Forced Stacks Upgrade? :(

Why am I being forced into upgrading to Stacks 4? I am not able to get rid of the banner in the top right corner. I have been given instructions on how to go back to Stacks 3, which I did, but still have the ANNOYING Banner and I refuse to be forced into buying something I may or may not need or want.

I hardly use this software and have yet to to get a site finished using RapidWeaver???
Any help appreciated.

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Paul, you used a lot of words to get to the point.

If you had installed the Stacks 4 beta, it’s probably now prompting you to upgrade. Just reinstall v3.6.2 from YourHead’s website.

@Pappak i’m sorry you’re having trouble with the banner Eldon. but really, i’m not trying to force you to do anything. the banner is not there to encourage you to upgrade. you absolutely don’t have to. upgrade only when you feel it’s valuable to you. i always take it upon myself to make sure that the upgrade is well-worth the price – but if you don’t need the features please don’t upgrade.

Blue banners

the blue banners in the corners have appeared in every versions of stacks – and similar banners appear in almost every app and plugin i’ve written for the past 20 years. they are not there to encourage you to upgrade – their purpose is to request that you enter your serial number(s).

if you own a license (and it certainly sounds like you do) then all you have to do is copy and paste it in – then the blue banner will leave forever. it works the same in every version.

if you’re having difficulty with the serial numbers, then make sure that you copy and paste in just the serial number – no more and no less. the serial number box is designed to be very user-friendly – it tries very hard to eliminate junk characters, and be as forgiving and smart as possible allowing you to enter upgrade serial numbers into any field, etc.

Serial Numbers

strangely, this software stuff wasn’t my specialty at the university. i studied and then designed encoders and detectors – so i put that theory to good use here and designed the serial number codes to be especially user-friendly. it eliminates most characters that might accidentally be misread or mistyped like 1’s and l’s, 0’s and O’s, and about a dozen others. it’s case insensitive and very redundant. so even if you have to type it by hand, it’s not too tough.

If you can’t find your serial number we try to make it as painless and automatic as possible to find it. If you open any page of our site at the very bottom you’ll find a Serial Number link. Click it, enter your email address, and your serial number is automatically sent to you in just a few seconds.

If you no longer have access to the serial number send an email to our support line Christi is pretty good at hunting down info to find serial numbers if you give us a little info about yourself.

Also at the bottom of the page is the YourHead Archive – where we archive nearly every version of our software going back about a decade. Download whatever you need. If you like Stacks 3 – grab v3.6, it’s very stable and works great with RapidWeaver 7 and 8.

Serial Number Window

here’s what the registration banner and the serial number window look like for Stacks 3. Note that these bits don’t mention Stacks 4 or upgrading at all. The “Buy” buttons go to our store of course – and they do sell the current version of course – but if you already own Stacks 3, there’s no need to buy anything. Just enter the code(s) you already have and you’re good to go.

If you are already registered for an earlier version of Stacks then the box will automatically switch into the “upgrade” version. It will show your current serial number and give you prompts to help guide you to enter enter a Stacks upgrade serial number. It’ll look like this (see next image) – but I want to be crystal clear here… this window is for helping you upgrade from Stacks 2 to Stacks 3 – Note that it is requesting your Stacks 3 upgrade serial number – and there is no mention of Stacks 4.


These boxes have been only slightly modified to make them clearer and update with macOS for many years. I used a variant of this same box for Blocks 2 in… 2007(? i think ?) so this has been around and registering tens of thousands of people for about 12 years.

Stacks 4 Upgrade Info

If you’re running Stacks 3 we do show a “Hey, Stacks 4 Just Came Out” kind of window. I admit it. It’s an ad. In my defence, it has a pretty key bit of info: Stacks 4 came out, it’s not very pushy, And most importantly it has a checkbox at the bottom. Uncheck it and Stacks will never show you the window again.

If there’s any way to help you get this working, just let us know. I know that Christi has already been working with you for a while now. Just let me know what I can do to help.

Isaiah

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Awesome reply Isaiah! An example for other business people to follow regardless the business they are in. I like to think I could be so gracious… Thank you Isaiah for your lesson in turning the volume down.

Finding it necessary to be nasty and name-call an obviously frustrated person is petty and immature.

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Isaiah, Thank you so much for the long and detailed explanation.

My apologies for being so abrupt but yes, I was very frustrated at the time. sometimes you have to speak up to get someone to notice and this time I get to the source so thank you again.

My problem is that when I get the box with the serial number in it, it says I have a valid v3 serial number and to enter the v4 number which I can’t do and it then stops me from doing anything because it keeps popping up. I have deleted all stacks that I can find and this still keeps happening.

I have lots of graphic design experience but have yet to to accomplish anything of value with Rapidweaver and stacks and I only have my wife’s site to build which is a very simple operation.

However, I do have a strong need to learn stuff and keep trying as I have seen what others can do, so I know it can be done.

I also have no problem purchasing stacks 4, but all I want to do is get something accomplished first, then I can see the true value of the software. I don’t get to do this very often so its a little harder when your not doing it all day but I will keep trying once this issue is resolved. As a retired business person I have no problem with you advertising your product that’s necessary I just don’t understand what it’s doing right now.

Thanks again for the great reply, more than I can say for some others on here who seem to be desensitized to others frustrations and offer nothing in return.

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What version of Stacks do you have installed? If you go to RW Preferences --> Addons, you can check the version.

I think you have some version of Stacks v4 installed (beta or final) and that’s why it’s prompting you to buy an upgrade. Just download the latest version of Stacks v3 and install that. You will probably need to delete the newer V4 version before Stacks 3 will install. In that same preferences area, click on the Reveal in Finder in the add-on directory area and delete the “Stacks.rapidweaverplugin” file. You should then be able to install v3.

You can get the latest Stacks v3 (3.6.8) from here: http://info.yourhead.com/stacks/

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I just used the email from Yourhead software to get and reinstall Stacks 3.6.8_4239.

After unziping into the downloads folder I find have stacks 2 through 6 now. Seems every time I unpack it it makes a new version??? Now what? Where should I put them?

When you unzip a file with the same name as another file in the same folder, MacOS will add a sequence number to the file or folder name.

From what you said you are unzipping the files in the download folder.

  1. So I would move all the “stacks” files and Stacks zip files from the downloads folder.
  2. I would download a new stacks 3.x version from YourHead again
  3. Unzip the file again you got from YourHead.
  4. Now you should only have one Stacks f version of Stacks.rapidweaverplugin file unzipped in the downloads folder.

Now to install the Stacks version 3.

  • Either right-click the file in downloads and select “Open With” then choose Rapidweaver 8 (or 7 if that’s what you are using).
  • Or drag and drop the file Stacks.rapidweaverplugin on to the Doc with RapidWeaver Running.
  • Re-enter your stacks 3 serial number

You should be good to go.

I have deleted all the stacks and left one called stacks and installed it and loaded Rapidweaver and it works ok now.

Thanks to almost everyone for their help :slight_smile:

  • Eldon
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@pappak - glad that it all worked out in the end.

do you mind me verifying, just so we all know what the final solution was?

the solution in the end was to delete Stacks 4 and install Stacks 3?
and this is because you have not purchased Stacks 4?

thanks,
isaiah

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Pretty much. I found I did have Stacks 4 so I did delete it. Download the v3 from Christi’s email, reinstalled v3 and that seemed to do it.

Now that it’s working and I can get a handle on this software, I will be glad to purchase stacks 4 once I have a better understanding and I can progress further.

Isaiah, Thanks for all you help.

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