Automatic Updates not working correctly on MacOS

[michealroberts]

What is the issue?

Since upgrading to version 1.54.0 of Tailscale, installing / upgrading from the MacOS Store, auto-magic updates are not correctly being applied ... I am still on version 1.54.0 rather than the latest 1.54.1 release.

Steps to reproduce

No response

Are there any recent changes that introduced the issue?

No response

OS

macOS

OS version

macOS Monterey v12.6.8

Tailscale version

1.54.0

Other software

No response

Bug report

BUG-6be653b377328fb71af04d91023423c4b0802437a853bc0d5bb61ce8a61e83aa-20231201145912Z-acc7e2182e758a3e

[DentonGentry]

The Apple App Store handles rollouts in stages. 1.54.1 began deployment yesterday, and is currently being offered to 1% of devices. Tomorrow it will be offered to 2%, and so on until December 7 when it should be offered to everyone.

If you go directly to the AppStore from the Mac it should show an update as available even if it is not yet being pushed to your device.

[michealroberts]

Ok, but that sounds like our devices will be out of sync across our VPN for about a week between releases, and therefore, if you have a release cadence of one per week, we will probably always be out of sync?

[agottardo]

A suggestion: you can use tools like https://github.com/mas-cli/mas to automate Mac App Store tasks via scripting. You can employ that if you want to force more frequent updates using a scheduled task.

Alternatively, if you want to manually manage updates, you can use the Standalone variant of Tailscale instead of relying on the App Store. That will give you full control of updates via the Sparkle framework. The Standalone variant comes with its own auto-updating mechanism, which you can trigger at any time via tailscale update. Most enterprise users wishing to control updates prefer the Standalone variant for this reason.

[michealroberts]

@DentonGentry It is now over a month since opening this ticket, and I am still on version 1.54.0 of Tailscale on my Mac.

I have gone to the app store, and no updates are available.

[michealroberts]

Still waiting for the rollout ... :tumbleweed:

[DentonGentry]

I don't immediately see why. Tailscale 1.58.2 is in the second day of rollout and being offered to 2% of the fleet, but 1.56.1 should be offered instead of leaving 1.54.0.

In the App Store app if you click on the account name in the lower left, it shows a list of installed applications. Does it show an update as being available or a download icon?

[michealroberts]

I'm just seeing this:

[DentonGentry]

Unfortunately Tailscale has no visibility into the App Store's handling of each individual user. I don't think we will be able to determine why it isn't offering a version more recent than 1.54.0. Were the Mac running High Sierra or Mojave, it would have stopped at 1.44.

The two suggestions I could make would be:

• uninstall and reinstall the app store app
• switch to the Standalone downloadable app

[michealroberts]

@DentonGentry Update:

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the app store app, and the auto-updater is still not working.

[michealroberts]

It's saying an update is available, is there anything else I need to enable here on the Mac store side?

[gyoza]

It appears that the 'updates' page does not show tailscale but if you search for 'tailscale' then open up the individual store page after searching for it will show an 'update' button.

[agottardo]

Closing as this is un-actionable on our end. If you want control over updates, please use the Standalone variant.