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Discords update "policy" is really annoying.

I daily-drive Manjaro and discord refuses to allow you to log in with an older client version when they release an update.

Manjaro's stable takes about two weeks to catch up so when this happens I'm stuck looking for an alternative way to update.

Usually I go for the AUR or (if available) unstable branch package but today the AUR wasn't up-to-date yet when I encountered this problem.

This is a minor inconvenience and was fixed about an hour later when the AUR was updated with the newer discord-electron-bin but I just don't get discords game here?

Why not allow the previous client version to connect and alert users of an available update like any other sane chat application does?

You could go for a time period like two weeks or a month and AFTER that start forcing users to update. I don't get why they force it the instant they release the update.

Just wanted to share this annoyance here, maybe someone encounters this possibility when designing update cycles for their application. I urge you not to instantly lock-out older versions. It's annoying, useless and restrictive. Or if you do so, opensource it so repositories can immediately build from source and sync and don't need to wait for a maintainer to update the bin in the repo.

Comments
  • 6
    I just use discord in a browser. Ditched Discord because they were messing up the sound on my games with zero options to turn off sound.
  • 4
    Discord is your typical monopolistic bloated electron-based spyware, you may get rid of that and use it in your browser as @Demolishun said
  • 3
    I have the same issue every now and then
    To bypass it you can manually change the version in /usr/share/discord/resources/build_info.json
  • 1
    browser experience is worse and I can't use all the plugins that a modded desktop client allows
  • 2
    nvm it's /opt/discord/resources/build_info.json (can't edit the message)
  • 4
    Discord is just shit. Nuff said
  • 0
    Update through dvm, a community-maintained Discord version manager:
    $ dvm update stable

    But whenever you can, avoid giving out system info - use browser.
  • 2
    Adding “SKIP_HOST_UPDATE”: true to your ~/.config/discord/settings.json should work to stop that
  • 2
    @vintprox adding a yet another "package manager" isn't really a good option, no?
  • 3
    @iiii Especially for a single program that’s very unnecessary
  • 1
    @SalsaGal Oh yeah I know there are fixes. I generally dislike touching config files if I don't have to, but thanks for the tip.

    My rant is more about how that is a stupid practice and that as a developer if you ever come to designing an update mechanism: please don't do this.
  • 2
    "Discord's"

    Respectfully, The Apostrophe Police
  • 0
    @FuckJava Yeah my bad, English isn't my native tongue but even there I usually mess this up. Thanks though, I try to work on it!
  • 2
    All I hear is "this is shit because it doesn't provide immediate updates for my super niche OS". And before you go ape shit, yes, Manjaro is super niche, it's used by a total of 0.15% gamers on Steam (keep in mind Discord is targeted at gamers). On top of that (and supported by the comments in this thread) a lot of those users refuse to provide any kind of diagnostic information and instead just complain about it being broken.

    This has nothing to do with Discord or Manjaro, this is the fucking state of Linux community in general and applies to any software - everyone uses a different distro, a different package manager, slightly different dependency versions, potentially adds their own hacks on top of it, doesn't provide diagnostics for privacy reasons, and then complains how something is "broken". Fuck off.
  • 3
    @hitko My guy, who pissed in your coffee this morning?

    Locking out an older version of a chat app the instant you release a new version is stupid, utterly useless and inconvenient.

    It doesn't matter if I run Windon't, Crapple MacOS or Shitnux, the lockout is stupid.

    The only real environment where that is a logical choice is for games, as patches and fixes and general symmetry across installs is required there.
  • 1
    @hitko I never stated something was broken, I never blamed the AUR for this, I never said this was specifically Manjaro related or even specifically Linux related.

    Locking out users the instant you release an update for a chat application is dumb.

    If you had properly read my post and the thread and used both hemispheres of your brain you would have known this before you were the one going apeshit.
  • 2
    Maybe their architecture is so spaghetti that they don't want the burden of maintaining compatibility with older client versions. If they always break compatibility intentionally, they can do whatever changes in each version.
  • 1
    @electrineer Is a possibility. Discord does seem like a mess on the back-end side. Audio device management is a mess too which is kindoff sad as that is a major usecase for the app.
  • 1
  • 0
    Sounds like a linux problem to be fair
  • 1
    @12bitfloat is equally annoying on MacOS or Windows, or even Android or iOS. Take this scenario.

    Person X: on a train, bad connection. Wants to read messages.

    Discord: No you cannot, download this 60MB+ update executable NOW!

    -> Not OS specific.

    Sure the AUR issue is Linux specific but that wasn't the focus of my post.

    Locking out the previous version of your chat app the second you release a new version is dumb and annoying and doesn't really have a good reason at all.
  • 1
    @PotatoCookie I more meant that having to wait 2 weeks because distros have this weird idea of a walled garden where software must only come from the official packegers is a very specific linux problem

    On the go I could see it being very annoying though!
  • 0
    @12bitfloat That is Linux specific, true. But on the other hand it also comes with the promise that your package manager will work and will keep working.

    The amount of times I had to go and re-link, reinstall, rebuild or change my path and reboot over and over again with Windows, just because the installer for program X overwrote/changed some value or reference or file or dependency for program Y is insane.

    That is a major reason I switched to package manager driven installation now.

    But true, you are somewhat dependant on limitations of the package manager and related repositories and maintainers.

    Flatpaks and Appimages and such created by the software teams themselves are getting more and more popular though so as a user you often have a choice to skip the package manager (I am not a fan of this, but having options is good).
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