How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

I couldn't find a guide for doing this. I just want to get a 'clean' install of 2020.9.1. I installed 2020.11 over 2020.9.1 because AVID said they fixed an issue I was having a problem with. They actually made it worse..i.e. they broke the 'work-around'. I trashed the Pro Tools.app in the Applications directory and reinstalled 2020.9.1 and everything seems to be ok. I'm wondering if there are any files that should be cleaned up first and then do another re-install. Since there were so many new features in 2020.11 I'm not sure if there will be some file, somewhere that needs to go back to the previous version also. For example, I still have the 2020.11 Icon in the launch bar instead of the 2020.9.1...

Re: How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

There is no hard and fast guide I am aware of for trying to manually undo installs, and I am not sure Avid ever committed stuff will work forwards or backwards across arbitrary versions and they don't provide an uninstaller for core Pro Tools on the Mac. They do have stand alone uninstallers for Avid Link and Cloud Collaboration (which always get uninstalled by me), and some other stuff.

The installers do run a basic preinstall script that deletes a few basic things that hopefully is fine in most cases going forwards or backwards. But maybe one issue is there are multiple different things that folks might install, Pro Tools itself, plugins, drivers, etc. and just remembering all the different stuff that was installed and getting back to exactly what was installed before could be hard. (e.g. if you installed Pro Tools and it updated the default plugins... do you want to leave them updated or roll back to a previous version? or did you install Pro Tools and it did not update the plugins and you want to leave stuff alone?). Or if you installed a HD driver as part of an update do you want to roll that back with Pro Tools or not? There is no simple "right" answer.

Some folks think you need to say remove the Pro Tools.app folder from /Applications before doing an install. You don't need to do that, it's just a waste of time, when you run a Pro Tools installer it does that for you before it lays in the new (or old) version.

But manually trying to do stuff to get back to a previous working state is really the wrong way to do this. You'll never be sure you got absolutely every last thing. The way to really do this is clone your boot drive to a test drive, or have a test drive that is a clean macOS install. And install stuff you want there, test it out and just throw that disk image away if stuff does not work.

Re: How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

Thanks. I did have a clone before I did the upgrade. I guess I'll 'clone' that one back to the original.

Re: How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

On Mac, this is as simple as renaming the Application file, then re-installing. I always rename old versions before installing new. I can hop back to old versions if I'm having issues. There ARE some caveats though. Certain version jumps have incompatible file structures, but not between 20.9 and 20.11. If you still experience issues running previous versions, you should trash prefs.

Re: How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

Thanks Tim!

Re: How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

Hate to bring this up again but you can't un install pro tools first, there is not un installer and if you had it on your computer and try to install over it you will get errors like this;
An error occurred installing Shoe Tool. Try running a build with signed components first to get it installed properly.

You install pro tools first on your computer and for some reason needed to grab files from a back up (ex.Time Machine) you will need to erase the drive and re install the OS according to apple when I asked them...complain to Apple if you don't like it

Re: How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

Nobody is talking about PT First. People install over old versions of PT all the time without issue. And it's possible to go backwards to an earlier version of PT. On a Mac you just delete the program file, empty the trash, and reinstall the older version. I've done it quite often in the past.


There are instructions somewheres on the Avid site on manually uninstalling PT for both Mac and Windows. Here's the link for how to do the deed on a Mac https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...uninstall-PT11


No need to wipe the system drive and reinstall OSX.

Re: How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

can you share a way to un install PT1st on a Mac with Catalina...so far its a nightmare

Re: How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

Follow the link in my previous post.

Re: How to uninstall Pro Tools 2020.11 and revert to 2020.9.1
 

Still some files left on my drive on a root level, not very nice, I also get little snitch reporting avid using google analytics, after I tried un installing everything., someone also said not to bother paying for any software to do it and instead erase your drive and start over...avid link is like an adware..

while I can't confirm all this I did have issues with avid link, like can't upload a avatar etc, would appear as if it did yet nothing would happen....I tried creating a new account but this time I did get an avatar up but could not update it with a new one..this was just some of the frustrating things pro tools first and avid link brought to the table since I had installed it.

Any help appreciated.