Sublime Forum

License upgrade required

#1

II just updated sublime and I instantly regret it because now it says LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED at the top of the window and I can’t find any further information about what this means.

I have a license already. I paid for it and have been using sublime for years now. What does this mean? Does my license expire? I checked the original communication when I bought the license and it says nothing about expiring.

Why has this happened?

1 Like

#2

Your license has not expired. It just means that the 3 years worth of updates on your current license is over and you need to purchase an upgrade.

When ST4 was released, the licensing terms changed to match what was being done for Sublime Merge i.e. license will come with 3 years worth of updates from the time of purchasing. After 3 years, you can either upgrade the license (& use ST versions released after that date) or continue to use the previous ST versions. You technically can use ST versions released after the date with your old license, but all of them will say LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED. To remove that text from the title bar, you need to upgrade the license.

Note that LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED doesn’t mean your license is invalidated/rendered useless.

2 Likes

#3

There was no mention of my license expiring when I bought it. I was aware it was only for the current version though, so that’s fine.

What’s really confusing and annoying is that this message just appears after an upgrde with no way to interact with it to get more information. I had to come and create an account here, and now I can see many others with the same problem.

It’s annoying, and to be honest has put me off sublime text. I know people deserve to be paid for their work and am happy to pay for good software but this feels like a cheap trick to me.

Visual studio is looking pretty good right now

1 Like

#4

Yes. Unfortunately this was not foreseen by the developers. ST4 was in a year long beta before being public and it was basically something no one thought off. However, it has already been rectified with an updated Update dialog which now tells whether the next version you are upgrading to requires a license upgrade.

0 Likes

#5

No one tricked you. This was announced a year ago.

Your old Sublime Text license is valid for the old version. And will be forever.

Visual Studio requires a valid license to be used and it is greatly more expensive.

0 Likes

#6

No one tricked you. This was announced a year ago.

Sure feels like it though, which was what I originally said. I just clicked the update button and then discovered there was a license issue. As for it being announced then maybe it’s my fault but I certainly can’t find any emails about it, and requiring me to go and find information outside of the software is weird.

Visual studio is free for me via my employer and I’m currently using it because this whole situation feels wrong to me and it’s high time I tried some new software anyway.

Keep up the smug replies in defense of legitimate customer issues though, it’s a really good look.

I’ve muted this thread so if you reply you’ll be screaming into the void. Have fun.

0 Likes

#7

Technically, it’s not free. Your employer is paying for the license. The company could the same with a new Sublime Text license if you ask for it.

Not a smug defense. ST has announced a new version and updated the license agreements openly. If you don’t like it, you can go always back to the old version of ST and use your old license.

Have fun complaining about non-issues.

0 Likes

#8

Thanks for your reply. Seems like a bit of a mistake by the devs. Oh well life goes on…

2 Likes

#9

I have to say, I find this petty and irritating. When I bought a “forever” license, I assumed that meant that I would keep getting bug fixes for as long as SublimeText was an active project. At very least, it’s annoying that it says " LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED". I suppose it isn’t that big of a deal, but the word “REQUIRED” grates on me. It feels disrespectful. It’s basically an ad even if not by the letter of law.

I am quite happy with SublimeText3, and if in the future it breaks due to lack of maintenance, I will be quite annoyed…

0 Likes

#10

Do you mean ST “3” shows “LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED” with your license? Most likely you are using ST 4 I guess. ST 3 will update to ST 4 without a warning. If you are a licensed user, you can add "update_check": false, to your preference to stop updating.

0 Likes

#11

Ok that must be what happened. I added "update_check": false but the warning still shows, I guess I need to re-download SublimeText3 and add that preference immediately. I still find this irritating. SublimeText3 is a separate package, so I assumed that its purpose was to keep me on SublimeText3, not to immediately “upgrade” me to a trial product that I specifically opted not to install.

0 Likes