Software Activation Issues

This content discussed in this article applies to license holders only. It does not apply to Trial version users.

If you encounter any weird issues pertaining to software activation, here are some common FAQ's:

1. My software throws an Expired License error before I had a chance to activate it.
2. My software was activated correctly before, but all of a sudden
   
   1. it throws an Invalid License Error, OR
   2. it shows Trial on the copyright notice at the bottom.
3. IE starts popping up errors saying "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site" OR "Runtime Error has occurred" and then a full screen of "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".
4. All of a sudden I am seeing ASPPlayground.NET copyright notice popups.

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Invalid or Trial copyright notice

A valid license file can become Invalid or Trial for 3 reasons:

1. The license file is altered;
2. The license file is for a different URL;
   1. This could happen when you use the software on a different domain.
3. The license file is for a different machine (software will become Trial version in this case).
   1. This could happen when your forum is moved to a different machine.

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In order to get the software back and running, you will need to

1. (Invalid / Expiration error only) Download this trial license file (this file is only available when you are logged in with an account that has a license registered under it), and upload it to your ~/upfiles/ directory so that the software will come back to life again (no longer throwing errors);
2. Use Option 1 in the Software Activation section of your Admin CP to generate a new validation code, and PM the code to me so that I can update the licensing db;
   1. NOTE: once the licensing db is updated, your old settings will no longer work. This means if you do this because you moved to a different machine, the software on the old machine will not function anymore.
3. Once we have updated our licensing db, you can then re-activate your license (w/ Option 1 or Option 2).

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IE popup errors & copyright notice popups

Both of these 2 problems are due to incorrect forum folder permission. We require (no exceptions) one sub folder, ~/upfiles/, to be fully "modifiable" (read / write / delete / create folder) in order to run many built-in operations in the software, and this includes software activation.

The folder permission setting is detailed in the installation guide (readme file that comes with the download package), but you may need to re-apply such permission if you move your software to a different server.

Take a look on how to set up the correct permission for this folder, ~/upfiles/.

The good thing with this type of pop up error is that you don't have to go through me to correct this problem, since all your licensing settings are still valid. It is just that your software cannot receive our licensing response correctly.

To eliminate these error popups immediately, go to your Admin CP -> Software Activation, and use Option 1 to re-activate the software.

However, you will still need to get the folder permission corrected to prevent such issues popping up again in the future. To check you have correctly set the permission, try Option 2 in Admin CP -> Software Activation, and see if the "License Last Validated" flag updates. If not, then you don't have the permission correctly set or propagated.
invalid, expire