cap-codepush@2.0.0 fails with "Cannot perform diff-update" on second sequential release to a deployment

[Rahul-codoffer]

If you are looking for help, please confirm the following...

• I confirm I have searched the Docs, Codemagic Sample Projects, and GitHub Discussions.
• I confirm the software versions on my local computer match the ones in CI environment (e.g. Xcode version, Gradle version). See here
• I confirm I am able to do a fresh clone of the repository and build the project on my local computer.

Which mobile framework are you using?

Ionic/Cordova

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a fresh app and deployment: code-push app add TestApp-iOS

2. Get the Staging deployment key: code-push deployment ls TestApp-iOS -k

3. Configure the key in capacitor.config.ts under plugins.CodePush.IOS_DEPLOY_KEY, with SERVER_URL set to https://codepush.pro/

4. Environment: @capacitor/core 5.7.0, cap-codepush 2.0.0, tested on iOS Simulator

5. Build and do a completely fresh install of the app (no prior CodePush installs on this device/simulator)

6. Release update ▸ Generating 'App.app.dSYM': Failed to Archive iOS Ionic App #1610

code-push release TestApp-iOS ios/App/App/public/ "4.0.4" --deploymentName Staging --description "release 1"

7. Launch the app, let codePush.sync() run (downloads update Remove deployment info from readme #1), then fully force-quit and relaunch (applies it)

8. Make another content change, rebuild, and release update Important change #2 to the same deployment:

code-push release TestApp-iOS ios/App/App/public/ "4.0.4" --deploymentName Staging --description "release 2"

9. Relaunch the app again

Expected results

Update #2 should download and install cleanly, applying the new content on the next restart — the same way update #1 did.

Actual results

Install fails with:

[CodePush] Cannot perform diff-update.
[CodePush] An error occurred during sync. Cannot perform diff-update.

Preceded by these filesystem errors, indicating the plugin is looking for local package state that was never persisted after update #1's "successful" install:

The file "unzipped" couldn't be opened because there is no such file.
The file "currentPackage.json" couldn't be opened because there is no such file.
The file "public" couldn't be opened because there is no such file.

This happens on every deployment's second release onward — the first release always installs fine, but the diff chain appears to break immediately after.

Workarounds tried (not viable long-term):

• Deleting and recreating the deployment resets the chain for exactly one more release, but this invalidates the deployment key — not usable on a live Production deployment, since it would disconnect real users from future updates.
• code-push release --help shows no flag to force a full (non-diff) package instead of a diff, so there's no client-side way to bypass this.
• Only one version (2.0.0) of cap-codepush exists for our Capacitor 5.x range — no patch version available to try.

Build id (optional)

No response

[dtrdic]

Hello there, we already have a thread in Pylon chat, but i'll post the response here anyway.

The issue seems to happen during the local package handling and this seems like a known bug regarding how the cap-codepush plugin interacts with the @capacitor/filesystem plugin under the hood during a differential update (which happens on the second release and onwards).

Since you are on Capacitor 5, if you are able to migrate the project to Capacitor 6 or newer, upgrading to cap-codepush@3 or higher (which includes newer bug fixes and updated @capacitor/filesystem handling) should resolve this specific diff-overwrite limitation. Or you could use a tool like patch-package to add a 'delete file if it exists' logic locally in your node_modules right before file merges execute.

[Rahul-codoffer]

We can fix it via these changes

Here's the patch-package documentation for reference. And some examples from the community guide.

But these are generally your steps to do;

Install the utility:

npm install patch-package --save-dev

Add a post-install trigger to your package.json: This will make sure that your fix is automatically injected whenever npm install runs

"scripts": {
  "postinstall": "patch-package"
}

Open node_modules/cap-codepush/dist/esm/web.js (or the equivalent compiled bundle file your framework is hitting inside the package directory). Find the location where the plugin interacts with the filesystem. Copy or Filesystem. Rename to move unzipped contents. Right before the copy operation, wrap it with a deletion block so existing files are wiped out instead of forcing an overwrite, so something like this;

try {
  // Explicitly delete the file if it exists so the filesystem plugin doesn't throw a crash
  await Filesystem.deleteFile({
    path: targetPath,
    directory: Directory.Data
  });
} catch (e) {
  // Safe to ignore if the file doesn't exist yet
}

// Existing copy logic proceeds cleanly now...
await Filesystem.copy({ ... });

Run the generation command in your terminal:

npx patch-package cap-codepush

This should create a /patches directory at your root containing a file like cap-codepush+2.0.0.patch. And don't forget to commit this /patches folder to your Git repository