Is it possible to disable automatic system updates?

Blastoidea

Just out of vulgar curiosity, why do you want to do that?

What is your reasoning?

eatinggrumble84

The update process uses quite a bit of my battery and can also make my Pixel6Pro quite warm. So I'd prefer an option to delay it by 24-48 hours so that I can manually start the update later when I might have more battery or have a charger accessible.

csis01

Another good reason is that while updates do bring along security improvements, they also bring along the possibility of introducing unexpected bugs or even complete system failure. Consequently, as a matter of having a perfectly functional device, it is important to delay updates until a point when you have time to devote to dealing with unexpected problems.

de0u

csis01 Consequently, as a matter of having a perfectly functional device, it is important to delay updates until a point when you have time to devote to dealing with unexpected problems.

For example, I recently deferred an update for 24 hours due to travel.

meiklmue

I have it disabled on my Pixel 4A5G as well. Just drains a huge amount of battery in the worst moments possible.
Would all be no problem if there would be a "only update when charging" option in additon to "unmetered only"...

cb474

matchboxbananasynergy You can add the releases page to an RSS feed to be notified about new releases, and use https://grapheneos.org/usage#updates-disabling to disable the updater if you want.

Thanks. If one disables system updates, by disabling the updater app, do you then have to do updates manually, by flashing an .ota file in the bootloader? Does that make over the air updates impossible? Or will the option to manually check for and download updates still exist in the "System update" section of the settings?

treequell No, but you can turn off auto-reboot after install. You can also changes the permitted network for downloading the update to unmetered only.

Thanks. I saw those settings. It was not clear to me what "unmetered" means. Does that mean wifi only? I currently have unlimited data on my cellular plan, so I was unsure if that would make cellular also considered unmetered, although I don't know how the system updater would know about the details of my plan.

Anyway, it's a little bizarre that people assume I don't want to keep my system up to date, just because I don't want system updates to automatically download and then feel the need to lecture me about it. My reasons are similar to those that others have stated already in replies here (battery use at inopportune times, not wanting to have to deal with system breakage from bugs in an update a certain moment) and depending on my cellular plan at the time, I don't necessarily want big updates just sucking bandwidth automatically when they feel like it. But I am very assiduous about updates. I just prefer to do them manually andn have a little more control over when they happen.

de0u

cb474 If one disables system updates, by disabling the updater app, do you then have to do updates manually, by flashing an .ota file in the bootloader?

You can just re-enable the updater, ask it to check, then disable it again after the install. I did that for a while when I started with GrapheneOS.

cb474

treequell You can also changes the permitted network for downloading the update to unmetered only.

cb474 Thanks. I saw those settings. It was not clear to me what "unmetered" means. Does that mean wifi only? I currently have unlimited data on my cellular plan, so I was unsure if that would make cellular also considered unmetered, although I don't know how the system updater would know about the details of my plan.

Looking into this further, I see that the usage guide has a brief not very complete explanation. It states:

The "Permitted networks" setting controls which networks will be used to perform updates. It defaults to using any network connection. It can be set to..."Unmetered" to disable it on cellular networks and also Wi-Fi networks marked as metered.

The "and also" in the last sentence makes its meaning ambiguous. Does this mean all cellular networks (but not wifi) are by default treated as metered? Or does it mean downloads will be disabled on cellular and wifi networks marked as metered, but that's not the default for either? Are there other potentially undesired effects of treating a unmetered connection as metered?

I see there is also a "detect automatically" setting, which wifi seems to default to. How does the system automatically detect whether a network is metered or unmetered? My cellular plan has unlimited data, but if I travel abroad there's a cap. Can the system detect this change and will the updater, if "permitted networks" is set to unmetered, then only automatically download updates on my cellular service when I'm at home, but not abroad?

This all seems very complicated and not clearly documented.

heliumvoice

cb474 Anyway, it's a little bizarre that people assume I don't want to keep my system up to date, just because I don't want system updates to automatically download

I have been going through the entire system settings for days now, looking for an option to disable automatic download and installation. I think this is a crucial “feature” that shouldn’t be missing. The same goes for setting the intervall the OS looks for updates for the system and the apps (like Vanadium). GOS keeps spamming me with “Apps are up to date” several times a day.

