steven Black’s Unified hosts file with base extensions (adware + malware DNS blacklist): https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts.
    I checked the list after finding that Beta 7 release wasn’t being found by DT, but couldn’t find anything relevant. I might possibly missing something, of course.

Also, I manually checked for updates after disabling AdGuard filtering and restoring original (almost empty) hosts file to no avail.

IIRC this odd issue started happening with Beta 4 (all the previous beta releases auto-updated as intended) and has keep happening since then.

It could be worth to mention that:

  1. I’m running latest Mojave with the supplementary update that came out last week (or so)
  2. None of the other apps I’ve installed has the same problem
  3. ATM I’m located in South America

I already did a clean reinstall when I installed Beta 6; I can try once again with Beta 7, but this time I want to ensure that any leftovers of DT are correctly removed from the ~/Library folder and any other path the application may use.

Do you know if there’s a guide on how to properly do this? I couldn’t find anything on the website and in my experience just deleting applications from /Applications by dragging them to the trashcan doesn’t usually remove everything.

Thanks!

12

You don’t need to do a clean install. Just download a new installer from here and merely replace your current version by overwriting it: https://www.devontechnologies.com/support/download

13

When the Check for Updates cannot connect it should say so. If it reports that 3.0b6 is current then it receives cached data. Maybe your ISP or anything else is caching files to speed up the connection?