The profile folder was Electron's default from the product name
("Theseus Navigator") and add-ons lived in addons\ under it. Now:
%APPDATA%\Theseus\extensions\ installed extensions
%APPDATA%\Theseus\extensions-data\ per-extension storage + scratch
%APPDATA%\Theseus\extensions-backups\ replaced copies
%APPDATA%\Theseus\extensions-staged\ staged updates
Both moves are one-time migrations on the first start that finds the old
layout: the profile folder is renamed (same volume, instant) or copied
when a rename is refused, with the old folder left in place in that case;
the four sub-folders are renamed before the extension host first reads
them. Nothing is deleted. THESEUS_USER_DATA still overrides everything.
The host now hands each extension its data folder as api.dataDir; the
Screenshot and PDF editor add-ons used to rebuild the old path from their
own folder for scratch files (so they recreated addons-data\ after the
move) and now use the field, with versions bumped so the bundles reseed.
Adds a new "context-menu-item" capability. Add-ons declare a
"context-menu-items" array in their manifest:
{
"capabilities": ["context-menu-item", ...],
"context-menu-items": [
{ "id": "translate-selection", "label": "Translate selection",
"when": "selectionText", "icon": "🌐" }
]
}
The `when` filter is one of selectionText | linkURL | editable | image
| always. Right-click on a page, and items whose `when` matches the
current context get merged into the native menu after the built-in
Search-for entry, before Back/Forward/Reload. Both context-menu
handlers (main tab area + detached link windows) share the same
merging logic.
Picking an item dispatches "context-menu" to the add-on's onMessage
handler with the full context (selectionText, linkURL, mediaType,
srcURL, pageURL, host). The add-on decides what to do — the
translate add-on stashes the selection to storage and calls
api.revealSidebar("main") which surfaces its own sidebar panel.
api.revealSidebar(panelId) is the paired hook. Ownership is enforced
by the host — an add-on can only reveal panels it registered —
before routing to main's setSidebar path.
Unknown capabilities were already silently dropped by
validateManifest, so older Theseus builds that don't understand
"context-menu-item" just ignore it, and the manifest still loads.
Add-ons that also declare "sidebar-panel" keep working; the new
capability doesn't require it.
This is the wiring that pairs with the translate/ add-on landed in
4498fbb — right-click "Translate selection" is live once this ships.
Holding Back or Forward for 450 ms (or right-clicking it) pops a native
menu of the tab's history entries in that direction — nearest first, up to
15, titled with the page title and host — and picking one jumps straight
to it. A hold swallows the click that would otherwise fire on release, so
a long press never also goes back one page.
Anyone who owns a BCDN name can now publish a Theseus extension, and every
Theseus can install it with the publisher's signature verified locally.
Gateway (Argus/src/gateway/public-gateway.mjs):
PUT /api/ext/<name>/<id>/<version> takes the gzipped tar, checks two BCH
message signatures against the name's current NFT owner (one authorises
the upload, one is stored in the channel), inspects the package
(addon.json at the root, id/version/main match, 8 MB cap), enforces
first-publisher ownership of an id and monotonic versions, and writes the
tarball, the extension's updates.json and community/catalog.json to Sia.
GET /api/ext/catalog reads the catalog back with CORS.
Theseus:
lib/publisher-sig.mjs recovers the signer of a channel entry; main.js
compares it with the publisher name's owner from Theseus's own chain
index before installing or updating, so neither the relay nor a tampered
catalog can pass off code under a trusted name. addon-updater.js gains
installCommunity() and accepts publisher-signed entries in the regular
update check (operator Ed25519 entries unchanged). Settings › Extensions
shows the community catalog with Install / Update; Settings › Plug-ins
links to theseus.x/plug-ins.
theseus.x:
/plug-ins/ is a separate page for the first-party plug-ins (Aegis,
Ariadne's Thread) with live versions and hashes; /extensions/ lists the
bundled extensions, the community catalog, and how to build and publish;
/extensions/publish/ signs and uploads a package in the browser with the
wallet that holds the publisher's name (session helper + wallet bundle
copied alongside).
A year-old engine is now a bot signal in itself: DataDome blocked
estore.asus.com for Theseus on Chromium 130 while the same request claiming
Chrome 152 went through, and Chromium 130 carries a year of unpatched
renderer bugs. Electron 44 boots the app unchanged; verified on the new
engine: local files, HTTP auth prompt, tab strip in the title bar, BNS
sites and window.bcnr, all bundled add-ons, the Tor toggle
(check.torproject.org via the SOCKS agent), and a full NSIS + portable
build (artifacts grow from ~99 MB to ~132 MB with the larger engine).
session.setPreloads is deprecated from 35 on; preloads are registered
with registerPreloadScript when available, with the old call as fallback.
estore.asus.com (DataDome, "AI Threats Detection") served its block page to
Theseus while a plain Chromium on the same connection got the product page.
Three things in our identity were wrong:
- The client-hint brand list was hand-written with "Google Chrome" first —
a permutation real Chrome never sends. It is now computed the way Chromium
does it (GREASE brand from the major version, per-major brand order).
- The page-side navigator.userAgentData still said "Chromium" only, so
headers and JS disagreed. The same metadata is now installed per tab via
Emulation.setUserAgentOverride, so both sides match.
- Accept-Language went out as "en-US,en;q=0.8;q=0.9": we appended a q-value
and Chromium appended another. Chromium now gets a plain language list.
That makes the identity self-consistent, but DataDome still blocks on the
version: Chromium 130 (Electron 33) is a year old, and claiming Chrome 152
(THESEUS_CHROME_VERSION, added here for exactly this test) loads the page.
The real fix is a current Electron; this commit removes the other tells.
Three tab-strip changes from use:
- A tab opened from a link (target=_blank, middle-click, the context menu,
Duplicate) now goes right after the tab it came from — and after any
siblings that tab already opened — instead of at the end of the strip.
The + button, session restore and add-on requests still append.
- The selected tab gets an accent stripe and outline on top of its brighter
fill; with a dozen same-size tabs the fill alone was easy to lose. A
grouped tab keeps its group colour on the stripe.
- On Windows the tab row is the title bar: the native frame is hidden, the
minimise/maximise/close buttons are drawn as an overlay over the chrome
(colours follow the theme), the row is a drag region with every control
in it opted out, and 140px (or the overlay's real width when the API is
exposed) is kept clear on the right. The page gains the old title bar's
height. Other platforms keep the native frame.
