Current Answer: The Free Legacy Plus Window Has Already Ended
The 2025 case happened while IceWhale was still honoring a transition benefit for users who had run ZimaOS before 1.5.0. That window was publicly extended through June 30, 2026. It is now September 2026, so a machine that never received or retained that entitlement should not be expected to unlock Plus automatically today.
The historical ZimaOS Plus transition explains the old policy. Current 1.5 release notes also record that eligible devices upgrading at the time were upgraded to Plus.
Why the 2025 Upgrade Showed Community Edition
The VM had been cloned before upgrading, and the entitlement check did not complete as expected. Changing DNS did not solve it. That tells us the issue was not simply “use 8.8.8.8.” Entitlement state, device identity and the transition policy all mattered.
Before Upgrading an Old 1.4.4 Installation Today
- Back up irreplaceable files and application data.
- Record current storage pools, network settings and Docker paths.
- Confirm whether the device already shows Plus entitlement before changing versions.
- Use the normal in-product update path instead of an old curl-based package from a forum thread.
- Keep local monitor/keyboard access available for A/B recovery.
The ZimaOS backup and ZimaOS recovery cover the two failure boundaries that matter most.
Use the A/B System Slots if an Upgrade Stops Booting
ZimaOS has dual system partitions. If the newly updated slot fails, boot the alternate slot from GRUB rather than immediately reinstalling. The ZimaOS system recovery is the current recovery method.
Should You Stay on 1.4.4 Just for Disk Standby?
Not as a long-term strategy. Disk standby is a workload and hardware behavior, not a reason to remain indefinitely on an old release. Update on a cloned/test environment first, then verify whether the new version still lets the actual disks sleep under your workload.
What to Do if Plus Disappears After an Upgrade
Do not keep changing DNS servers once normal internet access is confirmed. Record the old version, new version, device ID, purchase/entitlement history and exact UI state, then contact IceWhale support. The 2025 thread itself eventually pointed users toward support for entitlement reissuance.
Validate the Upgrade Path Before You Touch the Production VM
Because this setup runs under Proxmox, clone or snapshot the VM and test the upgrade there first. Proxmox's Proxmox VM snapshots provide a cleaner rollback boundary than trying to downgrade an appliance after a failed update. ZimaOS itself uses RAUC-style A/B slots; the RAUC slot model explains why the previous system image can remain bootable even when the new slot fails.
Test the items that matter to this particular server before promoting the upgraded VM: all ten USB disks visible, RAID/storage mounts healthy, SMB paths unchanged, Docker workloads reachable from Proxmox, and disk standby still behaving as expected. That checklist is more useful than asking whether “1.5 is stable” in the abstract.
FAQ
Can I still get free Plus from ZimaOS 1.4.4?
The published legacy transition window ended June 30, 2026. Do not assume a new activation is still free after that date.
Will upgrading erase my RAID or files?
A normal system update is not intended to erase user data, but storage and app state are valuable enough that you should still keep a verified backup before a major jump.
Can DNS blocking prevent license checks?
It can interfere with online entitlement services, but changing DNS is only relevant if name resolution or filtering is actually failing. It is not a universal Plus fix.
Can I skip directly from 1.4.4 to a current release?
Use the upgrade path offered by the current ZimaOS UI. Do not force an old manually downloaded updater unless current support explicitly instructs you to.
How do I recover if the new version will not boot?
Use the alternate A/B system slot first. Reinstall only after slot recovery and data-preservation options have been considered.
