Seems like you're masking a deeper level issue in the update library. Correct this would presumably hide a possible update if a download URL can't be found, but why is Joomla thinking there's an update if there isn't a full update record?

FWIW, you can get this scenario right now because George added a line for 3.5 to http://update.joomla.org/core/test/list_test.xml for some other testing but the extension XML doesn't have a corresponding compatible record.

ok, i see, so this is not the best approach for this.

There is something in JUpdater that is returning the $this->updateInfo['object'] even without anything... but since it's not NULL joomla thinks there is an update.

this is what i get in the error scenario above in a <?php var_dump($this->updateInfo['object']); ?>

object(JUpdate)#217 (22) {
  ["name":protected]=>  NULL
  ["description":protected]=>  NULL
  ["element":protected]=>  NULL
  ["type":protected]=>  NULL
  ["version":protected]=>  NULL
  ["infourl":protected]=>  NULL
  ["client":protected]=>  NULL
  ["group":protected]=>  NULL
  ["downloads":protected]=>  NULL
  ["tags":protected]=>  NULL
  ["maintainer":protected]=>  NULL
  ["maintainerurl":protected]=>  NULL
  ["category":protected]=>  NULL
  ["relationships":protected]=>  NULL
  ["targetplatform":protected]=>  NULL
  ["extra_query":protected]=>  NULL
  ["xmlParser":protected]=>  resource(148) of type (Unknown)
  ["stack":protected]=>  array(1) {    [0]=>    string(4) "base"  }
  ["stateStore":protected]=>  array(0) {  }
  ["latest":protected]=>  NULL
  ["minimum_stability":protected]=>  int(4)
  ["_errors":protected]=>  array(0) {  }
}

Updated: the old code was from another dump