Two reasons the Plug-ins card looked dead ("only a Refresh button"):
1. The state check ran Get-ScheduledTask, whose module import took 8–10 s
cold, and only then fetched the release manifest. Every button is hidden
during "checking…", so for 10–15 s the card showed nothing but Refresh.
Task state now comes from the Task Scheduler COM object (numeric, locale-
independent — schtasks.exe prints localized words on non-English
Windows) and the manifest fetch runs in parallel: ~2 s.
2. The Inno installer's AppId is written as {{…}}, which Inno registers as
{…}}_is1 (doubled closing brace). Theseus looked for the single-brace
key, never found it, and so never knew the installed version — no Update
button, no Uninstall button. The entry is now found by DisplayName.
Owners can now publish a signed _records.json (A/AAAA/MX/TXT/CNAME/NS)
beside their Sia content; the gateway verifies it against the current NFT
holder and serves it as GET /api/dns/<name>. Every BCDN resolution now
starts a background fetch of that answer (3 s cap, 30 s cache, seq rollback
guard) and attaches it to the entry as entry.dns. Navigation never waits
for it — on-chain h/s3/ip/p/u stay authoritative — except when a name has
no content record at all and a signed A is the only way to reach it. Only
registered names are looked up, so ICANN hosts never reach the gateway.
Exposed as window.bcnr.dnsRecords(name) for add-ons (TXT verification, MX
for mail bridges), on resolveName() as .dns, and as a "Signed DNS" row in
the site-info popover.
df181d9 and b2c6f62 were staged hunk-by-hunk from a working tree that also
carried unrelated uncommitted edits, and the context-free hunks landed a
few lines off: the local-file check ran after the search rewrite (so paths
still went to the search engine in the committed file), the loadBns header
sat inside loadLocalFile's comment, and the refreshTabUrl comment was split
by the auth block. Content is unchanged; only placement is corrected.
Sites behind Basic/Digest auth (silentmode.st/guardian/admin) rendered the
server's 401 page because nothing listened for Electron's login event,
which cancels every challenge by default. A modal sign-in prompt now asks
for the credentials and answers the challenge; Cancel leaves the 401 page.
Concurrent challenges for the same host and realm share one prompt while it
is open, and a rejected answer re-prompts instead of replaying the same
credentials until Chromium gives up with ERR_TOO_MANY_RETRIES.
Also: THESEUS_NO_UPDATE_CHECK skips the release check, for throwaway dev
instances — the one-click install chip they show targets the real install.
A typed or pasted path such as D:\Dev\x\page.html has no dotted host, so
the URL-vs-search heuristic handed it to the search engine. Paths (drive,
UNC, file://, and absolute/~ on POSIX) now load as file:// URLs before the
heuristic runs. Local-file tabs keep their file:// URL in the address bar
(normally suppressed because our own home/error pages are file://), show a
"Local file" badge, and hide the registry button since no name resolution
is involved. A missing file lands on the error page with a matching badge.
Theseus core:
- addons-host: manifest.category ("plugin") propagates through snapshot(); new
addon API surface checkAndStageSelfUpdate() + restartApp() so a plug-in
can offer in-panel "update now → restart to apply" without pushing the
user to Settings.
- main.js: wires the two new hooks into the AddonHost constructor.
- settings.html: Extensions listing filters out category==="plugin"; those
add-ons live in Plug-ins instead, single source of truth.
Aegis 0.6.31:
- BTC picker trimmed to Signet only; testnet3 hidden (adapter kept so any
existing wallet still loads).
- Wallet strip groups by chain, not chain:network; ticker gets a ▾ chevron
and a dropdown listing every subnetwork with its own totals. Mainnet
reads as the plain ticker; testnets carry a small Chipnet/Signet/Sepolia
pill inline.
- Per-unit price sits directly under the ticker; amount + fiat mirror on
the right — one glance covers name/price/holding/value.
- + Add and ⋯ More promoted from the strip into the header's action row,
next to the new ✎ chip (was the redundant top ⋯). Duplicate "Manage
current wallet" entry removed from the More menu.
- Footer update chip is a two-step flow via the new API: stage → restart.
Falls back to opening Settings on any Theseus that lacks the hooks.
- Manifest declares "category": "plugin".
seedBundledAddons reseeded whenever the user copy's version differed from
the bundled one. promoteStagedUpdates runs just before it, so a signed
over-the-air update that had just been promoted (e.g. Aegis 0.6.14 over
the bundled 0.6.2) was backed up and replaced by the older bundle on the
same boot — every OTA add-on update silently reverted at the next launch.
Reseed now only when the bundle is newer, using the same version compare
the promoter uses.
A bns:// fetch that fails after the name resolved (relay unreachable, DNS
stalling, the site's own server down) used to answer with the bare text
"Theseus error: fetch failed", which reads as a broken browser. The
handler now returns a styled page that names the host, the upstream it
tried (navigate.st, the p-record origin or the ip record), the error and
its cause code, explains the likely reason per cause (unreachable vs DNS),
and offers a retry.
A 0.3.44 → 0.3.45 auto-update on 2026-09-11 left the install without
app.asar and ffmpeg.dll ("ffmpeg.dll not found" at launch). The setup was
hash-verified; the old-version uninstaller had moved the whole old install
into its temp folder when both NSIS processes died ~8 s after the spawn,
and the install step never wrote a file. The killer was not identified, so
every overlap with the app's own lifetime is removed instead:
- install-update-now no longer spawns the setup; it records the path and
quits. will-quit writes <userData>\update-helper.cmd and starts it as a
detached cmd.exe (verified to outlive the app; not a child of ours).
- The helper waits for our PID to be gone (child powershell Wait-Process),
gives Chromium's children a grace period, runs the setup directly, and
runs it once more if resources\app.asar is missing afterwards — the
installer is idempotent, so a second pass repairs a torn install. The
helper deletes itself.
- Zone.Identifier is stripped from the verified download so nothing that
starts it through the shell raises a mark-of-the-web prompt.
Console-less cmd.exe traps discovered and designed around (see the module):
child console programs' redirected stdout is empty (no tasklist|find
probing), `start /wait` on a .cmd hangs, a detached powershell.exe
started straight from Node does nothing, `timeout` needs a console.
Scenario tests: setup starts only after the process exits, once with
app.asar present, twice without, helper gone afterwards.
