Failed to fetch latest-mac.yml (${response.status} ${respons

Error message

Failed to fetch latest-mac.yml (${response.status} ${response.statusText}).

What it means

resolveElectronAlphaArtifact fetches latest-mac.yml via desktopFetch and throws this when the HTTP response is not ok, embedding the status code and status text. It converts a network-level failure into a descriptive error before parsing is attempted.

Source

Thrown at apps/app/src/app/lib/electron-alpha.ts:75

  return {
    arch,
    manifestUrl: ELECTRON_ALPHA_LATEST_MAC_YML_URL,
    releaseUrl: ELECTRON_ALPHA_RELEASE_PAGE_URL,
    url: resolveArtifactUrl(path),
    path,
    version,
    sha512,
  };
}

export async function resolveElectronAlphaArtifact(
  arch: "arm64" | "x64" = "arm64",
): Promise<ElectronAlphaArtifact> {
  const response = await desktopFetch(ELECTRON_ALPHA_LATEST_MAC_YML_URL, {
    headers: { Accept: "text/yaml, text/plain, */*" },
  });
  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new Error(
      `Failed to fetch latest-mac.yml (${response.status} ${response.statusText}).`,
    );
  }
  return parseElectronLatestMacYml(await response.text(), arch);
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 2b7df46e8a)

Solutions

Open the manifest URL in a browser/curl to see the actual status and response body.
If 404, republish the alpha build or point to the correct channel URL.
If 403/451, check proxy/firewall or auth requirements for the storage bucket.
Retry on 5xx with backoff; the failure is often transient.

Example fix

// before: throw immediately on any non-ok status
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Failed to fetch latest-mac.yml (${response.status} ${response.statusText}).`);
// after: retry transient server errors once
if (!response.ok && response.status >= 500) {
  const retry = await desktopFetch(ELECTRON_ALPHA_LATEST_MAC_YML_URL, { headers: { Accept: "text/yaml, text/plain, */*" } });
  if (retry.ok) return parseElectronLatestMacYml(await retry.text(), arch);
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

const res = await desktopFetch(ELECTRON_ALPHA_LATEST_MAC_YML_URL, { headers: { Accept: "text/yaml, text/plain, */*" } });
if (!res.ok) console.warn(`Manifest endpoint unhealthy: ${res.status} ${res.statusText}`);

Try / catch

try {
  const artifact = await resolveElectronAlphaArtifact();
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof Error && /Failed to fetch latest-mac.yml \(\d+/.test(err.message)) {
    const m = /\((\d+)/.exec(err.message);
    if (m && Number(m[1]) >= 500) scheduleRetryWithBackoff();
    else showUserFacingUpdateError(err);
  } else throw err;
}

Prevention

Retry 5xx responses with exponential backoff before surfacing errors.
Distinguish 404 (republish needed) from 5xx (transient) by parsing the status out of the message.
Monitor the manifest URL's uptime so purged artifacts are caught before users hit them.

When it happens

Trigger: desktopFetch to ELECTRON_ALPHA_LATEST_MAC_YML_URL returns 404 (artifact removed/moved), 403 (blocked), 5xx (origin error), or any non-2xx status.

Common situations: Alpha build purged from storage, wrong channel URL after a repo/rename, corporate proxy or CDN returning errors, offline machine with no cached response.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Something went wrong' / 'Request failed (500)' / 'HTTP error! status: 404' — what failed HTTP requests actually mean and how to find the real cause — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of different-ai/openwork@2b7df46e8a (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a2681b47bc9d3100. Report an issue: GitHub.