Asterobot and Asteroboard keep you informed in a few ways: announcements from the Asterobot team, a notice when a newer Asterobot is published, and Asteroboard's own updates. When asterobot.net itself seems to be down, a status page tells you.
Announcements from the Asterobot team
The Asterobot team can send a short message to Asterobot installations, for example to warn about a problem or a change. Asterobot listens for these messages as long as it runs, and gets connected again a few seconds after the connection drops.
When a message arrives:
- Every Asteroboard open at that moment shows it as a notification with a megaphone icon and the message as its text. The notification closes by itself after a few seconds.
- Asterobot writes the text to its log, as an INFO line. You'll find it in the terminal, and on Server > Console if Asteroboard was open, as long as the log level lets INFO lines through (Status and console).
Neither Asterobot nor Asteroboard keeps a list of past announcements. If no Asteroboard was open when a message arrived, no notification ever shows for it: look at the terminal, which still has the line.
When a new Asterobot is out
Each time Asterobot starts, it asks asterobot.net for the version of the Asterobot file published there, and compares it with its own. When the published version is higher:
- The terminal prints
An Asterobot update is available, followed by the new version number and the link to the file. - Asteroboard shows Asterobot update available, with a line such as "Version 1.4.0 is available on asterobot.net." Its View on asterobot.net button opens the file's page. The notification stays until you close it.
Asteroboard shows that notification once each time it loads, including when you open it long after Asterobot started: it asks Asterobot for the result as soon as it connects.
The check happens only when Asterobot starts. A version published while Asterobot runs isn't noticed until the next start. If the check itself fails, for example because asterobot.net can't be reached, the terminal prints the warning Failed to check for an Asterobot update and Asteroboard shows nothing.
Asterobot never downloads or installs an update by itself. Updating Asterobot shows how to replace it with the new version.
Asteroboard updates itself
Asteroboard is a web page, so there's nothing to download or install for it. It checks for a new version every 30 minutes while it's open and the device is online. When a new version is ready, it shows Update available: "A new version of Asteroboard is ready. Refresh whenever you like to switch to it." That notification stays until you close it.
Click Refresh now, or reload the page whenever it suits you: Asteroboard switches to the new version on the next load. Your bots don't notice, since they run in Asterobot. The reload only clears what lived in the page itself, such as the lines on Server > Console and the messages a bot's Traffic panel had captured.
What changed in each version of Asteroboard is listed in its release notes, at https://asterobot.net/release-note-asteroboard. The version number at the top of the sidebar links there.
Asterobot and Asteroboard update separately. A new Asteroboard doesn't mean a new Asterobot, and the other way round.
A few things can go wrong with Asteroboard's offline copy:
- Offline mode unavailable: "This device couldn't get everything ready for offline use. Some features may need an internet connection." Asteroboard still works, but some features may then need an internet connection.
- Asteroboard keeps showing an old version, or behaves oddly after an update: use Reset offline data in Preferences (Preferences).
Check whether asterobot.net is up
The status page at https://status.asterobot.net gives live uptime and the history of incidents. Asteroboard links to it from the About page, on the Status card.
Look there first when something that depends on the website stops working: sign-in codes that won't go through, marketplace previews that fail, the Account page stuck on Not signed in, or an update check that fails. When an incident is under way, nothing on your side will fix it: wait until it's resolved, then try again.