Anyway to Stop Auto Update of Plexamp?

When I started Plexamp today I got the dreaded circle line icon. And a message saying I can’t run Plexamp 4.9.0.

I am running on an older MacOS 10.14.6. I found this older post in regards to this auto update. How To Prevent Plexamp to auto update on macOS - Forum Post

Is this still the best solution/way to handle this autoupdate? Or is there a better way? @elan did you ever narrow down what changed?

If it is not possible to allow the user to choose whether they want updates or not, can the devs include a version check and just provide a warning to the user and leave the current version in tact?

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I would also like to know how to stop an auto update. I can’t upgrade mac OS without loosing 32bit program support. Without that I can’t continue to use my 100% paid for Photoshop CS4.*
I love PlexAmp and will spend some effort keeping it on my old hardware. If I lock the application file, will it not get overwritten? I have the working app in TimeMachine and another copy saved if it does update.

*I’m very proud that once I could afford NOT pirating photoshop and still use it and Illustrator to this day. ButI have not used it well enough to afford a new laptop and keep current with OSes.

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Just a big +1 to this. On the website it still says that macOS 10.11 or newer is supported, so clearly something changed in the build process but they didn’t update that note. At a minimum, the app shouldn’t self-update to a version that is not supported on the platform, but better yet would be a way to have the user set a preference for auto-updates to be disabled.

The old tip doesn’t work for me, so I’m having to reinstall every day! Ugh.

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10.14 is the last macos to support 32-bit apps. Many of us will be on this os forever as our audio hardware only has 32-bit drivers. Please reconsider cutting off this os version!

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Unfortunately this is out of our control. The dependencies we use under the hood (namely Electron) no longer support older macOS versions. Continuing to use older Electron releases would expose people to potential security vulnerabilities.

We’re not alone here, Firefox, Chrome, and even Apple themselves no longer support macOS < 10.15.

What a lousy response. So, no instructions how to roll it back or stop auto updating? Of course I appreciate security fixes, but some of us can not update. So what is compromise for such customers?

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I am with you as I am in the same boat. I don’t even have the previous version of Plexamp saved, so I am out of luck I guess.

@Gudkarma @Ryuzaki_2
This will give you the 4.8 dmg fie. Hopefully this will work for you.

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Oh, here is the 4.8.4 dmg file. I don’t have a Mac so I hope this will work for you. I also have them saved in case these files disappear.

https://plexamp.plex.tv/plexamp.plex.tv/desktop/Plexamp-4.8.4.dmg

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Apologies if you feel my response was lousy, I was responding directly to the previous reply of “please reconsider” to make it clear that this is unfortunately not possible.

As for rolling back, the link below (as shared by @shondreas already) will get you the last release in the 4.8.x series:

https://plexamp.plex.tv/plexamp.plex.tv/desktop/Plexamp-4.8.4.dmg

I’m not a macOS or Windows user, so unfortunately I can’t help too much with regards to preventing auto-updates, but my best hunch is perhaps modifying the permissions on the executable to disallow overwriting the existing one. Alternatively, perhaps a firewall rule to block the update checking endpoint might also work. That endpoint for macOS is:

https://plexamp.plex.tv/plexamp.plex.tv/desktop/latest-mac.yml

and for Windows, it’s:

https://plexamp.plex.tv/plexamp.plex.tv/desktop/latest.yml

I will have to poke around inside the package and see if there is a line of text we can uncomment. There must be some sort of call home that can be disabled.

In the meantime I reinstalled it for a few days. It’s such a good app it’s worth it. Anyway. For those who can , I recommend a raspberry pi 3b+ and a piece of software called Roopiee XL.

This has been my solution for my computer for about 2 days now.

Roopiee XL

Basically Roopiee XL turns the pi into a streamer. And it auto updates so you just have to set it up once and forget it. You access Roopiee from a web browser to set it up and configure. And then once setup you can access plexamp from a web browser. And use plexamp through the browser on your computer. It looks and functions exactly the same as the native app.

I can help those who might want to try. Just PM me. Or I can write up a guide.

I too just got stung by this. I have a number of systems that are locked to 10.14, and Plexamp just killed itself on them. I’ll see if I blocking plexamp.plex.tv in my hosts file will stop it.

Important feature for automatic updates: prevent updating if the new version is incompatible with the current system! Sparkle, the near standard macOS open source library for doing automatic updates has a feature specifically for this. It’s of the utmost importance on macOS given how quickly Apple’s system updates breaks compatibility.

Another important feature for automatic updates is the ability to turn them off! Why is that setting missing in every single Plex client??

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Plex and Plexamp updating automatically is a very good thing. But it is an annoying reality for those of us who still run older machines for all of our various reasons. For Plex to do what it does on so many client devices is not easy. That being said. I would like to run the best music app on my most used machine.

I have several machines I use for work. Windows 11, 10, MacOS 10.14, Fedora 39. The machine I use the most is the MacOS 10.14 which is where I do most all of my work and alot of my music listening.

Anyway my solution to the auto update is a very simple one but does come with some popups from MacOS everytime. So to stop the program from auto updating.

Make a copy of Plexamp 4.8.4 or whichever one you are using now that works for you. And put that in a safe place as a backup.

Navigate into the Applications folder, Right click on Plexamp and select Get info
Screen Shot 2023-12-21 at 9.51.40 AM

Tick the box that says Locked to lock the app.