A standalone page window on the same session (cookies, bns:// protocol,
session-wide bcnr preload) with Theseus's fingerprint + WebRTC policy and
no toolbar. Loads BCNR-first like a tab: a dotted host with a BCNR record
goes over bns://, otherwise clearnet; collision names follow the configured
policy without the "Open with…" interstitial. Cross-host navigations inside
the window stay BCNR-first; popups go to the main window's tabs. Its own
context menu offers open-in-tab / open-in-window / copy link and
back/forward/reload. Add-on page bridges (wallet inject) are tab-scoped and
don't run in these windows. openLinkWindow is exported for the test harness.
Verified in the dev app: coinspectrum.x opened as bns://coinspectrum.x with
the page title; navigate.st stayed https.
Theseus (Settings › Plug-ins › Ariadne's Thread):
- The elevated start/stop script was embedded in a double-quoted outer
PowerShell string, so `$t` was interpolated away before the elevated
shell saw it. It received `foreach ( in …)`, failed to parse, and the
outer shell still exited 0 — "Turn on/off" reported success while doing
nothing, in every shipped build. The script now goes across as
-EncodedCommand. Off = Stop + Disable (the daemon task has an
at-startup trigger, so a plain stop came back on reboot); on = Enable +
Start. Exit 2 = daemon task missing, surfaced as a clear error.
- Version/update check now reads dl.silentmode.st's releases manifest,
the same one the Theseus updater uses. The silentmode.st copy lagged a
day behind (still listing Theseus 0.3.31), so a new Ariadne release
published to dl would not have been offered.
- Install/update/uninstall now propagate the installer's exit code
(-PassThru; exit $p.ExitCode) instead of always reading as success.
Resolver package (needs a new installer build to reach users):
- uninstall.ps1 removed only the ".bch" NRPT rule; install.ps1 adds one
per advertised TLD. Sweep every "BNS .<tld> resolver" rule.
Verified: daemon resolves BNS names and passes ICANN A/AAAA through when
run unprivileged on port 15353; the encoded-command construction runs
intact and propagates exit codes 0/2 in an unelevated reproduction.
- Per-tab page zoom on Chrome's ladder (25–500 %) via setZoomFactor, so
Chromium keys it per host: every tab on a site shares the level and it
persists across navigations and restarts. Ctrl +/=/numpad+ in,
Ctrl -/numpad- out, Ctrl 0 reset, Ctrl+wheel via zoom-changed. A
percentage chip appears in the address bar when a tab isn't at 100 %;
clicking it resets. Settings and add-on tabs never zoom.
- Address bar / search bar drag ratio floor lowered from 30 % to 20 %,
so the split runs 80/20 to 20/80 (pixel floors still apply).
- The collapsed extension-dock button and its dropdown printed a data:
URI icon as text ("data:image/svg+xml…"). One addonIconHtml() renderer
now serves the dock buttons, the collapsed button and the dropdown.
- Link-status pill: it measured its own width inside a view already
capped at 100 px, so it could never grow and long hrefs were cut short.
An off-screen twin now reports the natural width; main caps it to the
tab area (never under the sidebar) and the pill ellipsises past that.
- Address bar at narrow widths: the URL input's intrinsic minimum width
pushed the registry chips and the star out past the bar. #url now has
min-width: 0 and the trailing controls are fixed-size flex items.
- The BCDN/ICANN segmented chips are replaced by one Ariadne's Thread
icon (spiral + tail) at the end of the bar: acid when served from BCDN,
blue for ICANN, caret when the name exists on both. Click opens a
native menu (registry-menu-popup): switch registry, remember per name /
per TLD, forget choices, collision policy, and a jump to the Plug-ins
settings section. Reuses the existing switch / remember / policy paths
(collision-switch body extracted to switchRegistry, open-settings to
openSettingsTab). preload's openSettings now forwards a section slug.
Users saw a blank window with a white strip across the top for seconds
on launch. Root cause: every part of startup, including session restore,
waited for chrome.html's did-finish-load. That event also waits for the
page's subresources, and the bookmarks bar loads its favicons over
bns:// — a BNS lookup plus a network fetch each — so a slow link held the
whole boot. On top of that, seven hidden overlay renderers, every restored
tab, the BNS index build and three network fetches all started in the
same tick and stalled the main thread ~1 s while the toolbar tried to
paint.
- Continue boot at chrome.html's dom-ready (toolbar scripts have run, IPC
listeners exist) instead of did-finish-load; 8 s fallback timer.
- Window and chrome view get the toolbar's --bg for the active theme so
the pre-paint frame is never white.
- Overlay pages (site info, engine picker, downloads, suggestions,
password fill, link status, approval) load 250 ms after the toolbar or
on first use; the approval modal awaits its page so a dapp request
can't hang.
- Session restore is staggered: active tab first, then one background
tab per 150 ms slotted into its saved strip position. Session file v2
records the active index; v1 arrays still load (active = last, as the
old loop effectively did).
- AddonHost gains api.whenUiReady(); Aegis 0.6.2 defers its heavy
dependency loading (noble precompute, bitcoinjs, libauth, WizardConnect)
behind it.
- BNS snapshot warm-up still starts right after createWindow (bookmark
favicons need it); Sia refresh, update check and home-card fetch move
to the post-paint phase.
Measured on a clone of the real profile with nine restored tabs: toolbar
usable at ~0.7 s instead of ~1.5 s, main-thread stall during toolbar load
down from ~1.1 s to ~0.2 s.
Cloudflare Bot Fight Mode / Turnstile flag 'UA claims Chrome but client
hints don't confirm it' as bot. Electron's default sec-ch-ua reads
'Chromium';v='130', 'Not(A:Brand';v='99' — no 'Google Chrome' brand
(that's closed-source Google branding open Chromium doesn't carry).
Combined with a UA that's already stripped of the Electron token
(stockChromeUA), the mismatch itself is the fingerprint. This is what
whybitcoincash.com and other CF-fronted sites tripped on: server
returned 503 to Theseus while returning 200 to any curl variant.
