Auto Update fails for Vivaldi

TheMightyQuinn

This started to occur about 3-4 months ago, I just ignored it as I didn't have the time to deal with in-home browser issues when I deal with QA all day, you just want to break from this stuff... But this is the last straw, and has broken the the camels back.

What in ****ing hell is going on with Vivaldi and Auto update? Nothing has changed on this machine, no modifications of any type. This is strictly a gaming rig I turn on to shoot the ****, so I know what happens whenever it's turned on.

I've now had to manually run a full installer to update Vivaldi 5-6 times now?

Current version of Vivaldi:

Vivaldi	3.5.2115.87 (Stable channel) (64-bit)
Revision	63862004ac4fa761fcf3c744cd6ac9ef44284b9c
OS	Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
JavaScript	V8 8.7.220.31
Flash	(Disabled)
User Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/87.0.4280.142 Safari/537.36
Command Line	"C:\Users\person\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\Application\vivaldi.exe" --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end --save-page-as-mhtml
Executable Path	C:\Users\person\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\Application\vivaldi.exe
Profile Path	C:\Users\person\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default

I decided to launch TCPView.exe to determine the connections Vivaldi Update Launcher Image established and the application update_notifier.exe initializes a connection to the IP address 31.209.137.5 that resolves to https://update.vivaldi.com however nothing completes. I get the following message Software Update Fail Image Update Error! An error occurred in retrieving an update information; are you connected to the internet? Please try again later. ['Update download incomplete.']

So I take the url in the browser and type IP or URL both return 403 Forbidden nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) can't get beyond that.

I've looked into the MMC snap-in for Certificates to determine if it's an invalid cert or expired or such and no luck. Firewall has been disabled locally Windows 7 64bit no luck. I've even put this machine specifically outside of the hardware firewall to test no luck either. Each of the 5-6 attempts to update, I've manually run the full installer to update. But i'll be damned having to do this method each time, you gotta be out of your mind.

Plus the forums seem to be lacking a lot of information on this issue. I've found two other cases of similar problems.

https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/55286/update-error-for-the-last-3-versions-anyway?lang=en-US and https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/56243/can-t-download-or-update-to-the-latest-version-of-vivaldi-for-windows-x64-need-help?_=1612137877192 I don't think I am alone on this. Please shed some insight into this issue.

Thanks.

Eggcorn

Your attitude leaves a lot to be desired! Unless I've misunderstood you, the only problem you're having with Vivaldi is that the auto-updater isn't working. Hardly worth a "*What in ***ing hell", "*shoot the *****", or "But this is the last straw, and has broken the the camels back."

Unless you're on a limited data plan or a slow connection: This is a minor problem, that can be easily worked around by manually running full installer. Which you're already doing. I don't fault for you coming here, in the hopes of a better solution. That's what we're here for after all. But ask us for help nicely. And if you can't do that, you've got far more serous problems then this minor browser issue.

Edit: I think I was a little hard on you there. The rest of your post seemed polite. Mind you, I'm used to foul-mouthed people on the Internet being problems. Still, I don't think the language you used at start of you post was the right way to make a good impression.

Ayespy

@TheMightyQuinn Can't reproduce the problem on any of seven machines with Stable, Snapshot and Sopranos on each, for a total of 21 instances. The platforms are Win10 64, Win10 32, and Win7 32. So it's something local to you.

Do you run any 3rd party security software? Do you make any proxy modifications? use a VPN or spoof IP? Here, it "just works," so one is hard-pressed to imagine what to address.

Pathduck

@TheMightyQuinn Since you already know about TCPView there are other tools you can use to figure out what happens on your system.

First, the update_notifier.exe connects to:
https://update.vivaldi.com/update/1.0/public/appcast.x64.xml
This gives the URL to the full or delta installer and the release notes. So make sure you can connect to the URLs given in that file.

My initial suspicion would be something on your system terminating the download connection before it finishes. Maybe an Anti-virus or security program, maybe even something external to your system if you're using a scanning proxy like on a corporate network.

