Port or build a shim for update.module to fix "There was a problem checking available updates for Backdrop."

[AlexShapka]

The status page is showing:

Backdrop CMS update status Up to date There was a problem checking available updates for Backdrop. See the available updates page for more information and to install your missing updates.

Clicking on available updates and then on (Check manually) shows All of your projects are up to date.

However, the status page still persists on error. Probably as two other issues I've just submitted this one is related to PHP version, which is PHP 5.4.16 in our case.

[AlexShapka]

By the way, when checking manually, it is also giving:

Failed to get available update data for one project.

[klonos]

@AlexShapka: There currently is no update server (what you might hear people referring to "mothership") for each installation to communicate with and check the update status against. This topic is part of the weekly meetings agenda and there is an issue filed for it. It's issue #22 in the .org issue queue.

As for the issue you mention here, I have already reported this as part of #283. That one is a meta, so lets leave this issue here as the dedicated place for this specific issue (unless of course people think it's a duplicate of issue #22 in the .org issue queue).

[quicksketch]

I updated the title of this issue. Let's make this the official issue for fixing update.module within Backdrop's code-base, while backdrop-ops/backdropcms.org#22 is the sys-ops portion of this.

We talk about this every week in the status report meetings on Thursdays, but so far we haven't had the time or any volunteers to take on this issue. What we will likely do for the initial release of Backdrop 1.0 is simply quiet the errors if the remote server is not available. We'll point update.module at update.backdropcms.org, but there won't be anything on the receiving end that actually functions. Then when we later get the update server working, update.module will start reporting as it should. Basically, the module will just connect to a shim until the real update server is ready.

[quicksketch]

This is a 1.0.0 release blocker for sure.

[ghost]

Would it be worth setting the default value of 'Check for updates automatically' and 'Receive e-mail notifications' to FALSE in the install profile while this is unfinished?

[quicksketch]

Would it be worth setting the default value of 'Check for updates automatically' and 'Receive e-mail notifications' to FALSE in the install profile while this is unfinished?

We'd really like to encourage people leaving these options enabled so that when the update server starts working, we'll be able to track these sites. I'm going to start working on this issue; I don't think adding shim functionality is going to be very difficult.

[quicksketch]

PR filed at backdrop/backdrop#604. Here are some before and after screenshots:

Status report:

Updates list:

As noted in backdrop-ops/backdropcms.org#22, we've now set up https://updates.backdropcms.org/release-history/ to return at 501 Not Implemented response. Once the server is actually set up with data, it will start returning 200 OK responses, and all the functionality of Update module will function as before.

[quicksketch]

I've merged in backdrop/backdrop#604 to address this critical problem. Now all we should need to do is re-implement the update server itself and all existing Backdrop sites will start receiving status updates. See backdrop-ops/backdropcms.org#22 for that issue.