Updates

What is on the page

The version badge sits under the logo, always visible, and clicking it opens Settings → Updates. Everything that can be updated right now is on that one screen, in this order:

• Application — the version you have, the changelog of the update on offer, a Check now button and a Download and install button. On a tester's account this card also carries the Update channel picker.
• Under the application card, a note with a Download page link — the way to install by hand when the automatic route does not work.
• Modules — updates for installed modules, with an Update all button when there is more than one. The buttons are here; what a module update can and cannot do is in the guide "Module Catalog".
• Release history — recent releases of your channel, including the one you are running, with a Roll back button on the ones you can return to.
• Anonymous install ping — the one thing the app reports about itself.
• Require a newer app version — at the very bottom: modules that have a newer version out, but one that needs a newer app than you have.

Updating is always manual. There is no automatic update and no schedule — the app never installs anything on its own.

When the app checks

The app checks by itself at startup and every 30 minutes; the answer is cached for the same 30 minutes, so Check now is the way to force a fresh look.

How an install goes

1. Press Download and install. The button reads Downloading… while the file arrives, and the percentage runs on the card.
2. The file is checked — its size, its checksum and its signature — then Install the update? asks to confirm. Press Install. Closing that question changes nothing — the file stays ready on disk, and the button now reads Install instead of downloading a second time.
3. The app closes and the Windows installer opens. Settings, tokens and statistics stay in place.

Do not do this in the middle of a broadcast — the app closes.

The installer is a little over a hundred megabytes and usually arrives in a minute or two. If it crawls for noticeably longer, the likely cause is the route between you and the server rather than your own connection: there is nothing to gain from testing your speed or reinstalling the app. The download can be left running while you do something else — it breaks nothing, and the installation only starts once you confirm it.

The warning about Windows blocking the update

strAImer's installer is not signed with a publisher certificate yet, and one Windows 11 feature — Smart App Control — refuses unsigned installers outright. On a computer where it is switched on, the update cannot install at all.

The app reads that setting and says so before the download: when an update is available and this machine has the feature on, a warning appears on the application card with a Download page link to the instructions. Nobody else sees it — where the feature is off, missing, or in the "Evaluation" state Windows uses while it decides, nothing is blocked and the card looks as it always did. That is the usual case.

Download and install stays available: the feature can be switched off in Windows and the button pressed straight after. strAImer never touches that setting itself — it only reads whether it is on, because turning a Windows protection off is yours to decide.

What that Windows window looks like, and where the switch lives, is in the article "Update will not install".

Installing from the site by hand

The note under the application card is the fallback for an update the app could not install itself: download the installer from the site through the Download page link and run it over the current version. That page also lists the recent releases with their changelogs, so it is the place to look when the app itself will not start.

There is nothing to uninstall first. The installer replaces the program in place, and settings, tokens and statistics are kept outside it, so they survive untouched.

One failure this does not get around is Windows refusing the installer outright. Smart App Control blocks the file itself, not the route it came by, so a copy fetched by hand is refused exactly the same way — the article "Update will not install" is where that one is dealt with.

The same Download page button also appears in the Update was not installed window, so the manual route is one press away from most failures. The hotkey helper is the one that window answers differently, and that is the next section.

When the hotkey helper is in the way

The hotkey helper is the background piece that keeps hotkeys working while a game running as administrator is in focus. It runs with administrator rights of its own, so the installer cannot close it — and an installer that cannot close every part of the app stops with an error instead of replacing files.

The app stops the helper itself before handing over to the installer, and on most machines that is the end of it: the helper stays switched on in your settings and comes back with the new version. Nothing to do afterwards.

When it cannot be stopped, the install does not start at all, and the Update was not installed window offers a Turn the helper off and update button. That button is the one with a lasting cost. It switches the helper off in your settings — for good, not for the duration of the update — and installs. So once the new version starts, switch it back on with Turn on in the settings of the Panel: Buttons tile, where it was switched on in the first place. Hotkeys keep working meanwhile, except in games running as administrator.

