I saw a notification that the latest update needed to be downloaded manually. I did that but the new update can’t be installed. A message popped up stating “Obsidian is running. Click Ok to close it”. I don’t have obsidian running and when I clicked ok, another one popped up after awhile, stating “obsidian cannot be closed. Please close it manually”. How do I bypass this? In task manager, the only “obsidian” that’s running seems to be the installation file itself
A thing to try in this situation: save the downloaded file somewhere, restart your computer, then try to install the downloaded file nefore doing anything else. If that still doesn’t work, hipefully omeone else can help! It might be useful to share which operating system you are running.
Good luck!
yes I did restart the computer, but it just couldn’t run. Super weird 
My apologies for multiple replies. Seems like I can’t edit the original message to include the update of my current situation. Anyway, I’ve uninstalled Obsidian, downloaded the v0.15.8 installation file but it couldn’t get installed. It keeps saying “Obsidian is running in the background”. Wasn’t sure if there’s any other software running in the background might interfere with the installation process so I tried installing the app in safe mode which didn’t work either. It keeps telling me to close Obsidian which I had none install. I googled around for an older installation file, which is 0.12.5 and it actually works! The installation process is extremely fast though, like within seconds and it opened my vault straight away like I’ve never uninstalled the whole thing in the first place. So weird!
Right now, in the app, it shows as below:
Current version: v.0.15.8 (installer version v.0.12.5)
A manual installation is required to update to the latest version
I still don’t understand why I still need a manual installation but it seems like my obsidian is now up to date? I don’t think I’d dare to meddle with this any further 
It seems that you’ve got a unique software which contains Electron v13 but the latest version of obsidian. It won’t happen generally, but I still suggest you to reinstall obsidian manually. Works with an old version of Electron may cause unexpected error.
The latest version of Electron is v18.0.4 which included in obsidian installer on v0.14.6 or further.
Sorry, I’m not very good at computer so I don’t really understand what you meant with Electron v13 and v18. Should I find different installer versions Obsidian? Earlier on, when I tried installing v0.15.8 and it didn’t work, I went and downloaded Obsidian v0.15.6, which didn’t work either… v0.12.5 somehow works but should I look for the v0.14.6 instead?
Oooookay… So I’ve uninstalled Obsidian again (v.0.12.5), tried reinstalling v0.15.8 and it didn’t work, still having the “Obsidian is running” error message. Then I tried installing v0.14.6 and it actually works! My current version is as follows:
Current version: v0.15.8
(installer version: v0.14.6)
No idea what’s going on but… phew 
Glad to hear that you’ve solved the problem.
Obsidian is built on a platform called Electron which provides much function. That means, if obsidian updates the Electron version, you will have to download the latest installer, and reinstall it to make some new features take effect.
You could find this on Obsidian Release Note ( like here ), or you could just check Setting → About to see whether you should reinstall.
Installer version v0.14.6 work fine on obsidian v0.15.8, just enjoy it!
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