I'm having difficulties getting AutoUpdate for an electron app to work on Windows. The app itself is working as intended on both Win and macOS, however the Auto Update provided by electron-builder only works on macOS. The update notification is properly triggered on both OS and the logs indicate that even the Win application realised that an update is available and starts the download. However, the download never seems to be completed or somehow never communicates back to the app.
One possible cause of the issue could be code signing: on macOS I am using CS with an Apple Developer Account and Auto Update works as intended. An appropriate CS cert for Win seems to be both more expensive and not even required to use Auto Updating – but this is where I'm not sure about, as I couldn't find clear answers on that: the official doc seems to imply that you dont't need it (link, "macOS application must be signed in order for auto updating to work." -> so Win doesn't?), but I found articles and sources that claimed the opposite (e.g. here or here). I don't want to purchase a certificate without knowing if that is actually causing the problem.
Can anyone give me a reliable, up-to-date (2020) answer regarding the requirement of a code signing certificate for getting Auto Updater to work on Win?
Or – does anyone have an idea what else could cause this kind of problem?
Thanks!
[edit] electron-updater log (via electron-log):
[2020-09-21 12:03:10.651] [info] Checking for update
[2020-09-21 12:03:10.698] [info] Found version 1.1.1 (url: MyApp_1.1.1_Setup.exe)
[2020-09-21 12:03:16.673] [info] Downloading update from MyApp_1.1.1_Setup.exe
[2020-09-21 12:03:16.684] [info] No cached update info available
[2020-09-21 12:03:16.690] [info] Download block maps (old: "https://{url}/MyApp_1.1.0_Setup.exe.blockmap", new: https://{url}/MyApp_1.1.1_Setup.exe.blockmap)
[2020-09-21 12:03:16.886] [info] File has 252 changed blocks
[2020-09-21 12:03:16.906] [info] Full: 47,730.39 KB, To download: 5,030.83 KB (11%)