Xara Designer Pro X9 - "This Program is up to date" - Annoying, laggy startup check.

[EuropaViewer]

Ok, from about a few weeks ago, my Xara DPX9, during startup, seems to be checking if it is up-to-date.

It didn't seem to do it before, or, if it did, it did not display the window splash. I have Screenshots attached to this.

Dear Xara -
THIS IS BAD PRACTICE !!

Really! It is Highly annoying that the program just hangs for up to 10 or 15 seconds while it checks, during startup.

It is doubly bad because you don't provide anyway in the Preferences to TURN-OFF this behavior.

It is triply bad because the check happens via a modal dialog. BAD PRACTICE!!! ANNOYING PRACTICE!!!

Tell me that you pushed this out inadvertently. Tell me that you have a fix coming by!!
Tell me that, in today's day and age, you aren't seriously expecting your wonderful (and often times, busy) users to patiently wait for 15 seconds while the modal dialog shuts out the user from accessing any part of Xara. Yikes!!!

Oh Tell Me!

Come on. The speed demon that is Xara. The brilliant assembly-level-coders that were the backbone of the original Xara. The awesome customer oriented team that was behind Xara -

Tell me that all of you haven't succumbed to this silly, stupid, naive idea that checking for a software update, without recourse to a SHUT-OFF preference is a great idea! Oh No! Oh No! If you are seriously not going to fix this, I shudder what course my beloved, smart Xara team will be subjected to by the corporate-powers-that-be that forced you folks to take this shameful, drastic, dumb path of forcing a user to endure your fancy idea of a SW upgrade check.

If you are wondering, I have a High Speed Broadband connection. But that is besides the point. This behavior by DPX9, with all due respect to the team, should be taken out.

[Acorn]

Are you at the latest version?
There seemed to be an installer fault where updates were not being flagged so perhaps this is the reverse side of the same problem.

Acorn

[wizard509]

I do not have now or ever had this problem. It simply should not do this. Have you tried wiping your X9 install completely and re-installing? Perhaps something like Wise Care 365 along with Spybot S&D will detect and fix the problem.

[EuropaViewer]

Hmm...

well, it looks like the Xara application itself is doing this check.

... unless, there is another program in my PC that thinks it can check for SW updates of other applications. Unlikely, but I'll just double check if Avast! or any other anti-virus program I have that may have this "feature". Again unlikely, looking at the color/UI/text in the popups that I have the screenshots of.

[wizard509]

yes but it shouldn't at least not continuous like what is happening to you. That's why I think you should un-install the program, delete the X9 folder, restart your machine then re-install the prog. I know it sounds like a lot of work but it may help.

[JLX]

FWIW, it's happening to me too. I assumed it was happening for everyone but it sounds like that's not the case.

I decided to check for updates manually (from the Help menu) and there was one! (Sept 20th update). What's strange is that, like EuropaViewer experienced, recently (perhaps since Sept 20th?) DPX9 did an update check every time it started but always reported that the program was up to date - which it turns out it wasn't. Now, after updating manually, I not longer the get automatic check for updates at program start.

Seems like it was a bug that they've hopefully nixed in the current version. Perhaps try updating manually EuropaViewer and see if that helps you too. Good luck!

[zaphodeist]

...unless, there is another program in my PC that thinks it can check for SW updates of other applications. Unlikely, but I'll just double check if Avast!...

Avast! does take it upon itself to check some programs by default. I switch that off. Xara wasn't in the list as I recall and there'd be a pop-up from Avast! ... you never know though

[PhilM]

Hi EuropaViewer,

Once the program is running please use "Check for updates..." from the Help menu. That should update you to a new version which fixes the problems that you report.

Phil

[ad1066]

I'm getting the same thing here, both on my laptop and my home PC.

-- Ben

[wizard509]

I installed from the CD and this is what my about screen says. Is this what you have? I didn't go pro this time so mine may look a little different.