Download the OTA update as individual files

[colenso]

Would help if the OTA updates could be downloaded as individual files rather than one big .zip file. Especially helpful with app having a bigger OTA update size and users downloading the OTA on Mobile Data.

[anbraten]

As the client apps are sending there current version to the server there could also be some system generating diff zips. So in case the user had for example the previous version and now updates to the latest version he could just get a to file large diff containing the two updated files. If another user is just installing the app he would get the full zip. The diffed zips could be cached based on from and to version identifiers.

Or something like a diff -ruaBN previous new > test1.diff

[riderx]

@anbraten since user can be in any current previous version, that would mean produce a diff zip for all previous version, plus Capgo will need to understand what is a diff in your build who seems very complex since project can be react/svelte/angular/vue/js/etc
a believe for now a easier upgrade would be using better the background job feature from iOS and android. to have more than 30 sec in background to finish the work.

[anbraten]

I guess creating the diff would be somehow possible without knowing what the details are, similar to how git, diff work, but sure the server side "calculation" whats the difference between two version would require some computation power even if the result of an upgrade / downgrade between two versions would be cached.

Doing that in a background job seems to be a nice idea in general.

One benefit of sending something like a diff, could be that you save a lot of network bandwidth which would be nice for the client, but also for your server if you really have a lot of clients.

Just wanted to do some brain dump in general as I read this issue 😃. I really like your lib and system.

[riderx]

I totally agree if i found a easy way to do diff i would love to have that, sending duplicated file is not nice

[csotiMatyas]

A comment on this, i was also thinking about sending just some files or folders in the bundle folder. My problem is having an asssets folder being around 1mb, a total waste to send on every download. So i was looking around in the code trying to figure out how the bundle swap happens, so maybe instead of a bundle "replace" i could just make a "copy and replace all" so i could just send what i want, and just override the needed folders/ files. But i can't really find the place where it happens on android.

[riderx]

the files are saved in a new folder and then the capgo define the capacitor web view new default location to it, so for your idea to work, it needs to copy previous app in new folder and then override certain files, the problem is: It's difficult to be sure to have one solution to fit all, since some people in web use unique file name to flush cache

[riderx]

/bounty $500

[0x0elliot]

hey, i would like to help out with this issue. would you mind giving me some context and assigning me to it? :)

[riderx]

Hey @0x0elliot i did assign you !
Currently, the updates are sent from the CLI as a single zip and downloaded by Android and iOS devices as single file.
This is causing issue for big update (more than 10 MB).
So, we have a high level of fail update from 10% to 50% for app used in location where internet is less stable.

What needs to be done:

• Update the CLI to send multiple zip/files instead of one to store.
• Update the backend to understand multi files by update.
• Update the plugin code in android to download multi files updates.
• Update the plugin code in IOS to download multi files updates.

To note:

• There is a current end-to-end encryption system who makes this job a bit harder

The job is pretty big, and I believe it has to be split to be done.
Are you interested in doing any of this task?

[0x0elliot]

i am interested. if you would be comfortable, we can split the bounty into two tasks and 4 PRs:

Part 1

• Update the backend to understand multi files by update.
• Update the CLI to send multiple zip/files instead of one to store.

Part 2

• Update the plugin code in android to download multi files updates.
• Update the plugin code in IOS to download multi files updates.

In chronological order.

I am of course very new to this. Would snoop around in the discord to figure it out properly.

Immediate bottlenecks

To begin with, some questions, which project exactly is the backend?

to help save some time, would you mind helping me figure out which files should i look into? i am thinking of creating another API endpoint (or the equivalent in this case) for this feature as that's the cleaner way to proceed further.

[riderx]

yes, of course, I can adjust the bounty accordingly.
you are right, the backend is in the repo https://github.com/Cap-go/capgo
in the Supabase folder.
I have to create a reproducible env i believe for this task

[0x0elliot]

okay. let me know of the .env file then. why would you require it?