Updater Service

Updater checks and installs official Observer releases. It is registered only for official non-prerelease binaries built with the github-actions-ci channel. A missing module on a self-built, snapshot, or Dockerfile build is expected.

Setting	Key	Default	Meaning
Enable	enabled	false	Enable automatic update checks every six hours.
Release Fetch URL	release_fetch_url	GitHub release template below	Source for release ZIP and digest files.
Auto Restart	auto_restart	false	Restart after a successful automatic upgrade.

https://github.com/anyshake/observer/releases/download/{{.Version}}/{{.ToolchainName}}.{{.Extension}}

The template must serve both .zip and .dgst for the same release and target. Version discovery uses DNS metadata at observer.updates.anyshake.org; downloads use HTTPS. Check both network paths when diagnosing failures.

Automatic checks start on the six-hour interval. With Auto Restart disabled, the executable is replaced after verification, but the running process continues using its loaded version until restart. Manual upgrades from Settings → About Software work even when automatic updates are disabled or stopped, refresh the version check, report progress, and restart after success regardless of Auto Restart.

Eligibility also depends on the minimum required release reported by update metadata. If the current release is too old for automatic migration, install a supported release manually rather than bypassing that requirement.

The updater requires SHA-256 verification of the extracted executable and write permission in its directory. Unix upgrades retain the previous binary as observer.YYYYMMDDhhmmss. Administrators can list and remove executable backups in Settings. Database files and waveform archives are not included in those backups.

Back up the database before upgrading; replacing a binary cannot undo schema migrations. See Upgrade and Backup for manual upgrades and recovery, or Docker for container upgrades.