now-sdk install fails silently on second deploy — requires --reinstall every time

[onlyflowstech]

Hey team — I'm running into an issue where now-sdk install only works on the first deploy (fresh install).
Any subsequent deploy (e.g., after adding a column to a table) fails silently with:

"Could not determine app installation status. Check instance to verify installation."

The app is not updated on the instance. Using --reinstall works every time, but that's destructive since it
uninstalls the app first.

Repro

1. Create a fluent project with a simple table
2. now-sdk build && now-sdk install --auth <alias> — works (fresh install)
3. Add a new column to the .now.ts file
4. now-sdk build && now-sdk install --auth <alias> — fails
5. now-sdk build && now-sdk install --auth <alias> --reinstall — works (but uninstalls first)

Tested On

• PDI: dev322036.service-now.com (Zurich)
• Non-PDI: fourdragonsllcdemo1.service-now.com (Zurich patch5)
• SDK version: 4.3.0

Same behavior on both instances, so it doesn't seem instance-specific.

What I've Found

Looking at the source, it seems like on upgrade (vs fresh install), sn_appclient_upload_processor.do returns
a non-JSON response. In uploadScopedAppPackage, the JSON check on the response falls through, and there's a
commented-out error throw on line ~173:

// TODO: Re-enable error throwing for non-401 failures once backward compatibility is ensured
//throw new Error(`Failed to install the app: ${response.statusText}`)

So the method returns undefined, and the caller polls sys_upgrade_history for 30 seconds, finds nothing, and
throws the vague error.

Questions

1. Is this a known limitation in 4.3.0?
2. Is there a way to do incremental deploys without --reinstall?
3. I noticed installConfigurations() works for uploading XML directly and bypasses this path — is that a
   supported alternative for iterative development?

Thanks!

[sonisoft-cnanda]

Did you also do a now-sdk pack?

With sdk 3.0 they changed the build process to break up the transpiling and the zip packing. Build does the xml creation and pack creates the zip to install.

[sonisoft-cnanda]

So I wanted to recheck to make sure before I actually responded, but I just confirmed, I was able to install and then do a regular install/upgrade after making an update with no issues on 4.3.0 on Yoko and Zurich.

Might be a configuration issue? Want to connect tomorrow to take a look?

[sonisoft-cnanda]

Tried a couple of things that I thought might get it to fail, but I couldn't get it to do what you were mentioning. But I went back and forth a number of times making updates to the app, building, and deploying and it worked no issues.

I did find a couple versions ago that we had some weird failures and I had to add some stuff to our now.config.json though.

[sonisoft-cnanda]

Also just tried creating a brand new app, using servicenow/sdk init, with a new typescript + react app, and same thing, was able to build and push, and then build and push again not needing --reinstall at all.

[bryce-godfrey]

See any other errors in your system logs that correlate to the install request?

[onlyflowstech]

Sorry guys, it's been a busy day and I haven't had time to look into this all day, just now figured it out. It was a typo in my config file, like always.