[Bug]: Desktop updater failures log no underlying error #13977

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1. juliusmarminge commented on Sep 27, 2026

   

   juliusmarminge

   on Sep 27, 2026

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   The generic log line is real, and it is deliberate. The three ElectronUpdater*Error handlers in apps/desktop/src/updates/DesktopUpdates.ts log error.message plus errorTag and channel (and the install flags on quit-and-install). They do not log error.cause. DesktopUpdates.test.ts ("logs bounded updater failure context without exposing the cause") locks that in: an electron-updater failure whose message is a feed URL with userinfo and a query token must not show up in the log annotations. The same redaction applies to the on-screen update message ("keeps raw updater event failures out of update state").

   cause: describeReadinessCause(error.cause) would undo that. describeReadinessCause copies message, so a 404 or checksum error that embeds the download URL would be written to the desktop log, and that test would fail. It is also the wrong helper for this path.

   A dismissed pkexec prompt does not go through ElectronUpdaterQuitAndInstallError at all. electron-updater 6.8.9 DebUpdater.doInstall catches the install error, dispatchErrors it, and returns false. quitAndInstall does not throw, so the Effect.try wrapper never builds that tagged error. The failure arrives on the error event and is handled by handleUpdaterError, which logs Desktop updater install operation reported an error. with errorTag and operation only. spawnSyncLog throws Command <pkexec> exited with code <status> (cancel is typically 126). That text is dropped too.

   Download and check failures are worse in a different way: electron-updater both emits error and rejects the promise, so you get the generic DesktopUpdaterReportedError line and the generic ElectronUpdater*Error line, still with no status, code, or exit status.

   Worth fixing only with a bounded discriminator (error.code when it is a string such as ERR_UPDATER_*, or an exit status parsed from the command error), never the message or URL. The existing secret test should keep failing if a token in cause reaches the annotations.
2. juliusmarminge

   added

   bugSomething is broken or behaving incorrectly.Something is broken or behaving incorrectly.

   via-triageFiled through npx t3 triageFiled through npx t3 triage

   on Sep 27, 2026
3. Yash-Singh1

   closed this as completedin #18864on Oct 13, 2026