signalapp
'Update is available' shown too many times for the same build
The update notice is currently placed at the top of the chat list, which is the place which Signal trains the user to check most often. Also it's as big as a chat bubble and has huge buttons.
That's why the frequent updates of Signal (which is a good thing in itself) feels like a bad thing for many users as reported already in this issue on GitHub or on this thread on Reddit.
I suggest you place that information elsewhere in the UI, anywhere else will be an improvement, really, for example as a sticky view at the bottom of the list instead of the top. Also, I suggest to make the hint and buttons much more subtle. One step could be to make the text and buttons in general smaller. Another idea would be to go a totally different approach and just show some kind of circle somewhere (like the top right of the screen) and on the App Icon which points to an available update. The info that an update is available and the buttons would then appear only once the circle is clicked. That's a very common practice so users should understand it intuitively.
If you really want to stress updates due to security reasons, I suggest to take a 2-step approach:
- in the first 30 days of an available update, use a subtle hint that it's available
- when the user did not make an update for more than 30 days, show it like it's shown today
We've put a lot of effort into considering the various tradeoffs involved in design and perceived urgency of updates, and the current design is something we're comfortable with.
I will note that we are considering making the 'Update is available' alert a little smaller so you can see more items below it in the left pane.
Closing user feedback like this without objective explanation why is a really disappointing action that I didn't expect. "We're comfortable with (the current design)" is a really subjective explanation which doesn't actually explain your rationale at all. You could replace it by "I don't care what you think as a user, I am always in the right" which would hold the same amount of information and actually has the same overall sentiment (just makes it more explicit).
Why are you comfortable with the current design? Maybe you consider it important for security reasons? Did you see my suggestion for that case? Please explain it to me, so I can understand your decision making and don't feel like you're just too lazy or disrespectful to consider my feedback. I really did take the time to think about it and write together a suggestion to improve it for the users and although I don't have the same view as you guys and can't know all things that matter here, I still feel like I (and everyone else who's having the same complaint) deserve to understand why we need to live with that annoying experience.
Also, without a reason why you think the current design is good, a healthy discussion on how or if it can be improved is impossible. The way this issue was closed although I showed you that this is a big enough problem to tackle (as there are many users experiencing this issue) is a really bad sign for Signal. It really doesn't give the feeling the the user experience is considered as an important topic here and the developer experience is always preferred.
I hope that this was an exception and other users feedback is considered more thoroughly.
We recently implemented a new update behavior which our designers put a lot of thought and care into. This change addressed a lot of the issues around updates like the reddit thread and the GH issue you linked to.
We do value your feedback and are considering one of your suggestions, specifically:
One step could be to make the text and buttons in general smaller.
This seems broken still. Updates should be every 3 months at the shortest resolution unless there is an emergency. It seems to be updating every time the signal code changes.
The experience on OSX for this is really, really frustrating. I am pestered very nearly every single day with an extremely interruptive request from Signal to "install a helper tool" by popping up a dialog front and center on top of everything else I'm doing. I have to enable admin privileges to install this helper tool, which is a pain due to my workplace security settings. Hitting "cancel" does not make it go away; it comes back, usually within a second. Hitting "cancel" repeatedly simply begins a thrilling game of whack-a-mole.
As if that weren't enough, the updates seem to fail at least half the time, resulting in a popup that never goes away no matter how many times I put in my password. The only way to resolve it is to force quit and completely reinstall. That's another issue, but overall it results in a godawful experience.
Whatever it is you guys decide to do about update frequency, you should at least stop popping an os-level authentication request to install stuff without me even asking to update or clicking on the update alert. The giant yellow update alert is clear enough, it's infuriating to have an app that pesters me for updates with OS dialogs that refuse to go away.
@hiebj Would you be open to entering a new bug about this specific non-admin scenario? To be clear, you see the 'Install a Helper Tool' dialog before you see the update banner in the app, or click 'restart now?'
@scottnonnenberg-signal Presumably, the update banner renders at the same time the dialog pops up. I have Signal running minimized a lot of the time. This happens most often when I log in after having left my computer for a while. Even if I don't click on the banner or even focus Signal the dialog will pop up when my windows are restored.
I may create a bug for it the next time it happens and I can provide more specific information.
Please do something about this.. at least provide the option to disable the notification message, and signal can update the next time it's restarted..
All: There's a new option: 'Automatically download updates.' I expect that disabling that will give you a user experience closer to what you're looking for.
Thanks. However, I think people do want updates, just don't want to be notified about them so frequently. Silent updates would be perfectly fine.