When even that fails, the article "Update will not install" says what to press.

Stable and test builds

Two channels. Stable carries only builds that have been used on a real broadcast: fewer new things, fewer surprises. Test carries new features first, several builds a week, and something in it may break mid-stream.

Access to the test channel follows the strAImer account, not the app: it appears once the account has been given the tester role. Without that role the app is offered stable, which is normal and not an error.

With the role, the application card gains an Update channel picker. The card also says where stable currently stands, so a tester can see how far ahead of it they are. The same picker is in the account cabinet on straimer.com, under Account and devices — either one changes the choice, and every machine you sign in on follows it.

Switching keeps everything. Channels, modules, overlays, statistics and history stay exactly where they are, in both directions. The database only ever gains columns, so an older build reads it without losing anything.

Three things worth knowing before going back to stable:

• The stable build is older than the test one, so the page offers to install it rather than to update. That is the same thing, worded honestly.
• Modules that need a newer core will not start on it. The page names them before the install, and they come back the moment you return to the test channel.
• Builds released before the picker existed do not have it. Going down to one of those is a one-way step from inside the app, and the page says so before the install. The way back is the cabinet on straimer.com, under Account and devices — switch the channel there, then update from the app as usual.

Picking a channel changes nothing by itself — it only changes what the app offers. The install is still a separate button.

Rolling back

Release history lists recent releases of your channel — stable releases for most people, test builds for a tester. Your own version is in the list too, marked Installed now: that is where to read the changelog of the build you are actually running. Every other entry carries its date, its changelog and a Roll back button.

It is not a list of files left on the disk: the installer for the version you pick is downloaded again, like any other. Only the last five releases of a channel are kept, so anything older is not offered and cannot be reached from inside the app at all.

Two things to know before you press anything:

• Rolling back normally keeps everything. A release only ever adds to the database, and an older build ignores what it does not know about. The exception is a release that changed the database in a way an older build cannot read: on those versions the block says Rolling back also restores the database copy made before that update — anything recorded since will be lost, and it means what it says — streams, donations and history recorded after that update go with the copy. The confirmation window repeats that line; the modules that will not start on the older build it names either way.
• Some entries have no button at all and carry a reason instead: either the build is old enough to predate rollback support, so nothing can promise your database would still work on it, or the copy that would take the database back is no longer kept.

The block is hidden when there is nothing to show — and also when the server cannot be reached, because the list lives there rather than on your computer.

Anonymous install ping

The card near the bottom of the page. About once a day the app tells the server that this copy is alive: a number it made up for itself, the version and the channel it is on, the operating system and the interface language. No name, no email, no account, nothing out of your settings. It is how a release can be seen reaching people at all — the app works on your computer, and without this an install does not exist from the outside.

The exact rhythm: the first ping goes out five minutes after the app starts, and after that no more often than once every 20 hours. One thing skips the wait — installing a different version, which is reported straight away, because "did the release reach anyone" is the question the ping exists for.

Send the anonymous ping is on out of the box, and the line under it says when the last one went out. Turning it off sends nothing at all — not an empty ping, nothing. The number itself is only created when the first ping goes out, so turning the ping off inside those first five minutes leaves no number on the disk either.

What this page cannot do

• Install on its own. No automatic update, no schedule, no "install it overnight".
• Update without closing the app. The installer replaces files the running app is holding, so there is no way to update mid-stream and stay on air.
• Give you any version you like. Only the last five releases of your channel exist on the server: the newest of them is what the page offers, the older ones sit under Release history, and nothing else is reachable from inside the app.
• Show you the other channel's builds. The history is your channel's own. A tester sees test builds, everyone else sees stable ones, and swapping the list means switching the channel first.
• Change a Windows setting for you. The app reads whether the protection is on and warns you; switching it off happens in Windows Security, by you.
• Manage modules. Their updates are on this page, but installing, uninstalling, bundles and rolling a single module back live in the catalog — the guide "Module Catalog".