How can I disable the automatic checking for updates when Google App Engine Launcher is started?

Question

I've been tinkering with the GAE and I enjoy the ease of use of the GAE Launcher that is available with the Windows SDK.

My problem is that when I start the application, it takes it a long time for it to become responsive. This is because the program first checks for updates before starting the app. This causes it to hang, while it's waiting for a response. My problem is that my primary dev machine is behind a proxy server, and the GAE Launcher is being blocked by the proxy.

Is there a way that I can disable the check for updates to the GAE when I start the launcher? Maybe a command that I can pass to the underlying executable through my shortcut?

Answer 1

Google App Engine (GAE) use the python urllib2 library to check for updates. This library gets the proxy settings from *_proxy environment variables, instead of the windows registry.

By default, ProxyHandler uses the environment variables named <scheme>_proxy, where <scheme> is the URL scheme involved. For example, the http_proxy environment variable is read to obtain the HTTP proxy’s URL.

If you need to use a proxy and don't have this variable properly defined, your GAE Launcher will lock until a connection timeout, delaying the start of the program.

If you create a new environment variable called http_proxy with host_or_ip:port, GAE Launcher will start in a blink of an eye.

To define an environment variable, go to: Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Advanced system settings -> Advanced Tab -> Environment Variables...

Answer 2

Make sure all your GAE-java/python processes are shutted down before you fork new ones. It's very often that they stuck and consume processor time and memory after you hit CTRL+C.

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[EDIT]

To disable updates run the server with

--disable_update_check

option.

Usage: <dev-appserver> [options] <war directory>

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[EDIT]

Open dev_appserver.cmd script from GAE SDK with your favorite text processor and manually add --disable_update_check option right after DevAppServerMain definition.

java -cp "%~dp0\..\lib\appengine-tools-api.jar" ^
com.google.appengine.tools.KickStart ^
   com.google.appengine.tools.development.DevAppServerMain --disable_update_check %*

Next time you'll run an application from the GAE Launcher, it will start with "--disable_update_check" option automatically.

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[EDIT]

For Python:

open python source code at

[GAE_SDK_PY]/google/appengine/tools/dev_appserver_main.py

with your favorite text processor, find a 227-th line, it looks like

ARG_SKIP_SDK_UPDATE_CHECK: False,

and overwrite it with following:

  ARG_SKIP_SDK_UPDATE_CHECK: True, 

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

As an update, the currently working option with Google App Engine 1.9.19 is to edit the file ~/.appcfg_nag to make the following change.

- opt_in: true
+ opt_in: false
  timestamp: 0.0

I found about this by consulting the google_appengine/README:line 120

--skip_sdk_update_check    Skip checking for SDK updates. If false, fall back                                                                                     
                           to opt_in setting specified in .appcfg_nag          
                           (Default false)