keeping solstone up to date

running the current version fixes a surprising number of issues, and it's the first thing worth ruling out.

check your version

journal --version      # or: sol --version

compare it against the latest release. if you're a version or two behind, the update may already contain your fix.

one number, everywhere: since 1.0.12 the journal reports the same version whether you installed it yourself or run the journal app on your mac. the two used to count releases separately, which is why the number jumped from 0.9.x to 1.0.x — nothing was skipped. sol on your mac still keeps its own number.

one caveat: source installs report a frozen version

if you installed solstone from a source checkout (pip install -e .) and keep your code current with git pull, the reported version does not move — it's frozen at install time. so --version can show an old number even when your code is current. if that's you, your real version is wherever your checkout sits, not what --version prints. (this trips up diagnostics too, so it's worth flagging when you file a request.)

update the journal

uv tool install --upgrade solstone-journal && uv tool install --upgrade solstone && journal setup

(or pipx upgrade solstone-journal && journal setup, or with pip pip install --upgrade solstone-journal && journal setup.) the journal setup step refreshes runtime artifacts and reconciles the service if anything changed.

the journal and mlx-vlm-server commands ship in the solstone-journal package (or solstone-journal-cuda on NVIDIA) — install and upgrade that package directly. the older solstone[journal] extra and the solstone-journal-host shim are retired and now fail loudly, so update the package by its own name. the uv tool form upgrades both the journal package and the thin solstone client; on NVIDIA, upgrade solstone-journal-cuda instead of solstone-journal.

update just the thin client

only talking to a journal that runs elsewhere — the sol client, no journal here? then there's nothing else to refresh:

uv tool upgrade solstone      # or: pipx upgrade solstone

the two mac apps update on their own clocks

sol (the menu-bar app) and the journal (its own dock app) are separate apps with separate updaters — each accepts its own update prompt and handles the rest, on its own schedule. see the two mac apps if you're not sure which is which or why there are two.

windows update channels

direct install (the signed Setup.exe from solstone.app/download/windows) updates itself the same way — accept the prompt when it appears.
winget (winget install solstone) installs that same signed installer, so it updates itself the same way — accept the prompt. (winget upgrade is a harmless catch-up; the app updates on its own.)
scoop —

scoop update solstone

after updating

journal doctor

confirms everything came back up cleanly. if something's still off, see when a lot seems broken at once: check convey first, or file a request from the form at https://support.solstone.app/.