Screen Shot 2023-12-21 at 9.56.32 AM

And that is it. But be warned. That this is not going to be safe in the long run and most likely will not last. But for those who need this work around you can. And lets face it if you are going this far you already know the pitfalls and probably have other software you are doing the same thing with.

Just be aware the next time you open Plexamp after you tick the box to lock the app. You will get a warning from Operating System that looks something like this:
Screen Shot 2023-12-21 at 10.00.03 AM

Obviously click open and it will open. If it doesn’t open you will have to go into System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General > and somewhere at the bottom there should be prompt that says “allow” or “Open Anyway”.

After you click Open you may or may not see some popups. They may or may not ask you to connect to things. You can cancel those. A system notification that says Plexamp X.X.X has been downloaded and will automatically be applied on next start may or may not appear.

The crucial popup that you need to pay attention to is this one:
Screen Shot 2023-12-21 at 10.04.20 AM

Do not add the the helper. Simply cancel it and Plexamp will open up. I am not entirely sure what the helper does. I didn’t test what would happen if you added it. The only thing though to understand is that you have to do this everytime you open Plexamp from here on out. So maybe never close the app? And never turn off your machine? :slight_smile:

For those of us who still need an older OS. This is kind of a simple work around for the time being. The only other simple option is copy and pasting and overwriting the app everytime. No grief to the Devs for this. Thank you for your hard work… The reality is when running older operating systems this is the annoyance tax you end up paying. Suddenly singing in my head I can hear…Plexamp on my wayward son! O that reminds me, I need to go listen to that.

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Indeed, this is what I’ve just run across. Terribly irritating! For an AUDIO app! Sure, there is more to it…but I’m not using it for anything but audio. Now I’m wondering if I should just go back to iTunes, and feeling really dumb for paying for a lifetime license 2 months ago. Even Apple allows one to continue to use older software without forcing updates. After a fashion, they even stop nagging! Surely, this should be OUR choice—choice: a key word, and sadly being removed in many areas now—as to whether, or not, we update.

In my case, it’s even more egregious. I have several El Capitan, Sierra and Mojave Macs that run various bits of legacy software, including Plexamp. I have hundreds of Office/iWork '09/Omnigraffle documents, and a stable and reliable DVR workflow that cannot be upgraded AT ALL lest I lose access to TBs of data. These Macs have spare parts, they work great, and even supported (non-auto-updating) browsers.

Blatantly ignoring a portion of your paid-up, power-user base by not even offering a choice seems rather arrogant.

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Apologies for the frustration, I understand where you’re coming from. For future updates that drop support for older platforms we’ll make sure to handle this better.

Unfortunately in this case, dropping support for older macOS releases was outside of our control. Plexamp for desktop is built on top of Electron (Chromium), and Electron dropped support for macOS < 10.15 and Windows < 10.

Not upgrading Electron is not an option due to the security implications of leaving our customers on unsupported and unpatched software.

To be clear here also, we’re talking about very old operating systems that are unsupported by both the OS vendors (Apple, Microsoft), and most third party apps also (see e.g. Firefox, Chrome etc).

Again, I’m genuinely very sorry for the inconvenience. If it’s any help, as a work around you can likely block the updater using methods described above in this thread, and continue using Plexamp 4.8.x. Please feel free to ping me here if you have any difficulty with this.

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Upgrading Plex/amp, or not, should have little or no impact on the end user if a workflow is already in place. We should get to choose to use a tool or not and accept any limitations as we see fit to operate as we need. I’m not stupid. I know nothing can last forever, but forcing Plexamp to kill itself… I’m just… This is just another thing I didn’t need right now. More agency removed.

I reject the attitude that software developers have now that states that in no way does the user matter, anymore. Users MUST blindly follow because software is no longer a tool for the end-user, but a tool for a company to profit. “Subscribe to our cloud-activated SW and don’t ever, ever cancel! Don’t like our features? Convert your entire workflow/document library/platform, and hit the road, sucka!”

Once in, it is very difficult to leave. I don’t want to redo my entire library…again. I’m not even completely done fixing, and adjusting it from the iTunes move. Electron, being an entirely different kettle of fish for another discussion, can be updated or not, but once in place should work as expected until I decide to change it. My scenario is fully LAN-based, behind a firewall, not open to any outside ports. There is no threat in my workflow…on purpose!

Clearly, you have also carved out a recommendation that states I can continue to limp along using the handy guide spelled out by Ryuzaki_2 (thank you,) but not provide this option built-in, to, again, let ME choose. I’m NOT going to spend $7K+ buying all new hardware just to run Plex. I bought Plex BECAUSE it allowed me to run my old hardware. Whoops! Big mistake on my part. Web apps. Jeez, does no one write native software anymore?

Thanks for the note. I’m pleased that someone is paying attention, but this ball was dropped, and it hurts. I hesitate to mention the other ball dropped by Plex recently (privacy, anyone…?) And yes, I was affected by this, too. Three strikes?

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Thank you for posting the link to the previous version. its working now. I am glad there was some information. I tried posting on reddit without complaining and it got downvoted to heck. While I understand “apple doesn’t support older os” some people don’t have a choice to upgrade every computer. It would have been nicer to get a message in the update letting us know the next version is incompatible. As someone else said, more user agency would be nice.

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Thank you for the direct link!

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