Removing application with AppCleaner immediately ends trial period

[robisaacnz]

If you get BetterDisplay into a state where it hangs at boot, and use AppCleaner to remove the application and all of its settings, the trial period is marked as over the next time you install it.

[waydabber]

This is a Paddle issue (the licensing and payment provider), I think there are some anti-piracy measures in the Paddle API. However Paddle is a black box to me (for obvious reasons they provide a heavily obfuscated binary only).

But you really don't need to use AppCleaner to remove BetterDisplay, simply move it to the trash. The only permanent change it makes is the display configuration modification if the user chooses to utilize the feature, but AppCleaner won't be able to remove that. There is a guide how to completely remove everything here: #191

[robisaacnz]

Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear. I wasn't trying to uninstall it, I was trying to remove a broken configuration that was freezing the app at startup. I hadn't seen the your instructions on how to do that, and something like AppCleaner is much faster than tracking down a lot of tiny prefs files. Just moving the app to the trash would not have helped me.

Maybe share with the Paddle folks that a ~15 minute trial probably isn't long enough for anyone to evaluate something, especially if it can't ever be reset.

[waydabber]

Hi @robisaacnz - the trial should be 14 days, not 15 minutes (the trial length is not determined by Paddle). Did your trial expire in 15 minutes? If so then something must be wrong or AppCleaner somehow interfered with Paddle, maybe removed some vital data that Paddle interpreted as tampering somehow? If you DM me on the discord channel, we can try figuring something out.

Btw: if you have any issues on app startup, you can try pressing SHIFT during startup as this puts the app in safe mode (does not auto-connect dummies, etc), no need to uninstall the for that. This is not a common knowledge however which is my fault, I really should put together a more detailed wiki on how the app works!

[robisaacnz]

These are the files removed by AppCleaner. If you do this, the next time you run it BetterDisplay (and/or Paddle) will report the Pro license as "Unlicensed, Trial Expired".

If Paddle interprets that as tampering, Paddle doesn't seem to be helping much. In general, "remove all the files created by an app bundle" doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing to want to do.

I was only able to use the app for about 15 minutes before I created a broken configuration I couldn't recover from, due to (I think) a weird edge case with DisplayLink and monitors with the same name. The SHIFT at startup thing is a really good idea, and I wish I'd known about it sooner.

[waydabber]

Ok, these are the standard folders to delete for a mac app so AppCleaner did right. Paddle trial files were under ~/Library/Application Support/BetterDummy (the app itself does not use that folder, only the Paddle API for storage). It is not clear to me why deleting this folder instantly kills the trial, I think this is not how it supposed to work.

[3DCoded]

There is a Reset BetterDisplay button in the settings window that shouldn't interfere with Paddle.

[robisaacnz]

Yes, but it is not possible to press this button if your configuration causes BetterDisplay to hang at startup.

[3DCoded]

Then you can just delete ~/Library/Preferences/me.waydabber.BetterDummy.plist and that shouldn't confuse Paddle.

[robisaacnz]

As covered earlier in this thread, the procedure to fully reset an installation is more complicated than just deleting the prefs file. See #191

[waydabber]

It is indeed more complicated, but @3DCoded is right that if there is a setting that causes problems only on app startup, removing the config file should be enough (but: I recommend using the defaults delete me.waydabber.BetterDummy command instead as simply deleting the file does not actually reset the configuration in some specific situations as macOS does things a bit more complicated way by now, this file is for permanent store only and can be recreated).

But simply try holding SHIFT during startup to engage safe mode should be the first thing to try as mostly wrongly configured dummies or bad DDC communication can cause issues during startup and these are prevented by holding this key.