Minor issue with updating PM.

BenFenner · Unread post by **BenFenner** » 2024-10-20, 15:44

Operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate Fighting Championship Edition
Browser version: Pale Moon 33.2.1 (64-bit)
Installed add-ons: N/A
Installed plugins:: uBlock Origin, YouTubeNonStop

First off, I'm loving the themed About window. Not sure if this is new or not, but this is the first time I'm seeing it.

Secondly, this is not really a problem. I can just download and install the latest version. But in case this helps anyone figure out an issue, I have a slightly older version of Pale Moon on a machine I rarely boot up these days. I'm on it now and checking for a new version and I was expecting to just be able to update to 33.4.0.1 (current) from what I have on this machine (which is 33.2.1). But I'm being told by the updater that there are no new version available. This seems odd, and unexpected.

Help → Troubleshooting Information:

ron_1 · Unread post by **ron_1** » 2024-10-20, 16:09

You're several versions behind. I'm not sure but it may be because of the fact that the mainline builds have switched to AVX only. See the announcement here. Your computer does not support AVX, so you will need to use the 3rd party Pale Moon SSE2 version found here.

BenFenner · Unread post by **BenFenner** » 2024-10-20, 16:46

Oh, that seems to be exactly my problem and solution. Thank you!

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2024-10-20, 19:57

Working exactly as-intended. We don't want to offer updates that would break upon updating, so it'll say no updates available if your browser doesn't detect AVX capabilities.

BenFenner · Unread post by **BenFenner** » 2024-10-21, 14:37

Yah, my fault for not realizing one of my machines was SSE2-old and ignoring all that chatter on the forum months ago thinking it didn't apply to me.

I imagine this would be tedious and not worth the effort (or possibly even nearly impossible) but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
Ideally the text for the update feature could use a little work now that there are multiple "failure" (for lack of a better word) modes that give the same "error" message. Without getting long winded about it, I envision something like this:

There are no updates available because you're on the latest version of Pale Moon. [Pale Moon will check periodically for updates.]
There are no updates available because your CPU is incompatible with newer versions of Pale Moon. Third-party builds may be available; check the forum.
Maybe more

That wording above is pretty bad, but you get this idea.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2024-10-21, 15:25

It's not possible to be informative in that way because the text is not supplied by the server.

Unread post by **moonbat** » 2024-10-21, 21:19

Moonchild wrote: ↑
2024-10-21, 15:25
It's not possible to be informative in that way because the text is not supplied by the server.

Pale Moon's Windows installer is built using NSIS right? I had had to build an installer with it years ago, and the software in question required 64-bit Vista as a minimum; NSIS offered various platform detection flags. I vaguely recall it had the ability to query CPU capabilities too - perhaps it would help if at least for first time users, this was built in so that they can't install the version not meant for them.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2024-10-22, 07:12

Yes and that is already being worked on. But this is about the updater. Of course it isn't possible to magically change already-installed updater code to read something different.

BenFenner · Unread post by **BenFenner** » 2024-10-22, 13:56

To be clear, I wasn't expecting an already-released version of PM to get updated text. If the text is on the client side, then of course it could only be changed from a future version onward.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2024-10-22, 16:23

BenFenner wrote: ↑
2024-10-22, 13:56
If the text is on the client side, then of course it could only be changed from a future version onward.

The thing is, it's not applicable for the future because people are already on AVX versions.

BenFenner · Unread post by **BenFenner** » 2024-10-23, 02:06

Yep, yep. I know.

Just shower thoughts really.

Maybe some day AVX will no longer be supported and the alternative error message would be useful then. I'd like to think PM would be around then.

Carry on.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2024-10-23, 11:18

I do have an unstable version installer for testing available. Since I don't have non-AVX hardware available, I'm not able to really test this myself.
https://ftp.palemoon.org/publicbeta/palemoon-33.5.0a1.win64.installer.exe
This should be able to install on AVX, but should error on non-AVX. Confirmation that it works as-intended greatly appreciated.

BenFenner · Unread post by **BenFenner** » 2024-10-23, 14:31

Happy to help.

Running that installer on my non-AVX machine showed an extraction progress bar which reached 100% and then this message window displayed:

Choosing [Okay] opened a browser tab and navigated me to: http://www.palemoon.org/systemrequirements.shtml

Choosing [Cancel] dismissed the message without opening any browser/URL.

Cheers. Let me know if you want me to test on an AVX-capable machine.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2024-10-23, 16:04

BenFenner wrote: ↑
2024-10-23, 14:31
Cheers. Let me know if you want me to test on an AVX-capable machine.

Thanks for testing and confirming it works as-intended.

You could test on an AVX capable machine; I don't expect there to be an issue (and the install wizard should open after extraction, which you can cancel instead of going through the install). So it's entirely up to you if you wish to try that.

BenFenner · Unread post by **BenFenner** » 2024-10-23, 23:34

I had a moment free so I checked on one of my AVX-capable machines with the plan to just cancel the installation.
Very interesting results. I got the exact same message as in the screenshot above.

For reference, here is the Troubleshooting Information for this machine that does seem to show AVX support:

adoxa · Unread post by **adoxa** » 2024-10-24, 06:32

FWIW it did install on my system (AVX2; it even upgraded the old 28.4.1 I had).

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2024-10-24, 08:50

BenFenner wrote: ↑
2024-10-23, 23:34
I had a moment free so I checked on one of my AVX-capable machines with the plan to just cancel the installation.
Very interesting results. I got the exact same message as in the screenshot above.

That shouldn't happen! It literally does a system call to the Windows kernel to check if a processor feature is present:

Code: Select all

System::Call "kernel32::IsProcessorFeaturePresent(i 39)i .R7"

where "39" equals the check for AVX instructions, in accordance with the Microsoft documentation. I double-checked the installer script logic and don't know where this goes wrong unless the kernel doesn't give a proper result.

Which exact processor is in that machine? Are you running on bare metal?

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2024-10-24, 08:55

oh... hang on. seems AVX+ instruction checking was only added in Windows 10 (silly remark at the very bottom) so it does not work on Windows 7...

Support for PF_SSSE3_INSTRUCTIONS_AVAILABLE through PF_AVX512F_INSTRUCTIONS_AVAILABLE were added in the Windows SDK (19041) and are supported by Windows 10, Version 2004 (May 2020 Update) or later.

well.. that means I can't check for AVX in the installer unless people are on win 10 or later. Not sure how useful it even is then, considering old hardware where this is important is much more likely to run Win 7 or 8.

Unread post by **Basilisk-Dev** » 2024-10-24, 12:15

Moonchild wrote: ↑
2024-10-24, 08:55
well.. that means I can't check for AVX in the installer unless people are on win 10 or later. Not sure how useful it even is then, considering old hardware where this is important is much more likely to run Win 7 or 8.

I think you might as well leave it. It sucks that you can't check it for Windows 7 and 8.x users, but there are plenty of people out there running Windows 10 and unofficially running Windows 11 on old hardware.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2024-10-24, 12:19

Yeah, I just have to wrap it in only checking it on Win10 or later

EDIT: This version does that:
https://ftp.palemoon.org/publicbeta/palemoon-33.5.0a1-2.win64.installer.exe

Downside is that it won't give the error on Win 7 or 8, because it simply can't check on those OSes through the Windows Kernel call used.

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