Brave, Vivaldi and Opera solved this the same way — ship their own
sec-ch-ua that INCLUDES Chrome-family brands so CF's allow-list catches
them. New applyClientHintsSpoof() registers a session-wide
onBeforeSendHeaders that rewrites the sec-ch-ua family on every
outbound request:
sec-ch-ua: 'Google Chrome';v=<major>, 'Chromium';v=<major>, 'Not?A_Brand';v='99'
sec-ch-ua-full-version-list: same trio with real Chromium version
sec-ch-ua-mobile: '?0'
sec-ch-ua-platform: actual OS name (Windows / macOS / Linux)
Major comes from process.versions.chrome so the story stays internally
consistent — nothing to fingerprint from a Chrome/version mismatch.
Runs alongside applyEmbedCookieShim which uses onHeadersReceived; the
two hooks are separate so no listener collision.
Two follow-ups from user reports on the 0.5.x screenshot rollout:
- When the screenshot editor sidebar is maximized (fills the window) and
the user hits New Tab / Settings / any address-bar nav that opens a
different tab, the incoming tab was left invisible behind the sidebar.
setActive now auto-restores the sidebar to its pre-max width whenever
it detects a tab switch — the user can hit the maximize button again
on the way back. Pure additive change, no other setActive semantics
touched.
- The signed-add-on update pipeline failed the 0.5.0 tarball extract on
a Windows 10 install with the built-in bsdtar: `tar --force-local -x
-z -f …` — bsdtar doesn't recognise --force-local and errors out
before it opens the archive. Try the extraction WITHOUT the flag
first (safe with the posix-slash paths we already pass on every tar
we care about — bsdtar, GNU tar, MSYS2 tar) and fall back to WITH
--force-local only if the first invocation exits non-zero (MSYS2
path where a bare `C:/…` gets parsed as a `host:` prefix). Original
error message is surfaced on total failure so we can still tell what
went wrong.
Two visible fixes from the same 2026-09-09 screenshot:
Right-click a tab was building a DOM menu and then growing the chrome
view height so it would fit under the tabstrip. That opened a
visible gap between the toolbar and the tab body while the menu was
up. Now the tab context menu goes through a new IPC
"tab-context-menu-popup" (main.js) that pops an OS-native Menu at
the click point, floating above every WebContentsView — no layout
change, no gap. Preload exposes tabContextMenuPopup(id, {x, y});
chrome.html's tab contextmenu handler now calls it directly and the
DOM openTabContextMenu / openGroupSubmenu / growChromeForMenu path
is bypassed for tabs. (The bookmark bar's own ctxmenu still uses
the DOM path — its short 2-3-row menus don't grow chrome enough
to be visible.)
Bookmark chips were too small (130px max-width, 11px text, 22px row).
Now every chip is a fixed 150px × 28px cell so the row reads as a
uniform grid, 12.5px text, 14px favicon. Labels drop the descriptor:
"GAME.X — Bitcoin Cash game platform" renders as "GAME.X". The
trimmer splits on the first em-dash / en-dash / hyphen that's
surrounded by whitespace, so single-word titles and hyphenated
compound names ("Foo-Bar" with no spaces) come through intact. Full
title still shows on hover.
install-update-now was spawning setup with ['/S'] alone since the
0.3.31 rewrite. That installs correctly (E2E-proven multiple times
this week) but leaves the user without a running browser after the
install completes — the setup exits, and the user has to click the
Start-menu shortcut to get Theseus back.
--force-run is electron-builder's NSIS convention for 'start the app
when the install finishes'; it makes the whole update feel like a
seamless in-place restart. --updated stays out (was proven not to
affect the install itself on our config).
Reported by user 2026-09-09 after 0.3.37 → 0.3.39 auto-update ran
cleanly but silently, with no post-install relaunch.
New settings.devToolsDock (default 'bottom') read by the F12 handler
in main.js on each open. Values:
bottom - Chrome's own default, docked under the tab
sidebar - right-side dock (mode:right). Add-on sidebar tucks
out of the way while DevTools is up.
two-sidebars - right-side dock with the add-on sidebar left in
place, so both share the right area.
Settings > General > Developer tools now hosts a 3-option radio group
(same .polrow style as the collision policy). Changes apply instantly
- the F12 handler reads settings.devToolsDock every time it opens, so
no relaunch is needed.
Two changes shipped together (main.js touched by both this session and a
parallel session in different regions):
Scrollbars — from the "empty white space should be grey, thumb should
be Bitcoin Cash green" ask:
* new SCROLLBAR_CSS constant + styleScrollbars(wc) helper injects the
theme on every dom-ready
* thumb #0AC18E (BCH primary), track rgba(120,130,150,0.18) subtle
neutral grey so it works on both dark and light surfaces without
hardcoding either; 6px radius, 2px inset via background-clip:padding-box
* modern scrollbar-color on <html> for Chromium 121+; ::-webkit- rules
with !important as the fallback / override for sites that theme
their own scrollbars — scrollbar-width intentionally left alone so
a page that hides scrollbars entirely keeps that behaviour
* hooked into every wc we own: createTab, chrome, popover, enginePicker,
downloadsPop, addressPicker, pwFillPop, linkStatus, sidebar (so every
add-on panel like Aegis picks it up), approvalPop
* fires once immediately if the wc is already past dom-ready when we
attach — fixed views load fast during startup, we'd otherwise miss
captureTab full-page — from the parallel session's screenshot work:
* before Page.captureScreenshot with captureBeyondViewport we now
override Emulation.setDeviceMetricsOverride to the window's full
content width so an open sidebar (or other on-screen chrome that
narrowed the tab view) doesn't clip the shot — capture comes back at
the page's natural full width, not the visible width
* attach the debugger for the call if it isn't attached, detach on
return; clear the metrics override in finally so the tab returns to
its normal layout regardless of success
User report: the sidebar preview lands correctly, but the moment the editor
opens in its own tab the picture is blank. Rather than chase that class of
handoff race again, put the editor in the same webContents as the panel:
the sidebar view navigates panel.html ↔ editor.html in place. Same
document object, same silentmode.storage surface, no cross-tab __pending
transfer at all.
- panel.html "Edit" button now calls silentmode.invoke("arm", …) — the
add-on rewrites __pending with the currently-previewed capture's bytes,
and the panel does location.href = "editor.html?name=…". Sidebar view
loads the editor with the same preload; editor.js's storage-based load
path pulls the pending entry out and paints.
- editor.html gains a "Back" arrow (returns to panel.html) and a
maximize / restore icon.
- discard() now navigates to panel.html instead of closeTab() — there is
no tab to close.
