# Updates

Source: https://docs.gryt.chat/docs/use/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.

<Callout type="warn">
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.
</Callout>

### Fixing it

<Steps>

<Step>
Close Gryt completely, including the tray icon.
</Step>

<Step>
Download the installer from the
[latest release](https://github.com/Gryt-chat/gryt/releases/latest).
</Step>

<Step>
Run it.
</Step>

</Steps>

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.