No more silent patches

[TheJackal84]

Please stop doing silent patch updates, the only way to know you done a patch update is to click somethings gone wrong in the ACP or keep visiting the release notes page to check the release date, I just got 3 transactions from paypal reversed due to a guest checking out not getting signed up but still charged, I check the release notes and there is nothing saying a patch has been applied and checked the ACP support and find out there is a PayPal webhook patch which fixes the error on guest checkout ( I assume as the others got processed once updated )

[Sonya*]

What is "silent update"? I thought we've get updates if we execute support tool in ACP and see that there are patches, that we can install or not. Is there anything else happening without clicking support tool in ACP?

[DawPi]

2 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

I thought we've get updates if we execute support tool in ACP and see that there are patches, that we can install or not.

Yes, if you do that. 🙂

[TheJackal84]

5 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

What is "silent update"?

Silent is to not be told and to have to find out for yourself either by checking it constantly or in my case someone reversing their payments and me wondering why.

We can follow the release notes and get a notification and email for BETA releases, once thats released we don't know when the actual STABLE version or any patches are released unless we manually check

6 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

I thought we've get updates if we execute support tool in ACP and see that there are patches, that we can install or not. Is there anything else happening without clicking support tool in ACP?

Who click's something is not working on a regualr basis on the odd chance IPS released a patch

[Sonya*]

1 hour ago, TheJackal84 said:

Who click's something is not working on a regualr basis on the odd chance IPS released a patch

I execute support tool several times a day on my development board trying to resolve issues  That's why I always see if there are updates. But you are right, this is not the common case for the most board owners.

[MMXII]

Did 4.4.9 get another update? In the release notes it now says released 11/29/2019, but I am sure 4.4.9 originally had been released 1-2 days earlier?

[TheJackal84]

43 minutes ago, MMXII said:

Did 4.4.9 get another update? In the release notes it now says released 11/29/2019, but I am sure 4.4.9 originally had been released 1-2 days earlier?

yeah re-download it then upload and go through to the yoursite.com/admin/upgrade to run it, or do it via the ACP what ever way you see fit

[MMXII]

14 minutes ago, TheJackal84 said:

yeah re-download it then upload and go through to the yoursite.com/admin/upgrade to run it, or do it via the ACP what ever way you see fit

So that is a Yes.

Yeah, this should not be done this way. Why not release 4.4.9.1, if 4.4.9 actually needs a hotfix? Then everyone clearly sees that something has changed plus there will be another notification for administrators that a new version has been released.

[Adlago]

16 minutes ago, MMXII said:

So that is a Yes.

Yeah, this should not be done this way. Why not release 4.4.9.1, if 4.4.9 actually needs a hotfix? Then everyone clearly sees that something has changed plus there will be another notification for administrators that a new version has been released.

The patch does not change the version - it only complements the missing or editting code.
And yes, they should send a notification to everyone - that would be correct.

[TheJackal84]

Just now, Adlago said:

The patch does not change the version - it only complements the missing or editting code.

it does change the long version, not the short, If you go to the update page you will see you are running the latest update, if you upload the newer patched version it will allow updating as the long version ( Actual update version ) is different

"104048": "4.4.9 Beta 1",
"104049": "4.4.9",
"104050": "4.4.9",
"104051": "4.4.9"

 

[MMXII]

On 11/29/2019 at 11:00 PM, TheJackal84 said:

PayPal webhook patch

On 12/02/2019 version 4.4.9 got another update. I guess this is included now?

[TheJackal84]

7 minutes ago, MMXII said:

On 12/02/2019 version 4.4.9 got another update. I guess this is included now?

that was included in the last one, not sure on this one as it don't say it anywhere on here what's been done or even that there was one time to login to the ACP clear the cache and check what the patch is for and if it's needed for my site

Edit -- Yeah looks like another PayPal one

[TheJackal84]

On 11/30/2019 at 12:51 PM, Adlago said:

The patch does not change the version - it only complements the missing or editting code.

 

On 11/30/2019 at 12:54 PM, TheJackal84 said:

it does change the long version, not the short, If you go to the update page you will see you are running the latest update, if you upload the newer patched version it will allow updating as the long version ( Actual update version ) is different

"104048": "4.4.9 Beta 1",
"104049": "4.4.9",
"104050": "4.4.9",
"104051": "4.4.9"

new patch new update version

"104048": "4.4.9 Beta 1",
"104049": "4.4.9",
"104050": "4.4.9",
"104051": "4.4.9",
"104052": "4.4.9"

 

[CoffeeCake]

That's four releases with the same version number. 🤯

[bfarber]

We release patches when there is an issue we deem critical enough to get a fix out ASAP for, however the issue may not affect all clients. Those who are affected are encouraged to run the support tool, and if their issue is not resolved, submit a support ticket.