- Manifest drops the "open-tab" capability entirely (no more full-tab
editor); keeps sidebar-panel + capture-tab.
Framework: new silentmode.sidebar.{maximize, restore, toggleMax, isMax,
onMaxChange}. main.js honours them via new sidebar-maximize / -restore /
-toggle-max / -is-max IPCs, remembering the pre-maximize width so a
restore drops back exactly. The sidebar drag-grip auto-exits maximize
mode on any user drag, so pulling the edge always lands on the pre-max
value plus/minus the delta. sidebar-preload exposes the surface;
chrome.html renderer is untouched — this is a per-panel affordance.
Editor tools (crop / arrow / rect / ellipse / pen / text / mosaic /
undo / redo / copy / save) unchanged. Save still goes through Chromium's
<a download> path, so the file lands in Downloads and appears in the
download chip like any other save.
Bundled but not shipped — leaving version bump + deploy to parent session.
Same 0.3.31 version, new binary. Rebuilds the shipped 0.3.31 with the
salvageable content from the reverted 0.3.32-0.3.34 track:
chrome.html
- light-mode chrome strip: --bg #e6e8ec, inactive tab #f2f4f7,
active tab #ffffff. Fixes the "tabs disappear into the light
Windows title bar" report.
- bookmark chips shrunk: 130px max-width, 11px text, 12px favicon,
22px row (was 26). ~40% more chips fit in the same width.
- bookmark chips draggable with the tab-strip's left/right-half
drop convention; new .dropbefore/.dropafter accent.
- light-mode .tor + .logo + .upchip chips: from illegible white-
on-#253A49 (at 12-13px) to #eef1f5 with #253A49 ink. Both readable
now. .tor.connecting/.on keep amber/purple hue in light fills.
main.js
- will-download update handler now streams the saved setup .exe
through crypto.createHash("sha256"), compares to the manifest's
updateAvailable.setupHash before marking ready. Rejects and
deletes the file on mismatch or on empty manifest hash. Test C
in the previous session proved this catches truncated payloads
Electron reports as "completed" (a real class of failure the
Ariadne addon updater has always guarded against here).
- new bookmark-move IPC: splices the list, no-ops on self-drop
or missing entry.
preload.js
- moveBookmark(fromUrl, targetUrl, place) exposed for chrome.
Deliberately NOT changed: install-update-now still spawns setup with
["/S"] alone. The 0.3.32 --updated /S --force-run change was proven
in the previous session's real-install E2E to not address the actual
"browser vanished on D:\Program Files install" symptom — every flag
combination (/S alone, --updated /S --force-run, /S /currentuser,
/S /D=<install>) exits 0 without upgrading anything on that specific
install path. That's a separate open bug; not touched here.
Version stays 0.3.31 — this is a binary rewrite of 0.3.31, not a new
release. Existing 0.3.31 installs won't see an update chip (version
compare returns false), which is intentional given the auto-update
path is still broken for non-default install locations.
Bundled revert of six commits:
9bacdcb Ship 0.3.34
aef7864 0.3.34 UI (grey chrome, DnD bookmarks, chip colors)
c2da8bb Ship 0.3.33
9b92224 fix(updater) verify SHA-256
4e932e0 Ship 0.3.32
4e695c4 fix(updater) --updated flag
Reason: the real-install E2E test (turn N-1) showed silent update
against the user's custom D:\Program Files\Theseus Navigator location
returns exit 0 without upgrading anything — every flag combination
tried (/S alone, --updated /S --force-run, /S /currentuser,
/S /D=<install>) exits successfully and no files change. The 0.3.32
flag fix and 0.3.33 hash-verify fix were defensive improvements but
did not address the actual "browser vanished" symptom, and 0.3.34
inherits the same broken silent-update path so its UI improvements
never reach anyone still on 0.3.33+ with a non-default install path.
Rolling manifest back to 0.3.31 so the update chip stops appearing on
installs that can't complete the update. Users on the default
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\theseus-navigator location are unaffected —
0.3.31 is still their canonical shipped version.
package.json reset to 0.3.31 explicitly (git revert stopped one bump
short on the merged diff).
Screenshot 0.3.0 (8ca5ac3) preserved — unrelated parallel work.
Chrome strip: light-mode --bg/--surface/--surface2/--active retuned to a
soft neutral grey. Flat #ffffff tabs disappeared into light Windows
title bars and the top strip read as one bright rectangle; now the
tab row sits on #e6e8ec, inactive tabs are #f2f4f7, active tab is
white so the current one still pops.
Bookmarks: chips down to 130px max-width, 11px text, 12px favicon,
tighter padding, 22px row (was 26). Fits ~40% more saved pages in
the same width. Chips are now draggable — dragstart/dragover/drop
mirror the tab strip's reorder pattern, dropping before/after by
which half of the target chip the pointer is on. IPC bookmark-move
splices the array; a missing entry or self-drop is a no-op.
Tor + Theseus (⛓ logo) chips in light mode: white-on-#253A49 was
below legible at 12-13px on real light Windows themes. Both now use
#eef1f5 with #253A49 ink and a subtle border — same footprint, dark
letters read cleanly. .tor.connecting/.on keep amber/purple hue but
in light-appropriate fills with dark text. .upchip picks up the
same treatment for consistency.
The in-app updater fetched the setup .exe via
session.defaultSession.downloadURL and marked updateDownloadState="ready"
on any DownloadItem `done` with state === "completed", then handed
that path to install-update-now to spawn. No hash check against the
manifest — the same manifest that already carries a SHA-256 per file
and that the Ariadne addon updater verifies at ariadneDownloadInstaller
in this same file.
Consequence: a mid-stream truncation the runtime swallowed as
"completed" (a wrong Content-Length, a CDN cache truncation, an
interrupted TLS session, a corrupted mirror) armed install of a
half-file. install-update-now then ran the corrupt setup silently,
NSIS integrity check failed, uninstaller wiped the app first, and
Theseus was gone with nothing to click.
Now the completion handler streams the saved file through
crypto.createHash("sha256"), compares against updateAvailable.setupHash
from the manifest (already captured in checkForUpdate), and refuses to
arm install on mismatch — deletes the corrupt file and marks the
download failed so the retry loop can pick a fresh one up.
Companion fix to 0.3.32's --updated /S --force-run flags. Both
symptoms landed users in the same "browser vanished" state; 0.3.32
covered the spawn-side, this covers the download-side.
