Recently I installed a a trial of Sibelius from Avid Software. Since then an Avid software management application (called Avid Link) automatically loads every time I start my computer.
Avid Link provides no option for disabling this obnoxious feature. What’s more, the app doesn’t show up in the list of macOS Login Items list (found in System Preferences, under Users & Groups), so it can’t be disabled there either. The genius morons (to put it politely) at Avid have decided on our behalf that anyone using any of their applications must always have their licensing, update, messaging, etc., application running on their computer. Wankers.
I see online that people have been complaining about this for years. Previously the application was called Avid Tools. That too would launch automatically, and that too invoked complaints, and people trying to figure out how to disable it.
There’s a simple solution. You’ll need to open Terminal.app and execute the following command:
sudo defaults write /Library/LaunchAgents/com.avid.avidlink.plist RunAtLoad -boolean falseYou’ll be prompted for your macOS user password. Enter that, and hit enter. That’s it. Done deal.
What this command does is modify the file /Library/LaunchAgents/com.avid.avidlink.plist such that the RunAtLoad variable is set to false. This, in effect, tells macOS to not launch Avid Link at system start-up.
Problem solved.
Let me know if the comments below if this works for you, or not.
Brilliant, and I appreciated your perfect description of the thinking behind the Avid decision to open Avid Link by stealth without asking the user, perfect….:)
Now fixed hopefully, thanks very much.
Thanks for your review and comment. Yes, admittedly that day I was feeling a tad pissed off that at Avid Link refusing to stop loading automatically! I hope the fix worked for you. Cheers … J
totally worked for me – macos monterey – latest version of avid link
thanks 👍
1000% agree with your description of the genius-morons who do not let users configure startup at launch options.
Thanks for the sudo command, Just applied it and will restart to test. But wanted to post agreement with your opinion of Avid UX/product managers.
IMRAN
It seems the change I’ve suggested in this post isn’t having the intended effect. At least, on my system it stopped doing so. How did you get on after a restart?
After hitting enter I get permission denied. I don’t have a password set up on this machine
I’ve never worked in terminal before and when I open it there is already some words and symbols
I didn’t have a password either, but I remembered from using Terminal before that you need to have one. I just set up a ‘new’ password in System Preferences – Users & Groups – Select the Admin account (probably already selected if it’s your own Mac) – Click the lock to make changes (bottom left) – Change Password. Once that’s done go back to Terminal and you should be good
The `sudo` aspect of the command requires Administrator level access to your system, so it will prompt for an admin level password. If you don’t get that prompt, then you’ll not be able to proceed with that command. If you do get that prompt, and don’t know what the admin level password is, you’ll also not having success with it.
Didn’t work for me. I’m running Sibelius 8.5 on Monterey.
Careful. When I tried this it changed permissions on the file and when I corrected the permissions the file was corrupted. I restored from a backup.
Thanks for the note. It’s very odd that changing file permissions would have any impact on the file itself. The two are essentially unrelated. What’s more, writing to the file shouldn’t change the permissions. Are you sure you executed the command correctly?
Thanks for that! Worked like a charm here on OS 10.15.7
Nice rant! Absolutely agree, didn’t even realise Avid was doing that until I checked the Activity Monitor to test my broadband speeds. Avid was right at the top even though I didn’t (wittingly) have it open. Your command worked perfectly!