How to work around error in Postman "You have exhausted all the runs. To keep running collections, create an account..."

Question

After the last Postman update I'm getting the error in the title on the Collection Runner page. I have been running about the same number of collections as always, but I noticed an automatic update to Postman this morning (even though I have that setting turned off). I've viewed the changelog page as mentioned in other posts, but there is nothing on there to get the previous version. This is very frustrating and costing time and therefore money.

Tried to find info to downgrade to previous version but was not able to. I downloaded and ran the installer from the website anyway, but when I try to open Postman now I get an error "Version mismatch detected. Looks like you've used a newer version of the Postman app on this system. Please download the latest app and try again."

Persecute

It sounds like you've exceeded the usage limits for their free tier? If so, either pay them or switch to a different tool? Those are the only options we can discuss here. postman.com/pricing -and- learning.postman.com/docs/administration/resource-usage – Rorqual

I'm not hitting their resources (all of the resource usages are zero on the dashboard). I'm only using the tool locally against my own resources. – Persecute

When saying you tried to downgrade to a previous version, is there any information about a version that does not have this limit enforced? Version mismatch detected is a different problem. Deleting the %apdata%/postman folder solved this problem for me. Note that i am not sure how this affects the saved requests. For more: #61957631 – Samanthasamanthia

@seba-m its 10.9.4 latest one without run limit – Katusha

Answer 1

Are you running Windows like me!? Then the following might help you...

I wondered the same thing and searched the web for "postman portable". portapps.io has different versions of Postman ready to download and use, e.g. version 7.36 and version 8.0, as well as the latest version 10.8.

The portable versions should not cause problems like "Version mismatch detected" as all configuration is stored together with the app inside the same folder.

• I was not able to sign in with the portable versions (maybe because of my company's proxy, because of the old version or because of the "portability"), but I don't need that functionality, either. I'm only using Postman locally.
• In version 7.36, I can now run collections without signing in as often as I want, but in version 8.0 this is blocked, already.
• Version 7.36 offers all functionality that I need from Postman.

Businesslike

great suggestion. I'll try that. in the current version of Postman I have they force major updates on you, hopefully these older versions do not do that. – Stgermain

Answer 2

Postman recently announced that there are limiting collection runs to 25 unless you are willing to sign up for their paid plans.

If you are looking for an alternative, I suggest to checkout the new and innovative api client Bruno

https://github.com/usebruno/bruno

It's free, open-source and fresh with some radical ideas challenging the current status quo. Oh, BTW it supports infinite collection runs.. lol..

Disclaimer: I am the creaor of this project

Triphammer

Next time, please disclose that you are promoting your own project. – Blepharitis

Hi Anoop. Is it possible to run bruno from the command line (Windows batch)? – Stgermain

@Stgermain Yes CLI should be out in the next 2 days. – Triphammer

@Blepharitis agreed. I added a disclaimer that I am the projects creator. – Triphammer

however, how do I import environments from Postman ? – Gravante

I have given a try, it has support for collection, env from postman - Looks promising. Good work !!! – Scourings

Answer 3

I got an answer from Postman support. Looks like they have decided to reduce the usage of the free version, even offline, to 25 collections runs per month. You can get more for the paid version. Wonder if they asked their users how they feel about that before they imposed this upon them.

Email excerpt: "Collection Runs will be available with Free(including offline use) and Basic plans at 25 runs per month."

A work around is to use Newman, which is not restricted, at least for now.

Persecute

The paid version is not expected to remove the 25 limit for offline collection runs, per Postman support. – Stgermain

Answer 4

I'm currently researching the crazy run limit that Postman introduced. I am using the 3 user free plan and am getting warnings about exceeding the 25 run limit but it's not stopping me from continuing to run tests. Instead on average every 14.4 runs they close the App or put in an Ad with a 30 second countdown timer or do both. I've ran my collection 511 times doing this with the app interrupted me 36 times. I’m sure the 25 run limit will be enforced soon.

I did come across this post about how to downgrade to Postman 10.9.4. Follow link and go to Feb 28. https://community.postman.com/t/250-collection-runs-per-month-on-professional/43946

The users post say the following (post may get deleted as I'm sure Postman don't want people to downgrade to avoid being forced onto paid plans so I'm putting it here for others):

Well, I’m already pretty sure this limit was enforced after Postman 10.10.x. So far, there is still no official explanation for users in this community. I also don’t want to discuss the rationality of this disgusting limit. Not only that, there is also no buffer time for free(even if basic&pro) users to accept this change, especially users who depend on Local Runner to debug test script. If you guys want to avoid this limit, the urgent workaround is to downgrade to Postman 10.9.4(This shoud be latest version that is not affected by Runner limit, I have tested it). So let’s do this,

1. First, Backup/Export your Collections/APIs, if you sycned data to cloud, you can skip this step.
2. Block Postman auto upgrade by adding host 127.0.0.1 dl.pstmn.io in C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
3. Uninstall Postman v10.10.x and Install Postman v10.9.4, I have uploaded to Cloud Storage (to avoid Postman potentially maliciously deleting this old version)
4. Start Postman and import your data or login your account. You will see there is no limit any more for Local Runner. Note: This is only urgent/temporary solution. https://my.syncplicity.com/share/kpiycceaphl5kfo/Postman-win64-10.9.4-Setup https://my.syncplicity.com/share/3qxuo0pmutoj0ta/Postman%20v10.9.4%20for%20macOS%20(x64) https://my.syncplicity.com/share/teiojiqcjpcr22h/Postman%20v10.9.4%20for%20macOS%20(arm64) https://community.postman.com/t/250-collection-runs-per-month-on-professional/43946/55*

Ethiopia

Answer 5

This issue often arises when attempting to downgrade your Postman version. Versions prior to 8 don't require login to import collections, which leads many users to prefer downgrading after trying the latest versions. To resolve this issue:

1. Uninstall the current version of Postman you're using.
2. Delete the following Postman folders from your system: a. C:/Users/{userName}/AppData/Local/Postman/ b. C:/Users/{userName}/AppData/Roaming/Postman/

Once you've cleared these directories, you can proceed to install any version of Postman you'd like!

Amon