Private extension not auto-updating?

[Rajat Paharia]

Hi all - 

My extension is currently "Published to testers" in Private mode, and I have both a Google Group and a few Trusted Tester accounts added. Nobody seems to be getting automatic updates when I publish a new version to the store, they're having to manually uninstall the old version and then install the new one. Is this expected behavior? 

thanks! - rajat

[Patrick Kettner]

Hi Rajat!

That isn;'t expected. Would you be able to share the extension ID? How long was it between you publishing and them still not having the update? It can take some time for their computer to ping the server and receive the update  (it isn't a push service). If you are still seeing users with this problem, would you be able to see if they can hit the Update button on chrome://extensions and see if it works then?

patrick

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[Rajat Paharia]

Hi Patrick!

The extension id is: gldebcpkoojijledacjeboaehblhfbjg

It was several days after I published the update that my testers said they didn't have the newer version. 

I will see if anyone is still on an older version and can try it.

Thank you! - rajat

[Rajat Paharia]

PSA for anyone else using Extension CLI:

• The default manifest.json created by Extension CLI includes both a version and version_name, both initially set to 0.0.1
• By default the build process in Extension CLI overwrites the version in manifest.json with the version from package.json, which is also initially set to 0.0.1
• But it doesn't overwrite the version_name
• So I have been happily incrementing the version and version_name in my manifest and uploading new builds which appeared to have increasing version numbers because the version_name was increasing, but in fact all the version numbers were the same 0.0.1
• Which is probably why my extension was not auto-updating. 

What I did to fix it:

• I didn't want to have to remember to change the version in package.json when doing any release build. I wanted everything to be in manifest.json. So...
• I removed the version_name from manifest.json so that this problem could no longer be masked
• And I removed the line in node_modules > extension-cli > cli > gulpfile.js that copied the version from package.json
  • mft.version = version; // use version from package

- rajat

[Rajat Paharia]

And thanks to Patrick for helping me figure this out! 🙏