Need Help Understanding the Installer Update process

Help
1

Hi all,
Have been using Obsidian for quite a while, but I still seem to have a knowledge blindspot around the process for updating the ‘installer’.


Per: help.obsidian.md/updates

Understood there is a concept of the installer separate from the app. But two main questions:

  1. Are there settings for alerts or notifications when an installer update is recommended?
  2. Is the downloads page supposed to refer anywhere to an “installer” download?

This post (forum.obsidian.md/t/do-i-need-to-manually-run-the-1-8-4-installer-on-top-of-my-existing-1-8-4-app/95966) refers to:

The popup says something like, Obsidian version 1.8.4 has certain new features which require you to download and manually run an installer.

A popup alert would be very useful to me, but I’ve never received the alert they are describing. Is there a way to turn this on? (Or is there an RSS feed for the release that I could tap into to get alerts that way?)


When I go to the downloads page, there is no mention anywhere about “installer”. Does just doing a fresh download of the app from the downloads page also include the installer that you don’t get when the app runs an auto-update?

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P.S.
I searched the forums for this topic and didn’t find any particularly relevant hits. (But I’ve had instances for other queries where someone replying linked to a very useful post that my search somehow missed - please let me know if I’m missing any tips for doing the due diligence searches on the forums).

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Thanks for any help!

2

If you haven’t received the a notification, it means you do not need to do it.

“Update the installer” simply means download the latest version of obsidian from the website and install it.

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3

This is why I always download the latest release and will be safe for the latest Electron update:

Otherwise, a valid question.

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4

Thanks all.

OK, ‘installer’ = download from downloads page. Perfect, thanks!

Are there cases where an installer update is recommended, but not required (producing the alert)?

I’ve honestly never received alert, and I think I’ve only redownloaded from the site maybe 2-3 times in as many years. I’ve also been advised on some other issues that the solve might be to update the installer.

FYI I was able to produce a makeshift alert in the form of RSS feed. Apparently you can add .atom to the github releases URL, and readers will process it:

https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/releases.atom

5

There are times you may want to update on your own without being prompted.

Troubleshooting is a good time. Some Electron fixes are mentioned in the most recent change-logs.

For me, I remember updating the installer specifically for new CSS features and another time to fix the dev tools reverting to blinding light mode :flushed:(Obsidian 1.7.7 Desktop (Public) - Obsidian), etc.

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