Users reported Theseus being uninstalled by the auto-updater and never
coming back. Reproduced on 0.3.31:
The 'Install & restart' handler was spawning the NSIS setup with
just [\"/S\"]. Our config is oneClick:false + perMachine:false +
allowToChangeInstallationDirectory:true, so NSIS in silent mode:
1. runs the old uninstaller (wipes install dir + registry path)
2. hits the install phase, which in wizard mode expects UI to pick
the install directory
3. silent mode has no UI, registry path is gone → exits without
installing anything
Result: browser gone, nothing left, no error surfaced to the user.
Fix: pass --updated alongside /S. electron-builder's NSIS template
treats --updated as 'this is an auto-update, reuse the existing
install directory from registry, don't rerun the uninstaller'.
--force-run relaunches the app after install.
Users stuck on 0.3.31 need to manually install 0.3.32 once (from
dl.silentmode.st) — the auto-updater in 0.3.31 will not recover on
its own. Their %APPDATA%\theseus-navigator profile is untouched by
the uninstall so vault, addons and settings survive the reinstall.
Reported: the Screenshot dropdown produces a blank white PNG "every time".
Verified end-to-end via CDP: the FIRST capture on a real page (silentmode.st)
worked (221 KB, real pixels). Every capture after that came back as a
uniform-white 1920×899 PNG (~24 KB, all bytes 255/255/255/255 confirmed by
canvas getImageData in the editor tab).
Root cause: api.captureTab reads activeTab(), which after the first successful
run is the editor.html tab the add-on just opened. CDP Page.captureScreenshot
on the editor's own tab happily snapshots its still-blank canvas, and the
addon writes that white PNG into scratch → opens a new editor showing it →
next re-capture snapshots THAT editor → all-white feedback loop.
Fix: track the last active tab that isn't an add-on-owned page (or the
Settings tab) in setActive(), and have captureTab fall back to it when the
current active tab has an addonId or settings flag. Last resort: the first
non-addon non-settings tab in the list. If none exists, throw a clear "open
a page you'd like to shoot first" error instead of returning white pixels.
No new capability; no manifest change; addons keep calling
api.captureTab({mode}) exactly as before. Ships in the next Theseus release.
Two follow-ups from the on-device test.
Two Aegis addons showing up (bchwallet + aegis):
- migrateAegisRename previously only ran when addons/aegis/ didn't exist,
which meant any bchwallet copy the signed OTA update endpoint reinstalls
after the first migration stays there forever, and AddonHost loads both
as separate wallets. Rewritten to always retire addons/bchwallet/ when
it's present, regardless of whether aegis/ is already installed. The
storage-copy (bchwallet.json → aegis.json) still only runs the first
time so a downgrade doesn't clobber fresh 0.4+ state.
- Also flushes any stray addons/siawallet/ that comes back the same way.
Sidebar dock and Extensions list icons showed the raw 🛡 emoji:
- chrome.html's dock-button renderer and settings.html's extensions-list
renderer now accept `data:image/svg+xml…` values for manifest.icon and
render them as <img> instead of text. Emoji strings still render as
before.
- aegis addon.json's icon is now the exact hex-aspis mark from
aegis.x/brand/favicon.svg (URL-encoded inline). Version bumped to
0.4.1 so seedBundledAddons reseeds the new addon.json on next launch.
Cleans up the naming that leaked from the wallet's origin story (BCH-only)
into the actual bundle layout. Aegis is one integrated addon now:
- Bundle folder: TheseusNavigator/bundled-addons/aegis/ (was bchwallet/).
- Addon id: "aegis" (was "bchwallet"). Vault-derive still accepts
legacy "bchwallet/*" and "siawallet/*" paths via the
absorbs list, so no on-chain funds move.
- Version: 0.4.0 (bumped to trigger seedBundledAddons's reseed).
- Retired: TheseusNavigator/bundled-addons/siawallet/. Sia is
folded into Aegis as a chain adapter (lib/sia/*.js
already in-tree) and Aegis's manifest lists siawallet
under absorbs so pre-Aegis SC keys derive identically.
main.js migrateAegisRename() runs before seedBundledAddons on every
launch. First run does the move; subsequent runs are no-ops:
- addons/bchwallet/ -> addons-backups/bchwallet-migrated-<stamp>/
- addons-data/bchwallet.json COPIED to addons-data/aegis.json (kept
copied not moved so a downgrade to 0.3.x can still boot).
- addons/siawallet/ -> addons-backups/siawallet-migrated-<stamp>/
(addons-data/siawallet.json left untouched — its walletdUrl is
per-user config Aegis's Sia wallet takes fresh via Settings).
settings.html Aegis update card now matches either "aegis" (new id) or
"bchwallet" (pre-rename) so upgraders coming from 0.3.x see the same
one card while the OTA endpoint's next signed bundle catches up.
Internal purpose paths inside index.js/chain-*.js are unchanged —
LEGACY_BCH_PURPOSE stays "bchwallet/mainnet/0" and every purposePrefix
still starts with "bchwallet/*". The addon absorbs its own former id,
so those paths keep resolving to the same seed the shipping Aegis has
been using since 0.3.14.
The Settings > Extensions "Check for updates" button used to report
one of two lines: "N updates staged; restart to apply" or "All
extensions are up to date". The second collapsed several distinct
outcomes into one indistinguishable line, so a user seeing "up to
date" couldn't tell whether the check actually reached the endpoint
or the fetch had silently failed.
checkAndStageUpdates now returns { report, skipped? } with one entry
per installed add-on and a status of:
no-update-url — addon.json doesn't declare updateURL
fetch-failed — DNS / connection / HTTP error on updates.json or the tarball (detail carries the message)
up-to-date — endpoint reached, no version strictly newer than installed
signature-invalid — offered version's sig didn't verify against any baked-in pubkey
sha256-mismatch — downloaded tarball's hash didn't match the signed one
extract-failed — tar could not extract (detail carries the message)
manifest-mismatch — extracted addon.json didn't match signed id/version
staged / already-staged — success
The Settings UI now renders one row per add-on with that status, so
a "no update" outcome is never mistaken for a silent fetch failure.
Return shape is back-compat: if a caller expects a bare array, the
UI normalizes.
