Preferences to disable automatic update checks.

[pixelworker]

From Affinity:

If you’ve purchased from the Affinity Store — each time you start the Affinity Store software it will check for updates and offer any available update. The latest update will install over the top of any earlier version, with no need to uninstall. You can download the latest installer by logging into the affinity store here and find the order in your account and use the "Download" button in there. Alternatively, this new release (and previous versions of Affinity Publisher for Windows) can be downloaded from this link. (those installers are NOT for Windows Store purchases).

It says there is a automatic check at startup. Is there a way to disable it?

Please add a way to do so if there isn't. I prefer no automatic established connections from a program. I prefere to pull for updates manually.

 

[loukash]

Preferences > Software Update > Check for updates: Never

[walt.farrell]

16 minutes ago, loukash said:

Preferences > Software Update > Check for updates: Never

Only available as a Preference on Mac, I believe.

There's a Registry zap that will do it on Windows, at least for V1. Don't know about V2.

[loukash]

I see, thanks

[Russell Camo]

For Windows you can do this workaround:

1. Close Affinity Programs
2. Block Affinity(Designer/Photo/Publisher) using windows firewall
3. Rename the update.json file to update.json.bak:
    -For Affinity Publisher: C:\ProgramData\Affinity\Publisher\2.0\update.json
    -For Affinity Designer: C:\ProgramData\Affinity\Designer\2.0\update.json
    -For Affinity Photo: C:\ProgramData\Affinity\Photo\2.0\update.json
4. Create a new empty update.json file in the same path
5. Done

*IMPORTANT* You need admin priviledges to do this *IMPORTANT

Edited January 22, 2023 by Russell Camo
update quotes and make the post clearer

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Russell Camo said:

Block Affinity(Designer/Photo/Publisher) using windows firewall

If you completely block V2 it won't run at all. It must at least be able to use local networking to connect to other apps on the same machine.

[- S -]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Quote

"Block Affinity(Designer/Photo/Publisher) using windows firewall"

If you completely block V2 it won't run at all. It must at least be able to use local networking to connect to other apps on the same machine.

Windows Firewall doesn't block loopback (localh‍‍ost) communication, therefore the Affinity applications will still work, even if blocked by Windows Firewall.  Other third-party firewalls however can cause issues if they block loopback (or the user blocks loopback).

Therefore, people can block Affinity applications with Windows Firewall, however there will be a few caveats:

1) Affinity programs require outbound internet access the first time they're run after installation – as users need to enter their Affinity ID and password to perform a one-time licence check with Affinity servers and activate the licence.

2) Other functionality that requires outbound connections – such as the Affinity Stock panel – obviously won't work if outbound connections are blocked.

3) If using the MSIX installer (rather than the upcoming MSI/EXE installer), the Affinity application paths have the version number in the path.  This means the firewall rule will only be relevant for that exact version (I.E. 2.0.3.1688), as Windows Firewall doesn't allow wildcards in paths.  Windows Firewall does allow creating rules using an App Package name – instead of a direct file path – which gets around this issue and is how firewall rules are created for Microsoft's own Store apps, however this method doesn't work with Affinity applications (see my previous post HERE).

I'm not entirely sure why there isn't an option to disable automatic update checking from the UI, particularly as MacOS has the option.  Some people don't like applications having internet access unless strictly necessary, however there is another practical reason why some people may want to disable automatic update checking in professional software – consistency.  When doing a large project (for example scanning and restoring a batch of a few thousand photos), a lot of testing and checking will be carried out before starting the run because it's a long, tedious, time consuming task and having to go back and correct any problems is no fun and extremely costly in terms of time.  It essentially becomes a production line and the last thing needed is for any of the programs to update midway through the project and introduce any bugs, inconsistencies or unexpected behaviour.  Some projects may last weeks or months, so it would be useful to be able to turn off automatic update checking in these circumstances.
 

[Russell Camo]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

If you completely block V2 it won't run at all. It must at least be able to use local networking to connect to other apps on the same machine.

Don't know why it worked, but seems like this workaround would only work because its a bug if that's the case.

4 minutes ago, - S - said:

Windows Firewall doesn't block loopback (localh‍‍ost) communication, therefore the Affinity applications will still work, even if blocked by Windows Firewall.  Other third-party firewalls however can cause issues if they block loopback (or the user blocks loopback).

Therefore, people can block Affinity applications with Windows Firewall, however there will be a few caveats:

1) Affinity programs require outbound internet access the first time they're run after installation – as users need to enter their Affinity ID and password to perform a one-time licence check with Affinity servers and activate the licence.