@tihomir-kit We've found that 'so frequently' really varies for folks, and in fact that lack of clarity has hidden real bugs. We release updates about once per week. Do folks in this thread see update notifications more often than that? If you do, we're interested in working with you to figure out why updates aren't applying properly.
Hi, Thanks for the followup. I think the mechanism for restarting to get update is ok. It's just that weekly update ismore frequant than any other desktop app I have had. Maybe a configuration option (on by default) to pullan update quarterly as alternative to weekly for the desktop version. Also, some of us in states that don't have rural internet infrastrucuture and are limited to < 1 mbps internet. On Thursday, October 7, 2021, 01:11:34 PM PDT, Scott Nonnenberg @.***> wrote:
@tihomir-kit We've found that 'so frequently' really varies for folks, and in fact that lack of clarity has hidden real bugs. We release updates about once per week. Do folks in this thread see update notifications more often than that? If you do, we're interested in working with you to figure out why updates aren't applying properly.
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Also, some of us in states that don't have rural internet infrastrucuture and are limited to < 1 mbps internet.
Check out Preferences. There's a setting to disable the automatic download of updates
I would pretty much like to have an option to auto download updates then auto update on next startup tough. It would minimize the impact of the updates on the user experience.
I would pretty much like to have an option to auto download updates then auto update on next startup tough. It would minimize the impact of the updates on the user experience.
That's how it works now by default!
Chiming in to say that the update UX (in an otherwise lovely piece of software) is among the worst I've experienced.
I would have guessed that I'm prompted to manually restart the Windows client at least every other day. I'll start writing down how often it actually is, so we can see if I'm getting the intended experience.
I'm perfectly happy to have frequent updates. I'm not so happy to have each one require an intrusive notification or a disruptive UI element that demands workflow-impeding manual actions.
We've found that 'so frequently' really varies for folks, and in fact that lack of clarity has hidden real bugs. We release updates about once per week. Do folks in this thread see update notifications more often than that? If you do, we're interested in working with you to figure out why updates aren't applying properly.
@scottnonnenberg-signal Since my comment 5 days ago, I have been prompted to restart Signal 3 separate times. Is that not expected behavior?
It's a nuisance given that it generates an attention-grabbing alert (as though I had received a message) every time an update is ready, and reduces functional area to add the UI element prompting restart.
It would be terrific to see Signal's update process handled in a less intrusive way.
@elivox I expect that you're on production (version numbers without 'beta')? You can see our releases here: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/releases. 5.23 was released 11/3, and 5.22 was released 10/27. Sounds like you might have some problems with updates not applying successfully.
A debug log might be good, but will only capture three days of history. Still, might as well provide it, and we'll see if we can find any hints.
We are all passionate about Signal because it is the only viable communications tool out there. We all hope that this excessive update notification issue is fixed because we want more users on Signal, friends, family, coworkers, etc. This long running bug in signal makes a lot of people we share signal with think there is something wrong with it. Recommend making this a high severity fix at this point.
@scottnonnenberg-signal Yep, I'm on production (currently 5.23.0). I did check the release notes this time around, and can confirm that the notifications aren't timed with new releases.
debug log here, generated just now: https://debuglogs.org/176a1b91881fa898041e0da467b1fe3282419fc862fcd89e8276c0cc5ad9e258.gz
3 days coverage would be enough to capture the last update notification I received, but not necessarily the 'successful' update that bumped me to 5.23.
If it helps, in an informal survey of 3 friends using Signal Desktop for both Mac and Windows, 3/3 report excessive update notifications. I'd guess the source of the issue is not highly particular to my setup.
@elivox Thanks for your log - looks like you saw the 'update available' dialog for 5.23 twice. The first time you shut down without selecting to install it - did you expect the update to happen then?
There was a time you at least started downloading the new version (2021-11-05T01:20:42.173Z), but a dialog wasn't shown after that.
Does that match with your memory of what happened?
INFO 2021-11-05T01:19:44.005Z starting version 5.22.0
INFO 2021-11-05T01:19:48.375Z downloadUpdate: Downloading update https://updates2.signal.org/desktop/signal-desktop-win-5.23.0.exe
INFO 2021-11-05T01:20:11.602Z downloadAndInstall: showing dialog...
