zed-industries/zed · error

failed to download update: {:?}

Error message

failed to download update: {:?}

What it means

The main app-update download step: the updater GETs release.url and requires HTTP success before streaming the body to disk; failure surfaces the HTTP status. Progress reporting never starts because the check precedes the copy.

Source

Thrown at crates/auto_update/src/auto_update.rs:1046

                path,
                error
            );
        }
    }

    Ok(())
}

async fn download_release(
    target_path: &Path,
    release: ReleaseAsset,
    client: Arc<HttpClientWithUrl>,
    mut on_progress: impl FnMut(Option<f32>),
) -> Result<()> {
    let mut target_file = File::create(&target_path).await?;

    let mut response = client.get(&release.url, Default::default(), true).await?;
    anyhow::ensure!(
        response.status().is_success(),
        "failed to download update: {:?}",
        response.status()
    );

    let total_bytes = response
        .headers()
        .get(http_client::http::header::CONTENT_LENGTH)
        .and_then(|value| value.to_str().ok())
        .and_then(|value| value.parse::<u64>().ok())
        .filter(|total_bytes| *total_bytes > 0);

    let mut downloaded_bytes: u64 = 0;
    let mut last_reported_percent: Option<u8> = None;
    let mut buffer = [0u8; 8192];
    let body = response.body_mut();
    loop {
        let bytes_read = body.read(&mut buffer).await?;

View on GitHub (pinned to bc538def45)

Solutions

1. Retry the update check to obtain a fresh download URL.
2. Verify the URL manually with curl -I and compare with the status in the message.
3. Disable or inspect proxy interception for the download host.
4. Download the build manually from zed.dev if it keeps failing.

// before starting the update
check_free_space(update_dir, expected_size)?; // keep archive + extraction headroom
let fresh_release = fetch_current_release(client, current_version, false, params).await?; // re-resolve instead of reusing a stale URL

match "failed to download update" errors by status: 4xx -> re-resolve the release and retry once; 5xx -> backoff-retry with the same URL.

When it happens

Trigger: client.get(&release.url) for the update archive (tar.gz/dmg/exe) returns a non-2xx status - expired pre-signed URL, 404 after assets rotated, CDN or proxy error.

Common situations: Interrupted update sessions reusing stale URLs; CDN hiccups; proxies or firewalls blocking large binary downloads; channel assets unpublished for the current commit.

Related errors

• failed to download remote server release: {:?}
• failed to fetch release: {:?}
• Slack webhook returned {response.status_code}: {response.tex
• GraphQL failed after {retries} retries: {last_err}
• Sentry API returned HTTP {error.code} for {path}: {detail}

AI-assisted analysis of zed-industries/zed@bc538def45 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cb13f86950766e6f. Report an issue: GitHub.