Two additions:
1) Aegis (bchwallet) update card lands in Settings > General beside
the Ariadne one. Same look, different substance: Aegis is a
bundled add-on, not a system service, so no Install/Uninstall
buttons — the checkboxes there are 'Check for updates' and (only
when an update is staged) 'Restart to apply update'. Reuses the
existing signed OTA endpoint (addons-check-updates IPC) and
addons-list-staged for the pending-update surface, so new wallet
versions ship without a Theseus release.
New app-restart IPC (app.relaunch + app.quit) does the promotion
handoff — addons-host promotes staged updates on next boot.
2) DevTools (F12 / Ctrl+Shift+I) opens docked to the right of the
tab view (mode: 'right') instead of popping a detached window. A
user debugging a page gets the tools alongside it, matching stock
Chrome; anyone who prefers detached can still drag it out via the
DevTools own toolbar.
DuckDuckGo's icons.duckduckgo.com/ip3/… service was returning 404 for
Brave, Bing, Yandex and a few others in the SEARCH_ENGINES catalog —
so the settings row would fall through to the hardcoded emoji sym
(🦁 lion, 🔍 magnifier, etc.) instead of the real brand mark.
Two-part fix:
1) main.js: faviconUrl() switched from DDG's icons.duckduckgo.com to
Google's www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=…&sz=32 as the primary
source. Google's service is materially more reliable — returns a
real 32×32 PNG for essentially every host.
2) settings.html: the engIcon renderer now stacks a two-source
fallback. If Google's PNG fails, retry with DDG's ico URL; if that
also fails, THEN drop to the emoji sym. Row is never blank, and
real brand favicons win over emoji whenever either service resolves.
The <option> in the dropdown still uses emoji because <option> can't
render <img> — that's a native <select> limitation, not fixable here.
The Updates card was placeholder-dashed until the user clicked Check
for updates. Show 'You're on v<current>' immediately on load using a
new app-version IPC (app.getVersion, no network) so the user can
answer 'which version am I on?' without a click.
Standard browser Ctrl+F support:
- main.js: Ctrl+F caught in the shared before-input-event handler (same
place as F12 / reload shortcuts) fires 'find-open' to chrome.
Two new IPC handlers proxy to activeTab().view.webContents:
find-in-page(query, {forward, findNext, matchCase})
find-stop
Each tab's webContents listens for 'found-in-page' and forwards
{activeMatchOrdinal, matches, finalUpdate} back to chrome via
'find-result' — only when it's the active tab so the bar doesn't
update from a background tab's stale match count.
- preload.js: exposes onFindOpen / findInPage / findStop / onFindResult.
- chrome.html: adds a .findbar strip below the bookmarks bar (part of
chrome-view height like .tordisc / .bcnrbar, so syncHeight picks it
up). Input + "N of M" counter + prev/next/close buttons. Enter jumps
next, Shift+Enter previous, Esc closes. Typing runs findNext:false
(fresh search); pressing Enter runs findNext:true (walk matches).
No-match state paints the input border red.
Three tied-together fixes:
1) captureTab moves from WebContents.capturePage() to CDP
Page.captureScreenshot for every mode (visible / full / region).
Blank-screenshot symptom: after a toolbar-menu selection, the OS
popup teardown left the tab view marked occluded for a few frames
on some Windows setups, so capturePage() snapshotted a
stale/transparent frame at the correct dimensions — no 0x0, no
retry hit. CDP forces a fresh composite regardless of occlusion
state (same path the "Full page" mode was already using) and
returns a base64 PNG directly; PNG dimensions come out of the
IHDR chunk (bytes 16-24). Attach only when nothing else has, and
detach after only if WE attached, so an open DevTools stays
attached.
2) Editor gets a Discard button. Toolbar picks up an "×" glyph next
to Save/Copy that closes the editor tab and drops the working
screenshot. Top-level Escape now falls through the same path
after unwinding an in-flight text placement or crop rectangle. A
new "addon-tab-close" IPC lets an add-on's own tab close itself
(main matches the sender's webContents id against the tab list,
so a page can only close its own tab); window.silentmode.closeTab()
exposes it from addon-tab-preload.js.
3) Manual update controls in Settings > Extensions. New "Check for
updates" button at the top of the Extensions surface calls the
same signed-update polling the boot timer runs; the result is
surfaced inline ("All extensions are up to date" / "N updates
staged; restart Theseus to apply"). A "Pending updates" box
below lists what's in <userData>/addons-updates-staged/ so the
user knows what will be promoted on next restart.
Toolbar-menu popup settle bumped from 120 ms to 250 ms with an
explicit win.focus() in the popup close callback — the previous
window wasn't enough on slower Windows setups. CDP capture no longer
depends on this delay anyway, but the settle still helps any add-on
that does DOM work in its click handler before capture.
Screenshot add-on bumped 0.2.2 → 0.2.3 (Discard button; capture
fixes come from the host, not the add-on).
Ariadne 0.1.1
- install.ps1 primary TLD source: HTTPS $Indexer/api/tlds -> advertised[]
(electrum fetchTldList / legacy fetchBcnrTlds / ariadne.config.json /
bootstrap kept as fallbacks in that order). Silent installs no longer
stall when WSS is blocked.
- Persistent transcript at C:\ProgramData\Ariadne\install.log; separate
install-error.log on any uncaught exception. Top-level trap logs the full
stack, then exit 1 so Inno/NSIS silent-install callers see a real failure.
- .iss: SetupLogging=yes; DeinitializeSetup() copies Inno's log to
C:\ProgramData\Ariadne\inno-setup.log on every exit path.
- Version bumped to 0.1.1. sha256=be1fa8841919b321841d90f8147abe1b1d7604fe7fff6c2e271dc47c4c24a2b6
Theseus decoupled from Ariadne
- Removed nsis/installer.nsh (custom Ariadne chain-install page).
- Removed extraResources entry for AriadneResolver-Setup-*.exe.
- Removed build.nsis.include from package.json.
- Settings > System-wide resolver panel now fetches the .exe from
https://silentmode.st/releases-manifest.json, streams the download while
hashing, refuses to spawn on SHA-256 mismatch. 30-min in-memory manifest
cache so opening Settings doesn't spam the endpoint. Offline gracefully
degrades to installedVersion-only / canUpdate:false.
- "bundledVersion" IPC field kept for renderer compatibility; it now
carries "latest advertised by the site's manifest".
