From fc46f7c847754cf3336c5a8db2cce3014d0a18e0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Valerii Kovalskii <kovalskyvr@mail.ru>
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2026 05:37:11 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] fix: make self-update restart reliably (v7.5.2)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

The "Update Now" flow installed the new version but then died without
coming back up — the port was freed but nothing relistened, so the UI
kept showing the stale version and the page failed to reload.

Root cause: the restart spawned a child inside a `process.on('exit')`
handler. The event loop is already draining at exit time, so the
detached child frequently never survived.

Fix: spawn a fully-detached, unref'd restarter (own process group,
stdio ignored) BEFORE exiting, then exit after a short tick to release
the port. Restarter reuses the same port/host and skips reopening the
browser. Also raise the npm-install timeout 60s -> 120s.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 package.json     |  2 +-
 src/changelog.js | 10 ++++++++++
 src/server.js    | 30 ++++++++++++++++++++----------
 3 files changed, 31 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index e896869..4030a60 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "codbash-app",
-  "version": "7.5.1",
+  "version": "7.5.2",
   "description": "Dashboard + CLI for AI coding agents — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Kiro. View, search, resume, convert, sync sessions.",
   "bin": {
     "codbash": "./bin/cli.js",
diff --git a/src/changelog.js b/src/changelog.js
index e10f32b..60d941c 100644
--- a/src/changelog.js
+++ b/src/changelog.js
@@ -1,6 +1,16 @@
 'use strict';
 
 const CHANGELOG = [
+  {
+    version: '7.5.2',
+    date: '2026-07-19',
+    title: 'Reliable self-update restart',
+    changes: [
+      'Fix: "Update Now" no longer leaves the server dead after installing the new version — the restart now spawns a fully-detached process instead of an unreliable process.on("exit") handler',
+      'Self-update restarter reclaims the same port/host and skips reopening the browser (the existing tab reloads itself)',
+      'npm install timeout during self-update raised from 60s to 120s for slower connections',
+    ],
+  },
   {
     version: '7.5.1',
     date: '2026-05-26',
diff --git a/src/server.js b/src/server.js
index cba2060..7778dfc 100644
--- a/src/server.js
+++ b/src/server.js
@@ -795,17 +795,27 @@ function startServer(host, port, openBrowser = true) {
       json(res, { ok: true, message: 'Updating... Page will reload.' });
       // Run update in background after response is sent
       setTimeout(() => {
-        const { execSync } = require('child_process');
+        const { execSync, spawn } = require('child_process');
         try {
-          execSync('npm i -g codbash-app@latest', { stdio: 'inherit', timeout: 60000 });
-          log('UPDATE', 'Updated. Restarting...');
-          // Restart the process
-          process.on('exit', () => {
-            require('child_process').spawn(process.argv[0], process.argv.slice(1), {
-              detached: true, stdio: 'inherit'
-            }).unref();
-          });
-          process.exit(0);
+          execSync('npm i -g codbash-app@latest', { stdio: 'inherit', timeout: 120000 });
+          log('UPDATE', 'Update installed. Restarting server...');
+          // Spawn a FULLY-detached restarter BEFORE exiting. Spawning inside a
+          // `process.on('exit')` handler is unreliable — the event loop is already
+          // draining, so the child frequently never survives and the server ends
+          // up dead (nothing reclaims the port). Instead: detach + unref + ignore
+          // stdio so the child outlives us, become its own process-group leader
+          // (so the restarter's `lsof … | kill -9` on the port can't take it down),
+          // then exit cleanly. The restarter loads the freshly-installed code from
+          // the same argv[1] path that npm just overwrote.
+          const child = spawn(
+            process.argv[0],
+            [process.argv[1], 'restart', `--port=${port}`, `--host=${host}`, '--no-browser'],
+            { detached: true, stdio: 'ignore' }
+          );
+          child.unref();
+          // Give the OS a tick to fully spawn the detached child before we exit
+          // and release the port for the restarter to grab.
+          setTimeout(() => process.exit(0), 250);
         } catch (e) {
           log('ERROR', `Update failed: ${e.message}`);
         }