Some other tools:

SmartSniff - can show you what happens to the connection and the size of the download.
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/smsniff.html

FileActivityWatch - if the file actually completes you can see where it's been downloaded (usually TEMP).
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/file_activity_watch.html

Process Monitor - very powerful tool to figure out what happens on your system:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon
You can capture a log when the issue happens and then filter on for instance update_notifier.exe.

TheMightyQuinn

@Eggcorn No offence taken, I was only taking my frustration out on the issue, not targeted to anyone specifically. It was one of those "wtf, come on really?!" moments, still troubleshooting cause. Hope to resolve it soon.

TheMightyQuinn

@Pathduck I'll take a look. Strange on the output for TCPView Anyways, I've used a few of the mentioned tools I'll take a look and post back what I find is the cause.

prisana

@Pathduck said in Auto Update fails for Vivaldi:

https://update.vivaldi.com/update/1.0/public/appcast.x64.xml

I havve the same problem as the OP and when I try to access this url, I get

This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.

<rss xmlns:sparkle="http://www.andymatuschak.org/xml-namespaces/sparkle" version="2.0">
<channel>
<item>
<sparkle:releaseNotesLink>https://update.vivaldi.com/update/1.0/relnotes/3.6.2165.34.html</sparkle:releaseNotesLink>
<sparkle:deltas>
<enclosure url="https://downloads.vivaldi.com/stable-auto/Vivaldi.3.5.2115.87-3.6.2165.34.x64.delta.7z.cab" sparkle:deltaFrom="3.5.2115.87" sparkle:version="3.6.2165.34"/>
</sparkle:deltas>
<enclosure url="https://downloads.vivaldi.com/stable-auto/Vivaldi.3.6.2165.34.x64.exe" sparkle:version="3.6.2165.34"/>
<sparkle:minimumSystemVersion>6.0.9999</sparkle:minimumSystemVersion>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

Pathduck

@prisana Yes, that's expected.

Can you access and download any of the files linked in the document from the browser?
https://downloads.vivaldi.com/stable-auto/Vivaldi.3.5.2115.87-3.6.2165.34.x64.delta.7z.cab
https://downloads.vivaldi.com/stable-auto/Vivaldi.3.6.2165.34.x64.exe

prisana

@Pathduck said in Auto Update fails for Vivaldi:

@prisana Yes, that's expected.
Can you access and download any of the files linked in the document from the browser?

Yes, both of them downloaded successfully.

AlecF

I have the same issue since some time now.

Vivaldi	3.5.2115.87 (Stable channel) (32-bit)
Revision	63862004ac4fa761fcf3c744cd6ac9ef44284b9c
OS	Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
JavaScript	V8 8.7.220.31
Flash	(Disabled)
User Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/87.0.4280.142 Safari/537.36
Command Line	"C:\Users\Elfy\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\Application\vivaldi.exe" --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end --save-page-as-mhtml

Updater notifies about update available, downloads and shows whatsnew, but fails to download actual update. All urls mentioned in https://update.vivaldi.com/update/1.0/public/appcast.xml are perfectly accessible from Vivaldi or wget. Procmon shows that updater creates update file in temp folder (successfully) and then instantly closes it. There doesn't seem to be any actual download going at any point.

This is all that happens with downloads.vivaldi.com:

08:10:04.6869562	update_notifier.exe	1948	TCP Connect	NEVERWOOD2016:50132 -> 151.139.236.233:https	SUCCESS	Length: 0, mss: 1460, sackopt: 1, tsopt: 0, wsopt: 1, rcvwin: 65700, rcvwinscale: 2, sndwinscale: 10, seqnum: 0, connid: 0
08:10:04.7174124	update_notifier.exe	1948	TCP Send	NEVERWOOD2016:50132 -> 151.139.236.233:https	SUCCESS	Length: 142, startime: 35351, endtime: 35352, seqnum: 0, connid: 0
08:10:04.7174513	update_notifier.exe	1948	TCP Receive	NEVERWOOD2016:50132 -> 151.139.236.233:https	SUCCESS	Length: 0, seqnum: 0, connid: 0
08:10:04.7175187	update_notifier.exe	1948	TCP Disconnect	NEVERWOOD2016:50132 -> 151.139.236.233:https	SUCCESS	Length: 0, seqnum: 0, connid: 0

Ayespy

@AlecF That folder closing is interference from an outside influence. Vivaldi is being prevented from creating the folder.

