The developers are discussing the auto-update situation, it may take a few days though, since weekend, time zone differences, work tend to mean that not everybody is available at the same time to discuss things.
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Thank you for taking the request into consideration and at least having that conversation.
Ray, the answer is equally as simple - Don’t support older builds.
The use it or lose it attitude that Art proclaims here is not necessary as, equally, no dev is being forced to even respond to any issue that is not supported.
I’m all in for forced updates as the whole idea of nightlies is that they are the cutting edge and those that realise and accept this know that there will be the odd bug here and there.
By only supporting the latest, there is the best chance for quicker and more universal fixes and updates, along with devs being able to devote their time to best serve the project.
If stability is a requirement then you use the official stable releases.
There isn’t a downside when you stop to think about what nightly builds are there for.
If there are issues that require reference to older builds, then these are also available in the archive for comparison when required.
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Each person in CE works on a different part of the OS, updates have generally fallen on me and I was responsible for coining the upcoming changes so please do not be angry with the Team as it was solely my idea.
Some of the points raised is the exact reason we have a canary period, I think upon reflection that we should extend the canary period to 7 days for stable releases and should any regressions be confirmed during that time then updates will not be activated until the issue is resolved so nobody is forced to have an install that doesn’t work for them.
Fun fact: 85% of all users are running the latest stable build which is the highest % it has ever been.
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Forced updates is a bad idea.
There was a change introduced in 8.95.3 that was causing HEVC videos to go black while skipping forward or backward. I raised this issue on this forum but no one was able to help me. Then, the problem was solved in 8.95.7 (I don’t remember the exact number). Till that time, I would just update and go back to 8.95.2 because that version worked the best for me. If I did not have that option I would look for alternatives to CoreELEC because that problem was big enough for me.
My thread here: 8.95.3, S912, black screen while skipping forward or backward . @anon88919003 could not help. I don’t think anyone can help every user, so let us choose what works best for us.
Another thread: HEVC resync issue after skip (non 4K) . The developers knew about the “problem” (for me), because they implemented a change for a few users in 8.95.3 which broke something for me. But, no one was able to help. So, I stayed at 8.95.2. I am happy for the help that I got. I am not complaining. I am just saying, let me stay at a place where it works for me.
There are problems which have no solution which affect only a few people. We don’t upgrade because we have a reason to. If you are going to force updates, you are going to lose users. There will be a tech savvy user, who is going to make community build which will not force updates, we will move on to that.
Just like OpenELEC->LibreELEC->Kszaq->CoreELEC. Life moves on. Blunders of MS W10 updates should be a good lesson in forced updates and MS is full of bright engineers (in 10s of 1000s) and much bigger userbase (even the beta) but things don’t work out as planned. Moreover, they get paid, so they have much more responsibility and stakes are much higher.
I have been using Windows from Windows 3.1 days, and have upgraded as soon as there was a new version available. But, I have not upgraded to W10 and still use W7 because the changes in W8 and W10 are not to my liking. I am looking at linux in my future.
I like the developers and extremely good response and help from all the developers here such as @Ray , @TheCoolest, @vpeter, @anon88919003. This is the first forum under ELECs where I have made an account. So, I don’t want a good product to destroy itself. Forced updates on anything, (especially, stable) is a major step in destroying the product.
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You speak of alpha, beta releases. The next stable is coming soon with minor updates. After that I don’t expect stable to update for say 6 months.
Nothing makes stables special. There can and will be bugs in stable releases which were not present in previous releases because that is life. Every change brings unintended consequences. So, let us roll back changes when it is more suited for us.
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You are very right every change does bring unintended consequences.
If you have a problem and I fix that problem, then somebody else has a problem and another developer fixes it, then another user an other problem solved by another developer another tweak to the code, and so on.
Now the big question here for me is how do I know If your problem is still fixed. If you stay on the first development build to work. I can’t personally test for every problem, especially the problems that relate to equipment or services I don’t have. I don’t know. Then we hit the next release and behold your problem is there again because it never got tested again to make sure nobody else’s solution broke the first fix for your problem, or a change we pulled from upstream didn’t break things again.
Then you are frustrated because what the heck it’s broken again, we are frustrated because we got no feedback that it was broken again, and could have made sure it was still fixed if we had of known it wasn’t still fixed before the release.
Edit: please note I’m not trying to advocate for across the board auto updating. Just trying to present part of the frustrations the developers have in relation to this problem.
I’m also in favor of automatic updates for nightly builds. The purpose is to test and report. As for stables, I do agree that the option to update should not be forced, but instead support only the latest version.
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We run the nightlies at least partly as a favour to the developers, forced updates could see a significant number of those testers migrate to stable - so who will test the nighlies then ?
Shoog
I think @anthonws has hit the nail on the head. Of course the devs need those that are using nightlies to be on the latest version.
The stable releases are a different story and, as we all know, still have bugs (or the software would be complete, with no further development necessary) and to remove the existing option of remaining on a stable build that works perfectly for one individual (who might use their media box to simply play local media) because a fix for another (who also has a Sat Dish hooked up with issues) regardless of the fact that this breaks something for the first, is just plain rude.
You really should consider that some of your uses do not have issues because they don’t drive their devices as hard as others - it benefits nobody to disregard those users?
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I test each release on one device before allowing the main device (on which the whole household depends) to update.
I have had occasion in the past to skip an update/release based on the results from my tests.
If the stable releases are updated without my explicit knowledge and permission, then I am likely to have a very angry household to deal with, in the event of a glitch/bug.
I would prefer not to have to deal with this, regardless how rare the occurrence might be.
On the other hand … I would have no objection to an annoying popup, telling me I should update the install to receive support, else do not post problems here.
In the end … it is MY device; I control it; I do not wish to concede any of that control to anyone else … not even the CE devs.
So, no forced updates for stable branch.
Yes to forced updates for nightly … and in addition insist that all “problem” reports begin with the most basic information to allow the devs deal with it, such as
image details
hardware details
Delete those that do not, and do not waste time or space on them.
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This is not true, with every release CE gets better. 8.95.x was Alpha releases not stable.
Your post demonstrates exactly why we/I want to do this, your solution is to roll back if there is an issue and that is the problem.
The real solution is to tell us so we can address the elephant in the room.
You seem to be making our like this is evil/bad but the truth is as a distributor we have a duty to ensure all of our users are on the latest and most secure version of CE, we do want CE turning into a 10k+ botnet, this change is not just about the support aspect but also security.
Lastly and as I said previously we will not turn on updates if there is any significant bugs discovered during the canary period, people will just not randomly be forced to upgrade to a buggy version. Also it only affects future builds if you still want to be die hard and remain on something old then those builds are unaffected.
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So, is this already happening? I see a new “weekly” folder (empty, for now? 
) when I go to https://relkai.coreelec.org
Cheers.
I told but there was no solution for a couple of months. You can look at my previous post in this thread with details.
Whats wrong with an empty folder? 
That link is for nightly and weekly builds.
Your posts relate to Alphas which where never earmarked as stable.
The situation is very different now we are using Leia final.
Well, I am “managing” CE’s across multiple flats (family), which are geographically as far as 150km apart. I really need to have stable “PROD”… Of course I can and I do test dev/bleeding edge on my own virtual machine/CEs at home, but when comes to stable…
Your not a box seller are you 
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