Updates
How the desktop client updates itself, and what to do when it stops
The desktop client looks for a new release shortly after it starts and once an hour after that. When it finds one it downloads it in the background, tells you in the corner, and installs it the next time you quit. You can carry on using Gryt through all of it.
The message in the corner fills a progress bar while the download runs, and turns into restart and update now when it finishes. Taking it restarts Gryt straight away, which will drop you out of a call. Ignoring it's fine. The update installs when you quit anyway.
If you're on the beta channel it looks at prereleases too.
A release you already have downloaded isn't downloaded again, so the second attempt at the same version is quick even if the first one was interrupted.
Gryt downloads only the parts of the app that changed, which is usually about a third of it. When it can't work out the difference it downloads the whole app instead.
Turning automatic updates off
Settings → Updates & about → Automatic updates.
Off, Gryt still tells you when a release exists and still shows you the version, but nothing is downloaded until you press download now in that message. The progress bar and the restart work the same way after that.
An update that has already been downloaded still installs when you quit. With this off, the only way one gets downloaded is that you asked for it.
The client won't update (Windows)
Windows builds v1.6.6 through v1.6.24 can't install an update. They find the new release and download it correctly, then fail at the last step and start again on the version they were already on. Left alone, such an install re-downloads every new release forever and never moves.
You're affected if Gryt says it's one of those versions in Settings → Updates & about and has been saying so for a while.
These installs can't repair themselves. Installing is the step that fails, so nothing published after the fix reaches them on its own. It takes one manual install.
Fixing it
Close Gryt completely, including the tray icon.
Download the installer from the latest release.
Run it.
Updates install on their own again afterwards, and your settings, servers and identity are untouched — none of that lives in the installation directory.
What went wrong
The Windows install step ran through a PowerShell helper that was assembled
from a list of lines joined with ; . Several of those lines continued an
expression onto the next one, so the semicolons landed inside expressions
rather than between statements. PowerShell parses a whole script before running
any of it, which is why nothing happened at all rather than something partial:
no installer, no log, and the app restarted on the version it already had.
Fixed in v1.6.25, and the helper has since been removed. It turned out never to have completed an install on any machine in any version, including after the parse was fixed. Windows now installs on quit, the way every other platform already did.