Annoying advertisement to buy API credits on every startup: Bug or feature?

[Silvicultor]

The title already says it: I get the annoying ad for buying API credits on every startup of Comfy. I assume it’s a bug because other users told me that they see the ad only once and not on every startup.

Windows11, RTX3060, ComfyUI portable, no VM, no Docker.
Browser: Firefox

Did some research myself. I noticed that ComfyUI creates a cookie in the browser. So the issue might be related to wiping cookies upon closing Firefox for privacy reasons.

Also I added -–disable-api-nodes to startup args. But that changes nothing.

Any chance to disable the message once and for all, without having to enable cookies in Firefox?

I don’t want to sound ungrateful and I can understand that Comfy devs want to make some money. But still I’m sad and disappointed that one of the most powerful tools of the open source AI community is developing towards SaaS/proprietary tool.

[christian-byrne]

Did some research myself. I noticed that ComfyUI creates a cookie in the browser. So the issue might be related to wiping cookies upon closing Firefox for privacy reasons.

Rather than cookies, it is stored in localstorage. Are you able to configure firefox to not clear the domain/port you use Comfy on? The app also relies on storing other important thing in local/session storage like the workflow state. Let me know if that works, otherwise we can try other things.

But still I’m sad and disappointed that one of the most powerful tools of the open source AI community is developing towards SaaS/proprietary tool.

I wouldn't say ComfyUI is developing towards a SaaS/proprietary tool. It's just one of many features being added to expand what the user is able to do.

[Silvicultor]

Thanks for your reply.
Firefox treats the local data stored by Comfy like a cookie (even if it isn't technically one).
I want highest privacy settings and that means wiping all that data upon closing Firefox.
The saving of the workflow state etc. is not a problem because the data only gets cleared when Firefox is closed – and I don’t do that when I still have a workflow running, so it was never a problem before.
So I would appreciate a solution that doesn’t involve lowering the privacy settings of my browser.

[b-fission]

Any chance to disable the message once and for all, without having to enable cookies in Firefox?

Two ways I can think of.

Method 1: custom uBlock rule

If you have an ad-blocker, here's a rule that works.

127.0.0.1##.p-dialog-mask:has([aria-labelledby="api-nodes-news"])

If you're not accessing comfy from a URL of 127.0.0.1 then edit the rule accordingly. uBlock's syntax doesn't seem to do port numbers (such as 127.0.0.1:8188) so this is good enough.

Method 2: edit the frontend code

The popup is being called from code in the comfy-frontend package. You can edit out the function call directly by searching for the packed javascript file in your Comfy installation or python packages.

In the current build, that file is /comfyui_frontend_package/static/assets/index-DIZ3S7TP.js
Search for the line:

function showApiNodesNewsDialog() {

and put in a return; statement like this. Include the semicolon as well! Not elegant, but it works.

function showApiNodesNewsDialog() { return;

[christian-byrne]

Thank you for sharing this method, hopefully it can help users who have the same firefox settings until a proper startup arg is implemented.

[SencneS]

THANK YOU for this... I'll be honest, I will NEVER buy credits. Basically if I can't run it locally I'll just not run it.
I find it really distasteful that ComfUI put this in here... At least give us an "Opt out" setting, EVERYTHING should be option forcing this 'ad' on us is just really poor taste.

p.s. if i could completely disable all the code for this API garbage I would,

[Silvicultor]

Yeah, thanks for this. The Adblock solution works for me.
But I would have never imagined that I would have to Adblock for ComfyUI – an OpenSource tool.
Please Comfy devs: Give us the option to fully opt-out everything API related.
I only want to use Comfy for local gen.

[Karlmeister]

Thank you, bruh 👊🏻
Let's hope next release ComfyFE relies on a proper storage setting instead the browser's one.

[christian-byrne]

There is an option to opt out of initializing all API node code: --disable-api-nodes

This particular UI element is being removed in the next frontend release.