Our patch system requires increasing the version number, but that's simply a technicality.

[CodingJungle]

50 minutes ago, bfarber said:

Our patch system requires increasing the version number, but that's simply a technicality.

you should rename it to build number (long version) and version (human readable/short version). this way it is easier to understand, cause most people when they see "version" think 4.4.9 not 104052:) 

[Hexsplosions]

19 hours ago, bfarber said:

Those who are affected are encouraged to run the support tool, and if their issue is not resolved, submit a support ticket.

The issue is that we may not know we're affected until something goes wrong, which could result in a lost registration, loss of content, loss of revenue, etc.

I'd certainly advocate a more proactive approach to patching since I want to know if there is a possibility that an issue affects my community, rather than find out later when it could be too late. Even if it's just a banner or email notification, that'd be much better.

[AlexWebsites]

The current way of patching is fine, its just being aware before an issue arises. Maybe there should be an announcement in ACP if a patch exist.

[aia]

+1

Silent patches is the 100% annoying and illogical thing i absolutely hate in IPS. I've reported this problem some years ago but it's still not changed.

3 hours ago, The Heff said:

The issue is that we may not know we're affected until something goes wrong

This is exactly what happened to me, and i'm sure it happens very often to all clients even without their knowledge.

What is the problem of simply increasing the version number and thereby notifying everyone of the possibility of updating? There is absolutely no any adequate reason to not do it.

[CoffeeCake]

As others have pointed out, there are inherent issues in maintaining the same human readable version number with modified code. As things stand, there is simply no way for clients to know what version of a named version they are using. Things become unnecessarily confusing (is this the right version of version 4.4.9?) and unnecessarily complex.

For customers like us, who maintain internal development repositories, we were surprised to see changes between two downloads of the same versioned package, only to learn that another revision had been published. There exist, to our knowledge, at least four distinct versions of something labeled 4.4.9. Why even provide a version number at all if this is the way you handle releases?

At best, this is confusing for your larger customers.

[TheJackal84]

On 12/5/2019 at 2:32 PM, bfarber said:

Those who are affected are encouraged to run the support tool, and if their issue is not resolved, submit a support ticket.

But how do we know there is a patch? I found out when PayPal emailed me and said I have had funds reversed then I checked and saw payments from guests processing, put 2 and 2 together and then checked the release notes and only saw a little date change with no information on whats changed, that there even was a patch, or what the patch was for, Now I went to the ACP and checked the support tool, low and behold there is a paypal patch ( Important patch in my case as it lost me well over $100 ), installed the patch and all them payments got approved my end ( even though they all got reversed by paypal ) and the member accounts got created what at this time is too late, And all could of been avoided if you sent me a little notification saying hey you have 4.4.9 but there is a patch available ( and this is a important one as anyone using paypal can have issues with payments )

[Ramsesx]

On 12/5/2019 at 3:32 PM, bfarber said:

however the issue may not affect all clients. Those who are affected

As a forum administrator I don't have knowledge about all bugs my users are experiencing. So, the way it is working now isn't really a proactive one because I can be affected of a bug but not aware of its existence. Best would be an additional notice if a patch is available so we can choose if we run the patch or not. If you don't want to show this to every admin for whatever reason you could combine this with the 'USE_DEVELOPMENT_BUILDS' constants because this mostly will be used by experienced forum owners.

 

[Hexsplosions]

On 12/7/2019 at 6:00 PM, Ramsesx said:

you could combine this with the 'USE_DEVELOPMENT_BUILDS' constants because this mostly will be used by experienced forum owners.

I like that idea of a constant, but not that one. I don't habitually use development builds but I do want to know about patches. Good idea though. 👍

[All Astronauts]

Spacious ACP users have had dashboard alerts for these silent patches, with details - if provided - of the patch - for... two years now? - longer?

If you skip a patch it still pulls in any details - if provided - of what the previous skipped patch does - as seen above. Button pushes you to the update process, which if you don't have permission to use will obviously not let you do it.

These patches are almost always super minor edge-case stuff; if it's major IPS does push real updates everyone sees. The site that alert box is from doesn't use Commerce, no need for me to patch.

If IPS didn't do these support tool only patches you would be getting a lot more update notices on the front end for really minor stuff and then people get grumpy about updating all the time and so on and so forth. I appreciate the balance they are trying to work for here and also appreciate that some/many want to know and apply stuff. Enter Spacious ACP...

[Hexsplosions]

7 hours ago, All Astronauts said:

These patches are almost always super minor edge-case stuff;

That depends entirely on the admin's own situation - what is trivial for one admin may not be for another. The point is, some of us want to know when patches are released... We want to be bothered. 🙂