diff --git a/atom/browser/auto_updater_mac.mm b/atom/browser/auto_updater_mac.mm
index ace46a636f07..f0a18b56f6f9 100644
--- a/atom/browser/auto_updater_mac.mm
+++ b/atom/browser/auto_updater_mac.mm
@@ -36,15 +36,21 @@ void RelaunchToInstallUpdate() {
 // static
 void AutoUpdater::SetFeedURL(const std::string& feed) {
   if (g_updater == nil) {
-    // Initialize the SQRLUpdater.
-    NSURL* url = [NSURL URLWithString:base::SysUTF8ToNSString(feed)];
-    NSURLRequest* urlRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
-    g_updater = [[SQRLUpdater alloc] initWithUpdateRequest:urlRequest];
-
     AutoUpdaterDelegate* delegate = GetDelegate();
     if (!delegate)
       return;
 
+    // Initialize the SQRLUpdater.
+    NSURL* url = [NSURL URLWithString:base::SysUTF8ToNSString(feed)];
+    NSURLRequest* urlRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
+
+    @try {
+      g_updater = [[SQRLUpdater alloc] initWithUpdateRequest:urlRequest];
+    } @catch (NSException* error) {
+      delegate->OnError(base::SysNSStringToUTF8(error.reason));
+      return;
+    }
+
     [[g_updater rac_valuesForKeyPath:@"state" observer:g_updater]
       subscribeNext:^(NSNumber *stateNumber) {
         int state = [stateNumber integerValue];
diff --git a/script/update-external-binaries.py b/script/update-external-binaries.py
index fa5fe71111e8..4218bb36aa27 100755
--- a/script/update-external-binaries.py
+++ b/script/update-external-binaries.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ import os
 from lib.util import safe_mkdir, rm_rf, extract_zip, tempdir, download
 
 
-VERSION = 'v0.3.0'
+VERSION = 'v0.4.0'
 SOURCE_ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__)))
 FRAMEWORKS_URL = 'http://github.com/atom/atom-shell-frameworks/releases' \
                  '/download/' + VERSION