Deployed to silentmode.st:
- dl.silentmode.st/AriadneResolver-Setup-0.1.1.exe (25 MB)
- silentmode.st/releases-manifest.json (schema/2, updated 2026-09-08)
- silentmode.st/releases/ + silentmode.st/tools/ show 0.1.1
Local Dev <noreply@localhost>
Two related visibility fixes:
1) Light-mode --acid → #0AC18E (Bitcoin Cash brand primary, from
whybitcoincash.com's palette per user). Direct swap from #088A66
(darkened variant) to the on-brand primary. Applied across chrome /
settings / error / home / approval / messages / bchwallet /
siawallet / screenshot editor. Dark mode's #d6ff3d is unchanged.
2) User-Agent no longer includes 'theseus-navigator/<ver>' or
'Electron/<ver>' tokens. Cloudflare's WAF was returning HTTP 503
'Service Unavailable' to any request carrying those (verified
directly against whybitcoincash.com — same URL, same headers, only
the UA differed; plain Chrome UA got 200, Theseus UA got 503).
Strip both tokens via a stockChromeUA() helper called from
applyAcceptLanguage(), which whenReady already invokes at boot.
Standard practice: Brave, Vivaldi, Slack all do the same.
Verified via CDP: navigator.userAgent now reports
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36
(KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/130.0.6723.191 Safari/537.36
— indistinguishable from stock Chrome.
New "Updates" card under Startup: a single "Check for updates" button
that hits the release manifest immediately (rather than waiting for
the boot-time and 6h-interval auto-check). Reuses the existing
recheck-update IPC; extended it to un-dismiss any chip the user closed
this session AND to return the current app version so the button can
render either:
- "You're on the latest (v0.3.21)." when nothing newer exists
- "vX.Y.Z is available — the update chip in the toolbar will offer it."
Button disables + shows "Checking…" during the fetch. Silent failures
report their reason ("Check failed: …") so the user isn't left staring
at a dash.
Extends the Ariadne toggle card in Settings > Registries with the three
lifecycle actions the user asked for:
- Install: runs the bundled AriadneResolver-Setup-<ver>.exe silently
and elevated (/VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES /NORESTART). Single UAC
prompt, no wizard.
- Update: same installer, run over the top. Inno Setup detects the
matching AppId and upgrades in place. Only shown when the bundled
version is newer than what's installed.
- Uninstall: reads Inno's QuietUninstallString from
HKLM\...\Uninstall\{7E7A5F1C-...}_is1 and runs it elevated with
/VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES /NORESTART.
Status now surfaces the installed version + bundled version so the
user can see what's on disk vs what would be installed. Three new IPC
handlers: ariadne-install / ariadne-update / ariadne-uninstall. Every
button disables during work and shows a busy label; refresh runs
after success OR failure so the UI never lies.
Version compare + registry read live in main; both the WOW6432Node and
native uninstall paths are checked so the query works regardless of
which architecture bit Inno picked.
Two independent causes of the flash the user reported when clicking
between tabs (and when opening Settings, which is just another tab):
1) Every tab view was created without an explicit backgroundColor.
Electron's default is transparent, which means the first frame after
setVisible(true) shows whatever is underneath the view — black, or
the just-hidden previous tab — until the page paints. Set a solid
ground that tracks the system theme (#0b0e14 dark / #ffffff light)
so the first-paint gap is invisible.
2) setActive iterated tabs and toggled visibility in list order. If
the currently-active tab came before the new active in the array,
the loop hid the active one first and showed the new one later,
leaving one frame where no tab was visible. Reverse: show the new
target FIRST, then hide the rest. Compositor always has at least
one tab view up during the switch.
Decouples bundled-add-on updates from Theseus releases. An add-on
whose addon.json declares an updateURL can be republished at any time
without shipping a new Theseus installer; existing installs pick it up
on the next boot's +30 s background check.
Client flow (main-process only, no UI touchpoints in this commit):
initAddons()
├── promoteStagedUpdates() # promote signed stage if newer
├── seedBundledAddons() # bundle wins over on-disk if newer
└── AddonHost.discoverAndActivate()
30 s later:
└── checkAndStageUpdates() # fetch, verify, download, stage
Signature: Ed25519 over
"silentmode.addon-update-v1|<id>|<version>|<tarball-sha256>",
verified against a hardcoded set of operator pubkeys living in
addon-update-pubkeys.js. Domain-separated so the operator key can't
be tricked into signing a message with a different purpose. Empty
pubkey array is the shipping default — checkAndStageUpdates() then
short-circuits and no outbound requests are made, which is the safe
posture until the operator ceremonies a key in.
Payload: gzipped tar, extracted with the system tar (present on
Win10 1803+, macOS, Linux). Path traversal defended by tar's default
refusal of `..` entries; the extracted manifest's id + version are
re-checked against the signed values before staging.
Staged updates go to <userData>/addons-updates-staged/<id>-<version>/.
Promotion into <userData>/addons/<id>/ reuses seedBundledAddons's
backup dance: existing folder moves to
<userData>/addons-backups/<id>-<oldver>-<timestamp>/ so any local
edits survive.
New files:
- addon-updater.js — client
- addon-update-pubkeys.js — hardcoded pubkeys (empty; edit + rebuild to rotate)
- scripts/generate-update-keypair.mjs — one-time keygen
- scripts/sign-addon-update.mjs — operator packager+signer
- docs/ADDON-UPDATES.md — operator brief + threat model
Wired into main.js at boot; screenshot add-on's addon.json advertises
the reference updateURL for when the endpoint goes live.
seedBundledAddons() only copied a bundled add-on when the target folder
was missing, so an updated bundled add-on never landed on any machine
that had ever run Theseus before — the 0.3.14 shipped screenshot editor
would sit in resources/ and be ignored by every dev machine with an
older screenshot/ folder from a previous test.
Compare the bundled addon.json version to the user's on-disk version.
On mismatch, rename the user copy to
<userData>/addons-backups/<id>-<oldver>-<stamp>/ and cp the fresh
bundle in. Backups live outside addonsDir so AddonHost's folder scan
doesn't pick them up as duplicate add-ons under the same manifest id.
Bump screenshot 0.2.0 -> 0.2.1 so the first build carrying this fix
actually reseeds the shipped-0.3.14 editor on existing dev copies.
Users who genuinely fork a bundled add-on should bump their local
version to something different from the bundled one — that keeps them
pinned. Users who edit files without bumping accept upstream updates,
with the timestamped backup as safety net.
