How to roll back to an earlier version of google-chrome? (Solved)

[superchook]

I have been using google-chrome as my default browser for quite some time.
From time to time I run the "Get Google Chrome" installer from the control panel.
This gets (and installs) the latest official stable version of the browser and leaves a package used for the installation in root.
I leave this package there along with the package from the previous update and delete any even older packages.
The package that I downloaded yesterday and another that I downloaded today both failed to install properly and so I want to revert to the package which I still have from the 19th of September.
How do I do this?
The old package is about 90 M but the faulty one is only 536 bytes!

[p310don]

I've been in contact with the team. This is a known problem.

The easiest way to re-install your old version is to right click on the latest working package (should be about 90M) and install it.

Best to make sure Chrome is not running when you do.

[superchook]

Thanks, Don, That fixed my problem.
I now have google-chrome back even though it is asking me to update I will wait a while

[jamesbond]

Ken, please check PM.

[Tag365]

I've been in contact with the team. This is a known problem.

The easiest way to re-install your old version is to right click on the latest working package (should be about 90M) and install it.

Best to make sure Chrome is not running when you do.

I had the same issue and had to use this method to get Google Chrome working again for me. Has the new version been fixed?

[jamesbond]

The cause of the problem is the failure to download the latest chrome software.
Based on our investigation, there doesn't seem to be any problem on the Fatdog side.
It could probably be just a temporary issue on the google servers, and it happens intermittently.

[mikewalsh]

The updater script I wrote for the portable build of Google Chrome periodically runs into exactly the same issue.

The 'LAUNCH' script is written to check this webpage when it's run. This webpage gives the current stable release number, and is used to then trigger the 'Updater' script if the version given doesn't match the 'Last Version' file in Chrome's profile.

This 'tweak' was courtesy of Forum member baraka. Normally, it's reliable, and works without issue.

On occasion, there is a problem at Google's end where the current stable release is not actually in the repo. Either that, or the 'current' release number isn't correctly forwarded to the above-mentioned webpage. Not only does the script not download anything - so the 'chrome' directory doesn't get replaced - it then leads to a 'loop' situation where the browser keeps asking you to update, every time the browser is launched.

It's annoying, but there's not a whole lot any of us can do about it. Myself, I think a good part of the problem is the highly-automated production pipeline Google have set up at the Chromium Project, where the only real human interaction is the supply of 'fixes' & 'patches' sent in by all those developers, world-wide, who are regular contributors to the project.....but even these are then automatically 'slip-streamed' into the source code files as and when they are received at the Project (it's from here that Google periodically draw the source code for the next stable build as & when it materialises). The project has a whole fleet of semi-autonomous 'bots' that do nothing BUT create build after build, 24/7, as and when 'fixes' come in, without the need for human intervention.

There appears to be very little in the way of a real-time overview to the whole process. So, occasional glitches like this are bound to sneak through.

Mike.

[fredx181]

The 'LAUNCH' script is written to check this webpage when it's run. This webpage gives the current stable release number, and is used to then trigger the 'Updater' script if the version given doesn't match the 'Last Version' file in Chrome's profile.

The check is not exactly up to date but close, it shows 107.0.5304.110 and the latest is slightly different: 107.0.5304.110-1
google-chrome-stable_107.0.5304.110-1_amd64.deb

Found google-chrome mirror: http://mirror.cs.uchicago.edu/google-ch ... me-stable/, latest version google-chrome now:
http://mirror.cs.uchicago.edu/google-ch ... _amd64.deb

To script this (combined with result of https://omahaproxy.appspot.com/linux) to check for latest version and download it:

Code: Select all

LAST_RELEASE=`wget -qO- https://omahaproxy.appspot.com/linux`  # check latest version, may not be exact
wget -q -O tmp.html http://mirror.cs.uchicago.edu/google-chrome/pool/main/g/google-chrome-stable/
LAST_DEB_RELEASE=$(cat tmp.html | grep -o -E "google-chrome-stable[^<>]*?.deb" | grep "$LAST_RELEASE" | tail -1)
rm tmp.html
# download latest google-chrome-stable deb
wget "http://mirror.cs.uchicago.edu/google-chrome/pool/main/g/google-chrome-stable/$LAST_DEB_RELEASE"

EDIT : For who's interested (as is original topic question), also older google-chrome packages can be found at http://mirror.cs.uchicago.edu/google-ch ... me-stable/

EDIT2: On second thought getting latest chrome is more simple using the "direct" link "google-chrome-stable_current" from google itself https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/goog ... _amd64.deb

[jamesbond]

@mikewalsh, @fredx181, thanks for the insights.

As a note, Fatdog's version of the get-google-chrome does not even bother to check for the version, we just grab the deb package from https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/goog ... _amd64.deb (the same URL fredx181 pointed in the EDIT2). This supposedly should never fail, but apparently it does, from time to time ... go figure