2) Other functionality that requires outbound connections – such as the Affinity Stock panel – obviously won't work if outbound connections are blocked.

3) If using the MSIX installer (rather than the upcoming MSI/EXE installer), the Affinity application paths have the version number in the path.  This means the firewall rule will only be relevant for that exact version (I.E. 2.0.3.1688), as Windows Firewall doesn't allow wildcards in paths.  Windows Firewall does allow creating rules using an App Package name – instead of a direct file path – which gets around this issue and is how firewall rules are created for Microsoft's own Store apps, however this method doesn't work with Affinity applications (see my previous post HERE).

I'm not entirely sure why there isn't an option to disable automatic update checking from the UI, particularly as MacOS has the option.  Some people don't like applications having internet access unless strictly necessary, however there is another practical reason why some people may want to disable automatic update checking in professional software – consistency.  When doing a large project (for example scanning and restoring a batch of a few thousand photos), a lot of testing and checking will be carried out before starting the run because it's a long, tedious, time consuming task and having to go back and correct any problems is no fun and extremely costly in terms of time.  It essentially becomes a production line and the last thing needed is for any of the programs to update midway through and introduce any bugs, inconsistencies or unexpected behaviour.  Some projects may last weeks or months, so it would be useful to be able to turn off automatic update checking in these circumstances.
 

Thanks for pointing it out, yes a lot of the features that require internet connections would not work (Eg; the Stock panel, for one) which is a bummer. I would assume that users who want to opt to this workaround(with concerns about document compatibility/performance/or anything around that) would not be using it much in that environment. But if they do then I believe it'll be best to just update when its available

[- S -]

21 minutes ago, Russell Camo said:

Don't know why it worked, but seems like this workaround would only work because its a bug if that's the case.

Walt was referring to the below post, where the poster was using a third-party firewall (ZoneAlarm firewall), which is blocking loopback.

 

[pixelworker]

On 1/21/2023 at 1:46 AM, walt.farrell said:

Only available as a Preference on Mac, I believe.

There's a Registry zap that will do it on Windows, at least for V1. Don't know about V2.

Do you know by chance why it's not existent in Windows?

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, pixelworker said:

Do you know by chance why it's not existent in Windows?

No. Someone from Serif would have to answer that.

[v_kyr]

On a Mac for APub V1 I can see via the MacOS defaults system ...

...
SUAutomaticallyUpdate = 0;
SUEnableAutomaticChecks = 1;
SUFeedURL = "http://go.seriflabs.com/affinity-update-mac-retail-publisher";
SUHasLaunchedBefore = 1;
SULastCheckTime = "2023-02-04 19:49:00 +0000";
SUScheduledCheckInterval = 86400;
SUUpdateRelaunchingMarker = 0;
...

... here the "SUAutomaticallyUpdate = 0" (disabled) setting had been altered by me some time ago, in order to not allow auto update and overwrite the actual APub installment. Since I thinned that installed APub size wise to contain just the x64 architecture binaries & libs, which saves me >= 1 GB of disk space. - So APub is allowed to check for updates, but not to auto update/install these.

NOTE that the intern used and here shown URL, strangely doesn't use a secure HTTP protocol connection!

[Dan C]

10 hours ago, pixelworker said:

Do you know by chance why it's not existent in Windows?

This option was present in Affinity V1 on macOS only.
As for Affinity V1 on Windows the app did not support incremental updates from within the application and therefore this preference setting wasn't offered.

This option was removed from macOS for Affinity V2, meaning Windows and macOS are now in parity. Our team always recommend running the latest version of the app, therefore you will always be notified when launching the app if an update is available.

I hope this clears things up!

[TeresaPelka]

Affinity For Windows, e.g. C:\ProgramData\Affinity\Designer\2.0

Notepad++

filename update.json: empty, 0 kb;

filename update-packaged.json: {url:"0"};

filename update-packaged-x64.json: deleted.

The update prompt does not appear.

If you want updates back, delete the 0 url packaged; with the empty json alone, the program is going to create a new packaged json and offer an update.

[fde101]

On 3/27/2023 at 5:11 AM, Dan C said:

This option was present in Affinity V1 on macOS only.

Even more specifically, this was only ever present in the non-App-Store version of the Affinity apps.  If you bought them from the App Store, updates are controlled by the App Store, not by the Affinity apps directly, so this does not apply in that case.