I don’t use my phone for any highly sensible stuff (online banking etc.), so system updates once a week and app updates once a day or week is enough for my needs, and it would drain the battery less just by causing less cpu usage etc.

And then of course there is the issue of bad updates. One of the recent Android updates was reported to cause higher battery drain. I would skip such updates, if I could.

I think this should be a high priority issue.

cb474

de0u Thanks, that seems kind of like a pretty clunky workaround.

de0u

cb474 Thanks, that seems kind of like a pretty clunky workaround.

A setting would be nicer! But there is a long list of urgent things that impede lots of people, so this one may not happen fast.

dazinism

cb474
This is how android specifies networks. Wifi networks can be marked as metered to help avoid high charges in cases where you are paying for data used. Its not uncommon for apps to have settings to limit downloads on metered networks.
https://support.google.com/android/answer/9654714?hl=en

As far as I know cellular is always considered metered.

cb474

dazinism Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I guess that's my concern. If I set my wifi connections as metered, in order to stop automatic system updates, it may cause other apps to function in unwanted ways. So it's not a great solution. Also, every time I connect to a new wifi network, I'll have to dig into the settings and change it to metered. It's not really a great work around.

I'm still wondering how the "detect automatically" setting works. How can the OS tell if a connection is metered or unmetered automatically?

de0u

heliumvoice I have been going through the entire system settings for days now, looking for an option to disable automatic download and installation.

Settings, Apps, "See all ...", Pick "Show system" from the vertical-dots menu, scroll down to System Updater, Disable.

I think when you re-enable nothing happens until a reboot.

dgzeij

heliumvoice The notification spam from checking for new updates bothered me aswell, but luckily easy fix for that:

Settings -> System -> System update -> Notification settings:
Error Reporting = yes
Update Progress = no
Already Updated = no
Reboot Prompt = yes
Allow notification dot = yes

Now I just see that a new update is ready for download, then downloaded, then asking for reboot (which you toggle automatic reboot = OFF on the previous settings page).

GrapheneOS

heliumvoice The notifications about the OS and apps already being updated are silent and hidden. They don't appear in your status bar or on the lockscreen. They only appear if you open the notification drawer and look all the way at the bottom for them. The issue seems to be that you're swiping them away which isn't the intended usage. If you don't want those notifications, you should turn off the Already Updated notifications. The purpose of them is so you can quickly check when the last check for updates happened for both apps and the OS. It's there as a minor optional security feature.

Checking for updates doesn't use any significant amount of power, CPU or bandwidth. An app like Signal wakes the device every couple minutes to check their push connection isn't dead. The system update client and app repository wait hours before checking again. It downloads a single tiny file. The device being woken up for under a second less than 6 times a day doesn't use any significant power.

cb474

de0u If I do this, will I get a notification that an update is available? Will I have to manually check for updates?

dgzeij

chipotledonut Read this: dgzeij

GrapheneOS

dgzeij You're not meant to swipe away the silent/hidden notifications. You would also notice there are new ones if you're swiping them away. The whole point of them being silent/hidden is they're collapsed at the bottom and you aren't informed about having them in the status bar or lockscreen. Any actual notifications are above them and they don't waste the space used for them.

heliumvoice

@de0u Thanks, I have already disabled the System Updater. ;-)

@dgzeij Thanks. Interesting, I already had looked into that part several times, must have overlooked the third option.

de0u

cb474 If I do this, will I get a notification that an update is available?

If you disable the system updater app it will not run at all, so it won't even discover the existence of updates. As GrapheneOS writes, this is not a good approach for most people. I have done it during travel, when any issue installing an update or with the new system would be inconvenient to deal with.

I would prefer if the updater had a setting to ask me before downloads and allow me to "snooze" a given update for some number of days. But I realize that would require developer time for something that isn't a big deal for most people. And personally I am monitoring the forum and release notes so I will find out about new releases even if I have the updater temporarily disabled.

If you do temporarily disable the updater, note that re-enabling does not appear to activate it right away, but a reboot will.

Anonymous

A related and relevant question would be, why doesn't disabling automatic updates in Developer options work?

GrapheneOS

Anonymous Developer options are for development and that option has no connection to our system updater or app repository client. The app repository client already has toggles and the system updater can be disabled as a whole for now if you really want to do that. We strongly recommend not turning off automatic updates though. We plan to provide a toggle for manually triggering download/install but it will still inform you about the updates.