AlecF

@Ayespy What folder closing? The file is created just fine. I can confirm its existence in file manager if success codes weren't enough >_< It's in the connection part that something wonky is happening.

BTW, one thing I thought strange is that updater stores xml in AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5, so it is probably using some IE related windows mechanisms to download stuff. And IE is uninstalled on this system. Like, the browser itself does not exist. Could it be related somehow? Perhaps some ssl update is missing because the actual browser isn't there anymore.

@TheMightyQuinn Do you have IE on that machine?

Ayespy

@AlecF Nope. Edge, yeah. Windows Explorer, yeah. No IE. The creation of a file by a web-connected software that is "not trusted" is the trigger for many kinds of 3P security apps to shut down the web-connected software. That's what I was talking about.

Pathduck

@AlecF said in Auto Update fails for Vivaldi:

BTW, one thing I thought strange is that updater stores xml in AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5, so it is probably using some IE related windows mechanisms to download stuff.

Yes, it uses a IE DLL to do the download, then moves the files from the IE cache to TEMP.

And IE is uninstalled on this system. Like, the browser itself does not exist.

It's Windows, IE will always be present on the system in some form
But yeah, depends on how you uninstalled IE. For Windows 7 I suppose this is something you have to do yourself?

Perhaps some ssl update is missing because the actual browser isn't there anymore.

It's a good theory, that some component of IE is missing. Really hard to test though. Expiring SSL certificates are a common problem on Win7 unless the user manually does the updates, and will become worse and worse over time.

AlecF

I can now confirm that it has something to do with IE. Did install IE, updated, checked that Vivaldi updater work, then rolled back to double check that it's not a fluke.

You need at least IE11 (which is definitely not present in any form unless you install it) for updater to work. You can turn it off after installation, since it won't be actually uninstalled, but yeah, if you had IE turned off in your image to begin with or turned it off and haven't ever installed IE updates, Vivaldi won't autoupdate.

Now, the real question, any chance this can be fixed on dev's side? Or, possibly, even in server config. I mean, the files are accessible by any number of means from this system, so one can hope

Pathduck

@AlecF said in Auto Update fails for Vivaldi:

You need at least IE11 (which is definitely not present in any form unless you install it) for updater to work.

Maybe this is true in Windows 7 - but I believe IE is always installed there by default anyway, so someone must first uninstall it, and most likely in a non-standard way (i.e. force delete a lot of system files) for it to be completely gone.

Even in Win10 parts of IE is still present and cannot be removed, unless you force delete system-protected files. This is for backwards compatibility for legacy applications that rely on IE components.

One of these is ieframe.dll and I believe this (or a similar IE DLL) is used by the Vivaldi update_notifier to check for and download updates.

Now, the real question, any chance this can be fixed on dev's side?

It would probably require a complete rewrite of the update_notifier so I doubt it will happen any time soon. Not as long as there is a certain guarantee that the legacy IE components will still be available in Windows. Maybe in the long term they will migrate to using the BITS Service instead.

But good job for confirming that it was indeed missing IE components that caused the issue on your system

AlecF

@Pathduck I do hope that it could be fixed on server side, because same updater can still download xml from another server just fine, and could get updates just fine as well a few months ago.

prisana

I installed IE11; today attempting to update Vivaldi failed with the usual message: are you connected to the internet?

AlecF

@prisana Did you check for windows updates too? I noticed that some libraries (like ieframe.dll) just don't get new versions installed, even when they are listed as affected in some kb you have, unless IE is installed. And original IE11 is actually very old, so you'll need these updates. Hope it helps. For me last Vivaldi update went smoothly.

TheMightyQuinn

IE was removed standardly through Add/Remove Programs > Windows Features (no custom/absolute method used to remove IE) strange that the updater requires IE components to download but why all of a Sudden within the last 4-5 months? Anything changed up the updater? I've had IE removed for ages.

I'm still working at it. I did another manual update and the informational message for the updater changed to this.

https://imgur.com/WAdNAWu (if you notice the images posted first time).

Alas I'd hate to have to reinstall IE again just to get it working. I'm going to keep digging in the mean time.