Sublime Forum

After recent update I see LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED

#13

I think we just need to be patient. There’s no way that ST will weather this backlash. Unless they are suicidal, they will take everyone’s feedback onboard, revert/fix everything, maybe offer a token upgrade cost like $10 for ST4, and everyone will be happy again. Keeping my pitchfork nearby just in case though… :wink:

3 Likes
#14

Well, it is okay to have a slightly better upgrade price for existing customers that helped the team to exist in the first place…

Also: Add the changelog before you update like every other app in the universe!

3 Likes
#15

How about this one from 2014:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140122064430/http://www.sublimetext.com/sales_faq

Licenses purchased for Sublime Text 3 do not expire, however an upgrade fee will be required for Sublime Text 4.

Or perhaps this one from back in 2008: https://web.archive.org/web/20080410175344/http://www.sublimetext.com/buy

One year of free upgrades and a 30 day, money back guarantee accompanies each purchase.

Are you saying there was a point in between “pay every year” and “pay for a whole major version” that went “just buy it once, and never have to pay again”?

2 Likes
#16

Or you can simply keep using version 3 or switch to another editor if you don’t want to pay developers for their work.

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#17

Cool take, bro! I specifically bought a license in order to pay developers for their work. I’ve only ever met one other person irl who actually had a paid license, despite knowing dozens who use or, at this point, more commonly used it past tense. ST seemed dead for many, many, many years before coming back to life recently, which I appreciate. I clicked on a button to update this morning and now I have 4.0 and a paywall. How do I “keep using version 3” - this is in fact precisely what I’d like to do?

2 Likes
#18

Uninstall Sublime Text 4, reinstall Sublime Text 3 from one of the downloads at https://www.sublimetext.com/3, then add "update_check": false to your preferences to turn off the update check.

4 Likes
ST3 Update now is ST4
#19

Oh for real? I was worried that I’d lose all my plugins, settings, open files - etc. that will all be preserved? :sweat_smile:

1 Like
#20

ST4 uses the same configuration data as ST3 does if it’s present, so that the upgrade is seamless. So, everything should still be in place and ST3 will pick up where it left off.

There are a couple of packages that have ST4 specific versions; if you happen to be using one of them then Package Control will display a message about it and swap the package for the correct version.

Lastly, you may notice that when you open projects the window doesn’t display properly if you had any tabs open. This is because the session information that Sublime stores changed slightly in ST4 to support multiple tab selection. So if the window appears garbled, manually select a tab in the window to get things back.

1 Like
#21

I like to pay other developers. The issue is not that ST4 costs something, it is that you were forced to update to ST4 without even knowing beforehand. Surely you can redownload ST3.

But it would be great if there are some open communication by the developers. It is even unsure right now if this is a bug or intended.

9 Likes
#22

Joined forum express to express my dissatisfaction with this. I am totally okay with the new pricing model for Sublime 4. I am okay with the price point and the fact that my current 3 license doesn’t upgrade it. I am entirely not okay with the fact that my current copy of 3 showed exactly the same upgrade alert it has shown for every other upgrade in the history of the software then performed an in-place upgrade to a version I do not have a license for.

I downloaded and installed ST4 individually and was pleased to see that it installed side-by-side with my ST3 installation. When ST3 then prompted for an upgraded, I expected it to be a minor release, presumably to facilitate some upgrade path to 4 - maybe even with no functionality, but a new upgrade mechanism to upsell to 4. I would be have been fine with that as well. ST3 upgrading in-place to 4 with no warning, and no notification I find entirely unacceptable.

I was about to purchase a personal license for 4, as well as new licenses for my team members who use ST. I will not be, and will be directing them to cancel the upgrade and stay on 3, until this is addressed in some way. It is likely already too late to do the right thing for people who did upgrade to 4 but I expect some sort of communication and apology. This was not the correct way to handle the new version.

11 Likes
#23

here’s the scammy part
3.2.2 (Build 3211) 1 October 2019

subl put off upgrades and merge all updates from 1oct2019 UNTIL a few days ago to release an ad to ST4. it is a dis-service to ST3 users, like a middle finger to ST3 license owner. at least this is what i feel, I believe we’re all here because we did pay for ST3.

9 Likes
#24

And what about this?

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#25

What about it?

