AN7 Check For Blender Updates

Check for official releases (major, minor, and patches) on Blender startup or from the Help menu.

Note from December 2023: though the DDOS attack seems to be resolved, automatically checking at startup waits on server responses and can noticibly delay Blender opening when the servers are overloaded.

Checking from the help menu will also wait for server responses, but can be manually triggered at a more oportune time. Choose whichever behaviour works best for you!

Installation and Usage

• Download the AN7_checkForUpdates.py add-on file
• Install in the Blender Preferences > Add-ons tab
• Enable the plugin
• If necessary, you can override the automatic platform detection and choose a specific download type

• Download Format defaults to automatic platform detection, but can be set to the preferred executable for your operating system (for example, Windows will default to .zip downloads instead of .msi).
  • In cases where the download link formatting is a little inconsistent (ending with -macOS.dmg instead of the more typical -macos-arm.dmg for example), the plugin will fall back to a simpler extension match instead of the full string. This can result in incorrect platform selection, regardless of override. Each download is clearly listed in the update popup, so there shouldn't be any surprises.
• Automatically Check sets the level of update to look for when Blender launches
  • None will skip checking for any updates on startup, but the Help menu Check for Updates… option will always be available
    • Once an update check is performed, the Update alert will show in the menu bar even after restarting Blender
    • If this is undesired behaviour, you can reset it simply by toggling the plugin checkbox off and back on
  • Patch Updates will check only for patch updates to the current Blender installation, not minor or major point releases
  • All Updates (slow) will check for all possible version updates

Checking for updates can take a few seconds depending on your computer or network speed, since multiple webpages have to be checked for available versions. Setting the Automatically Check setting to None or Patch Updates can help ensure Blender starts more quickly than when performing a full check for all three possible versions (3.3.#, 3.#.#, and #.#.# for example).

When an update is available, an alert will show up in the menu bar. Click this button to open the update popup with a download link (it'll download using your default browser), or access the same popup window at any time from the Help menu (this is an easy way to confirm you're running the latest available version if Blender hasn't been restarted in a while).

Notes

• Tested in Blender 3.6 on MacOS Intel, MacOS Arm, and Linux platforms; other versions and platforms should work but have not been tested by the author
• This add-on is provided free and without warranty; use at your own risk