Automatic update is a deal breaker

[Anonymous]

Hi

I've seen several post of other people being frustrated about it not being possible to turn off automatic updates.

Most were unanswered and the only one I found that had an answer was quite old. This stated though that there (at least was) no way to turn off automatic updates for Fusion 360.

In a professional production environment this is not viable. Once a system works it shouldn't be tampered with.

We simply can not afford that an Add-In used 100 times a day to mill custom parts suddenly doesn't work because an update of the main application suddenly changed something and made it incompatible.

Is there still no way to turn off automatic updates?

If no, will there be a way in the (near) future?

If both answers are no I don't see Fusion 360 as an option for us...

Thanks

[jodom4]

Hey ljkCRMAD,

This is a request we've gotten many times and that we're taking seriously. Customer control of updates is a complicated issue for a number of reasons I won't get into here, but we're currently exploring options to give users more control over updates.

Would a snooze button be valuable to you? For example, you would get a notification that an update is available, and an option to snooze the installation for 1 week.

[lance.carocci]

Hi @Anonymous,

Just to elaborate on what @jodom4 said - one issue with users staying on old versions is maintaining compatibility with files opened with newer versions of Fusion.

The heart of Fusion is cloud-based storage and collaboration, so if we were to, say, optimize the way CAD data is organized and stored, or added a new feature or toolpath definition, a clean workflow does not currently exist to allow that file to still process in an older version unaware of those changes.

Cloud-based software in general faces a challenge with slower-updating environments. For example, in education environments, where device images are often locked months in advance of a semester or school year, students and instructors must often juggle between the latest version on their personal device, and a version potentially up to a year behind installed on campus.

With Fusion rapidly rolling out enhancements, we understand the challenge this presents for users wishing to both use the latest features, and be able to work from anywhere, including places where they might not have control over application updates. As @jodom4 said - we are looking for a happy path that can try to satisfy both needs. Delaying (but not disabling) auto-update is one potential route, but the discussion is ongoing.

We welcome feedback on what this experience could someday look like, especially if there are other applications' update deferment workflows you recommend we learn from.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your replies @jodom4  and @lance.carocci 

I can see the challenges of course, but in a case like this there really would be no need for any kind of update or new features. Once the workflow is established and the machine runs, ideally it would run for years without change. There's also no need for collaboration or cloud storage...

That being said, any kind of deferred/delayed update with notification about it would be greatly appreciated!

If a "snooze" button pops up and I can tell the guys and girls in production to just press that when it happens, allowing me to update, test and possibly fix when time permits would definitely be an acceptable solution.

So yes, please! 🙂

As to "other applications update deferment". Can't help you there. Fusion 360 is the only application in my arsenal that does any kind of automatic updating...

If you ask me Fusion should simply notify the user that an update is available and ask whether to update, instead of it just happening - same behavior as most modern non-cloud but internet aware applications.

Compatibility issues to me doesn't sound like a real issue, because if you don't update you would never in any other "normal" application expect that you could work with files from newer versions.

To conclude, yes, if I can't turn it off, delaying it would be an acceptable solution, and the sooner that update comes the better.... 😉

[Anonymous]

A quick update.

Today we actually already ran into a problem because of yesterdays update. The whole thing became a reality much quicker than anticipated.

Basically, the "Generate Toolpaths API Sample" - which essentially is the final part of our Add-in - doesn't work as well as it did before the update. To be exact it often stalls when displaying the progress bar and just hangs there.

Before the update, I had used this Add-in probably a 100 times without issue, suddenly when testing on my own computer I had only about 50% success rate.

Worse, on the computer in production where it's actually used, it pretty much only worked the first time after Fusion was started.

Solution has been to replace the while loop in the script with one that simply waits 10 seconds as the toolpaths are generated. It's not elegant but it works, and both me and management are curious what will happen with the next update...