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Weird wave of updates?

A topic by KaleJaneth created 1 day ago Views: 65 Replies: 4
Viewing posts 1 to 3

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask, but a bunch of games I have in my library suddenly had an update available, except nothing changed? The itch page itself shows there's an update (for some 3 days ago, for others 2 days ago) but it seems to be the same game, same version, etc., and there's no announcement from the devs on the ones I've checked.

I was assuming there was a security compromise of some sort, but for that there should also be something more included with the updates that would be malicious, and I couldn't find any such file.

However I also couldn't find anyone else mentioning this. Does anyone know what happened? For example, Sort The Court seems to have this "update" as well from 3 days ago, but with no actual update to the content, so I'm relatively worried and would like some sort of clarification on what happened.

(+3)

Hey! I'm no expert and what I say definitely isn't 100% confirmed, but you're likely just seeing a platform quirk rather than a security breach. This "phantom update" wave happens quite a bit on itch.io, usually because the platform flags a whole project as "updated" whenever a developer makes a minor change to the page itself like editing the text description, updating tags, adding new screenshots, or tweaking pricing settings even if the actual game files haven't been touched at all. It can also happen if itch.io rolls out a backend server migration or mass updates regional compliance filters that touch a huge batch of game pages at once, which triggers a false notification in everyone's library feed. Unless the devs actually post a new devlog announcing a content patch, it's almost certainly just a visual metada.

(+1)

Given that there was no change from developers across the games observed, it must be something on itch.io's backend.

Read that again. 

whenever a developer makes a minor change to the page itself like editing the text description, updating tags, adding new screenshots

The update date of a page is the update date of a page.

Is this about the Itch app? That would be front end. Propagating or even downloading phantom updates, while nothing was there to be downloaded, seem like a bug.

Yes, I can read, there was no change *even in the pages*. A bunch of games just started showing an update, both in app and in the "More information" dropdown under the Updated part.

There was no new content to the games, and there was nothing added nor changed in the pages, no screenshots added, removed nor changed, etc.

Hence why I concluded it was itch's backend. So yeah, probably a bug.