You do realize that Sublime Text 3 was around for years in beta before it was officially released, allowing people that had ST2 licenses to use it for a long period before it was actually out and having to upgrade their license, right?

And that ST4 has been available to anyone that had a license since November of 2019 to use as much as they wish before the official release required people with older licenses to upgrade if they wanted to keep using it?

If the developers wanted to run a scam they would have deleted all of the downloads for ST3 from the server so that everyone that didn’t already have an backup would be forced to keep using it.

In fact that’s not the case and you could even roll all the way back toSublime Text 1 if it suits your fancy would seem to indicate the contrary.

The less time people spend complaining about the “shady” business practices of a company that sells software the more time they will have to roll back or move on to some other tool that’s slower but fits their ideals better.

1 Like
#26

I’m not really upset about the need to purchase a license. I’ve used ST since ST2 and pretty sure I remember having to purchase ST3. Here’s what I don’t like. ST3 doesn’t tell you it’s upgrading to ST4. Seems a bit back-channel to me… So now I have to go back, uninstall and re-install. That’s an annoyance.

Additionally, I checked and there is an upgrade option which is cool, it knocks $10 off the upgrade to ST4. But it looks like the upgrade price is a limited time only so I have to choose quickly. FWIW, if I had to choose now, I’d say “no”. IMO $80 is just too much for a text editor… But that’s just me. It looks like you can bundle ST and SM in the upgrade, but as of me writing this it actually costs $2 more to do that…

5 Likes
#27

Telling the user there’s an upgrade available, and then going from v3 to v4 and demanding $80, is beyond shady. This is after buying multiple ST3 licenses across multiple jobs and evangelizing the product. I actually signed up for a forum account just to post this! I never do this.

So then I tried to short-term downgrade to ST3 but it’s not working out - things aren’t rendering correctly and I refuse to spend any more effort on this dead end. It’s time to suck it up and switch to VSCode, which is a big bummer, but this is just an abysmal product experience and I guess all good things come to an end.

7 Likes
#28

Hi all, just sharing what I posted on the other thread:

Thanks for sharing this feedback - we hear your concerns and appreciate the feedback!

We are very excited to share the major improvements in Sublime Text 4, but in our excitement we didn’t anticipate the update path to interfere.

There’s six of us here at Sublime HQ (including me), so we fully appreciate the support and feedback of our community. We will be looking to improve the upgrade path for the future, but we’d also like to ensure you enjoy Sublime Text 4 straight away.

If you found that the upgrade path for the first version of Sublime Text 4 was not ideal, just continue to use this version - we want you to try it! There are no nag screens, just an initial reminder about the license.

For those that do want to install a previous version, you can do so with the below instructions:

  1. Download and install a previous version
  2. (Optional): disable update checks by navigating to Preferences ▶ Settings and adding "update_check": false

Thanks again for supporting us, and we’ll be working to improve the upgrade process in future versions to supply clear information about the upgrade.

Cheers,
- Dylan

5 Likes
#29

This was very poorly done. There needed to be some indication that the upgrade we were prompted for would require the purchase of a new license. I don’t actively follow ST development so this is quite a surprise. I’m definitely not excited about purchasing additional licenses with the way this was introduced.

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#30

Thanks for sharing this feedback - we definitely hear you and we are sorry that the upgrade process was not up to scratch. We are working to provide more information in the update dialog for future builds.

For now, feel free to continue to use the initial Sublime Text 4 build - there are no nag screens and only an initial reminder about the license which can be dismissed if you’re not ready to upgrade.

As we’re a team of six people (including me), we want you to continue enjoying Sublime Text and will do what we can to improve the experience for future builds.

Thanks for your patience, understanding, and feedback!

- Dylan

1 Like
#31

I appreciate the responsiveness. Thanks.

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#32

So you’re justifying the following scenario: I buy the license for ST3, use it for years, don’t care about upgrades along the way but accept them to stop nagging (update_check option is not documented), then one day I’m forced to uninstall ST4 that I didn’t ask for, didn’t agree to, was not warned about in the update dialog, reinstall ST3, and deal with eventual fallout problems.
You’re saying this is a normal thing to happen with software that you bought?
I agree, we should save time, but I would like to save it on fiddling with the tool I’m using to do actual work because it suddenly decides to pull the rug under my feet.

5 Likes