INFO 2021-11-05T01:20:35.112Z close event {"readyForShutdown":false,"shouldQuit":false}
INFO 2021-11-05T01:20:35.180Z close event {"readyForShutdown":true,"shouldQuit":true}
<immediate restart - should update have applied here?>
INFO 2021-11-05T01:20:38.715Z app ready
INFO 2021-11-05T01:20:38.716Z starting version 5.22.0
INFO 2021-11-05T01:20:42.173Z downloadUpdate: Downloading update https://updates2.signal.org/desktop/signal-desktop-win-5.23.0.exe
INFO 2021-11-05T01:20:43.770Z close event {"readyForShutdown":false,"shouldQuit":false}
INFO 2021-11-05T01:20:43.784Z close event {"readyForShutdown":true,"shouldQuit":true}
<offline for a while - shut down computer?>
INFO 2021-11-05T21:55:58.942Z app ready
INFO 2021-11-05T21:55:58.942Z starting version 5.22.0
INFO 2021-11-05T21:56:04.724Z downloadUpdate: Downloading update https://updates2.signal.org/desktop/signal-desktop-win-5.23.0.exe
INFO 2021-11-05T21:56:29.600Z downloadAndInstall: showing dialog...
INFO 2021-11-05T22:08:51.503Z windows/install: installing package...
INFO 2021-11-05T22:08:52.333Z before-quit event {"readyForShutdown":false,"shouldQuit":true}
INFO 2021-11-05T22:08:52.413Z close event {"readyForShutdown":true,"shouldQuit":true}
INFO 2021-11-05T22:09:00.495Z starting version 5.23.0
Interesting. The timeline adds up, though I have no specific memories of the process. Thanks for taking a look!
But I'm not sure that the question of when I expected the update to happen is quite the right question.
That's because, as a user of Signal, I use the app for exactly one reason: instant messaging. I open it to read or send messages, and I close it if I'm shutting off my computer or I need to focus.
Updating the application is not instant messaging. It's not why I open the software, it's not why I close it, and it's not something that I want to think about while I'm using it.
Updates are very important! I'm glad that they happen -- but in the same way I'm glad that memory is garbage collected. I have nothing to add to the process, and I am happy to be left out of the loop.
I totally get that complaints about an (ideally) once-weekly notification sound petty, especially when the notification is, "hey, we did a bunch of work to improve your experience." But the practice has a real cost.
- It simulates receiving a message. Getting an alert from my messaging app which is not a message degrades the channel substantially. Notifications become (forgive me) a noisy signal.
- It turns the tool into a task. An alert that says "Click to restart Signal" adds an item to every user's mental to-do list, every single time. Yes, resolving the task is as easy as clicking the button and waiting for the application to relaunch -- but the mental overhead of rearranging a user's priorities on the fly far exceeds the raw time cost of the action item.
- It damages trust in the application. Taskbar alerts and prompts for user action are, by far, not the normal pattern for handling software updates. For example, my web browser silently downloads updates in the background, and silently applies them on restart. Whether or not it's fair, breaking from what are seen as best practices creates an appearance of... for lack of a better word, jankiness.
In light of these downsides, I have to wonder what the benefits are? Having those benefits well-communicated to the end user would go a long way to improving the perceived quality of the application.
(P.S. -- I did just recently get the update notification, and clicked to restart. Checking the app's about, it looks like I moved to 5.23.1 without issue. Based on what you've said, I'd be as surprised as you if I see another alert before 5.23.2, and I'll share the debug log if that happens.)
Just want to jump in and voice my agreement with others. The update pace and obtrusiveness is way over the top. Even weekly is too often. I will upgrade to get new features at my convenience, thank you.
@tobyjohnm We release about once a week, and in some weeks we need to release an extra build to fix an important issue. If you're seeing more 'update is available' notifications than that, we'd love to get some debug logs from you to figure out why updates are sometimes failing.
@scottnonnenberg-signal One possible fix would be to have a configuration option to make the weekly maintenance updates quiet (e.g. when users want them to happen in back ground without being prompted in the UI).
I'm not certain we've communicated the point clearly.
We do understand that (ideally) weekly update prompts are what you expect to happen. The concern is that this looks and feels like a bug to end users.
In general, Signal's intended features are not routinely mistaken for bugs. It may be productive to explore what makes this feature different.
To provide another data point, I've just questioned another Signal Desktop user, who said this: "I'm not sure if the update thing reappears too often, because I don't even bother clicking it anymore. It's just always there. It doesn't seem to make any difference whether I click it or not, so I just got used to it."
If that's not the desired outcome, then I have to suggest that the feature may not be working as intended.
@tobyjohnm We release about once a week, and in some weeks we need to release an extra build to fix an important issue. If you're seeing more 'update is available' notifications than that, we'd love to get some debug logs from you to figure out why updates are sometimes failing.
I received another dreaded update notification today. Here is the debug log. I'm pretty sure that when I commented 5 days ago it was because I had seen multiple updates within the past week.
@tobyjohnm We released 5.28.0 to production today. You can see our complete list of releases here: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/releases