Hi everyone,
Please note that SeaMonkey 2.53.9.1 has been released.
For transparency and fyi, this release was delayed by a few days due to some technical difficulties (mine… started the release process last week but failed a few times over the weekend).
That stated, the updates are up and confirmed running so your 2.53.5+ systems should be updating to 2.53.9.1.
Please check out [1] and/or [2].
:ewong
[1] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.9.1/
I’d like to revisit something about Updates and versions < 2.49.x. [This could possibly be a repeat note.]
If you check for updates for versions < 2.38 [iirc], you will get an “Update Failed” message along with information stating that the “Update XML file malformed (200)” message.
This is a known issue. It stems from the fact that client doesn’t recognize the certificate that’s being supplied by the site.
Can something be done about this? Aside for the user manually downloading and installing the latest version, unfortunately, there’s nothing that we can do. At least, nothing that would make sense in doing.
Why?
What needs to be done is to make the old installed version recognize the certificates as well as support the correct set of ssl cyphers. The former can probably be achieved by manually downloading the new certificate roots. The latter, unfortunately will be blocking the former as well, since this is a code-based issue. So patches will need to be created to be applied to the binary code. I’d hazard a guess that no one will be able to take that time to create patches on old source to get old clients to update to the newest version.
So, all in all, it’d be a lot easier just to download and install the latest, providing the operating system is supported by the latest version. [I can certainly post a rant on this support issue… but I digress..]
And with the possibility of aus2-community’s domain being decommissioned, versions <= 2.53.4 will require an addition to your “user.js” file to redirect to the actual updates site.
Best regards,
:ewong
Greetings, The SeaMonkey Project is pleased to announce the release of SeaMonkey 2.53.9 final. So please check out [1] or [2]. Thanks to all involved. :ewong PS: Yes, the updates are working. Links: [1] - https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.9 [2] - https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.9/
Hi All,
The SeaMonkey Project is pleased to announce the immediate release of the next Beta version of SeaMonkey, 2.53.9b1.
Please check out [1] and [2].
Note that the updates are enabled; but seems to require some bit of time to be recognized. Currently investigating the issue.
:ewong
[1] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.9/
[2] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.9b1
Just for the sake of jogging memory (as I just forgot about this and was trying to figure out what I did wrong):
SeaMonkey 2.53.7 en-US/zh-TW users need to manually upgrade to 2.53.8.1.
Or, for the sake of ‘fun’, just install 2.53.8 and have the system upgrade it to 2.53.8.1. Why would you do that? *shrug* For <something> and giggles.. Just so to prove it works.
:ewong
Hi All,
Just a quick note that SeaMonkey 2.53.8.1 is out! The Updates part should work as intended…
Please do read the Release notes at [1].
:ewong
[1] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.8.1/
Hi All,
I hope everyone is doing well.
tl;dr;
After struggling for so long, I’m happy to announce that I’ve pushed the Updates server to live. While I (and others) have tested against our installed versions, with the user base so broad, it’s difficult to find the edge cases. Hopefully this will help us improve the updates server.
Long form:
So updates are now being served with the following caveats:
[*] – Manual update is still possible (provided that your operating system is supported. Please *always* backup your profile. While it is possible to use the same user.js to get clients to use the new update server, versions <= 2.33 won’t actually recognize the new server due to the Certificate trust issues. Unfortunately, this can’t be helped and it is impractical to fix (especially given the small group we have at SeaMonkey central).
[**] – Technically speaking, it is possible to get the update served for at least versions >= 2.38. (Anything less is not possible due to certificate trust issues and updating these clients’ certificate info has come to the stage of being ‘impractical’ given our resources.) That said, while it is technically possible, it might just well be infeasible/impractical (again, given the resources we have). To be honest, I’m not happy about this myself; but realistically speaking, we all have only so much time to spend on this project. I feel this might be considered a cop-out/excuse.
I had the original intention when I first started the updates server project to update every (yes.. I mean *every* — incl. 1.x) single SeaMonkey version to the latest(depending on OS support); but as I mentioned before during my update investigations, it isn’t possible.
I’ll summarize here:
On the page, it looks simple and one may wonder why the hell can’t we update anything we want to the latest and greatest(again, OS dependent). I can tell you it isn’t without trying. I know that’s not saying a lot really. Since I’ve been struggling with this for so long, I sometimes wonder if someone else might do a better job… and I think someone can. The project just needs to find that someone. In the meantime, I’m continually plugging away at this.
My next project is the crash reporter server. (Context-switching is difficult.) Hopefully, once that’s out of the way, I can go back and help out with the code.
Anyway, I’ve written a lot this time, and I do appreciate everyone’s patience (especially, my fellow devs).
It’s been very tough on everyone lately due to the pandemic so I hope everyone is keeping safe and healthy.
Best Regards,
:ewong
Hi All,
This is a quick announcement that SeaMonkey 2.53.8 has been released!
Please check it out at [1] or [2].
:ewong
PS: Updates are being tested..
[1] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.8/
[2] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.8#official
Hi All,
Just want to mention that SeaMonkey 2.53.8 Beta 1 is out.
Please visit [1] for more info:
[1] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.8b1
PS: Yes, quite a brief mention. Working on the updates situation…
Hi,
Updates are still unavailable.
Reason?
What I had thought was a working system turned out that it wasn’t working that well. It worked when I ran updates and it worked for others on the test site. But in production, it worked only for a few. Some updates were given in zh-*. So instead of keeping it up and giving people bad updates, I’ve opted to switch off the updates altogether until I can get my stuff together.
So… back to the drawing board (but not square one).
My apologies for those affected by the locale switch. But I thank you all for the precious feedback.
:ewong
