License Issue

This may be similar to what others have posted, so I apologize if this is redundant. I downloaded to update to herolabs 3.7 this morning on my desktop where it was previously licensed, which in turn prompted a reinstall of the software. When I launched Herolabs after the update my license was wiped, and it launched in demo mode. When I tried to reactivate the license, I got the 120 day error ( I originally purchased in April, and bought the advanced player guide add on shortly thereafter). I saw a reference to a license transfer request form, but I'm not sure if that applies. Are there other steps I should be taking to get my license reactivated?

Thanks!

More people seem to be having this issue. Not just you, Lone Wolf screwed up.

Definitely submit the form and Nancy (tech support) will get things sorted out for you.

The V3.7 update should not have caused the "identity" of a computer to change, but it appears that a few dozen users ran into this problem (out of thousands). We're investigating what could have caused the problem so we can get it corrected. Nancy (tech support) is getting everyone's problem reports handled as quickly as possible today, so we're doing our best to get everyone back up and running ASAP.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I did change out my RAM entirely since I bought the program. Perhaps that's the cause? I went from 3x2GB to 4x4GB. If it's only a few dozen problems however, it seems like it's taking an excessively long time to get my license issue resolved. Almost 40 hours since I submitted the request. Granted, it's only been 1 business day.

I have no idea why my laptop license was marked as re-assigned, however. Nothing has changed with that machine.

Adam.Ormond said:

I did change out my RAM entirely since I bought the program. Perhaps that's the cause? I went from 3x2GB to 4x4GB. If it's only a few dozen problems however, it seems like it's taking an excessively long time to get my license issue resolved. Almost 40 hours since I submitted the request. Granted, it's only been 1 business day.

I have no idea why my laptop license was marked as re-assigned, however. Nothing has changed with that machine.

Click to expand...

First, I know that Nancy is working through the support queue right now and it's about 7:30pm here. So I'll be surprised if you don't have this resolved in the next few hours.

Changing the RAM shouldn't have changed anything with the "identity", but it's a potentially helpful clue as we try to figure out why some users ran into this problem. Thanks for the info!

The laptop license reassignment was due to a change-over on our end. Some computers running Windows 7 64-bit were generating a system code that was partially flawed. We integrated the fix in a way that it is automatically allowed to be re-assigned a single time when it is detected, even if the waiting period has not elapsed. I checked your license (using the email address tied to your forum account) and verified that this is what happened on one of your computers. So that mystery is solved, but the identity change on the other computer is still something we're investigating.

The only other change that might have happened is adding a second HDD. I don't remember when exactly it was added, but a few weeks after 3/15, which might've been after 4/3 (which is when I bought HeroLab and apparently installed/activated twice). I'm pretty sure HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\MachineGuid (e0856222-f2ad-4e78-a3a0-1d7e0a4006f3) has not changed, as far as I know.

Hopefully Nancy will resolve the remaining license issues today.

rob said:

Definitely submit the form and Nancy (tech support) will get things sorted out for you.

The V3.7 update should not have caused the "identity" of a computer to change, but it appears that a few dozen users ran into this problem (out of thousands). We're investigating what could have caused the problem so we can get it corrected. Nancy (tech support) is getting everyone's problem reports handled as quickly as possible today, so we're doing our best to get everyone back up and running ASAP.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response Rob. I submitted the form yesterday afternoon. Still waiting on a fix, but sounds like Nancy was tied up with multiple requests. Hopefully will be back up and running today. Thanks again.

I want to add my voice to this as well. I did the update to 3.7 and it seems to have lost all of my information. It wants me to choose a game system like it was the first time I have used HL. I chose PF just to see what happens and it asked for the license. I dont have this information to provide to it.

Any method of help?

Thanks.

chiefweasel said:

I want to add my voice to this as well. I did the update to 3.7 and it seems to have lost all of my information. It wants me to choose a game system like it was the first time I have used HL. I chose PF just to see what happens and it asked for the license. I dont have this information to provide to it.

Any method of help?

Click to expand...

You can always obtain your license numbers 24/7. Go to the License menu within the product and select the option that's something like "Email My Licenses To Me". This takes you to our server, where you can enter your email address and your license numbers are instantly sent to you.

It sounds like something went sideways with the migration from the old version to all the new locations that are properly Windows-compliant. The installer should have identified where the old files are an moved them to the proper new locations. It should have also told you where it found the old files that it would be moving. Did it prompt you to do this? Did it tell you the correct location for the old files?

It's also possible to tell the installer not to perform the migration, which would end up with the behavior you describe. If so, then the old files should still all be intact. Could that have happened possibly? Please check where you used to have Hero Lab installed and see if you find all the various files the way they used to be. If so, then I THINK you can re-run the installation to perform the migration, but that should be verified by Colen before you do it, just to be safe.

Please provide answers to the above questions. In the meantime, I'll flag this to Colen so he can provide more insight about what further to check and how you can get everything sorted out properly.

chiefweasel said:

I want to add my voice to this as well. I did the update to 3.7 and it seems to have lost all of my information. It wants me to choose a game system like it was the first time I have used HL. I chose PF just to see what happens and it asked for the license. I dont have this information to provide to it.

Any method of help?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

When you ran the installer, did it tell you it would be migrating your settings? If not, it's possible that it couldn't find your old install for some reason.

If so, you can simply move all of your old files into the new Hero Lab folders to get your information back. For example, let's say that your previous install of Hero Lab was in c:\HeroLab and wasn't migrated. In HL3.7, go to the Tools menu, choose "Explore Folders", and select "Program Data Folder".

An explorer window should open. Close Hero Lab, and copy the "data" directory and the "herolab.prefs" file from c:\HeroLab into the new explorer window. When you restart Hero Lab 3.7, all your old preferences and data files should be there waiting for you - your other files can be moved similarly.

Hope this helps!

No, it started up as if a fresh install. it also only runs in demo mode when i start it up. it seems to have lost all the user files i had as well. it seems like it didnt copy over any of the files, just deleted them and did a fresh install.

There's no way it should have deleted anything - it's possible that it moved them to somewhere which isn't being picked up by the new install, but they wouldn't have been deleted.

When you installed Hero Lab 3.7, did it warn you about a migration? It would have been a very explicit warning, with a whole page dedicated to it. If you didn't see this, your files won't have been migrated at all.

Have you checked the old location that Hero Lab was installed in? For example, if you had the old version of Hero Lab installed at c:\HeroLab, have you checked the folder there to see if it's still there?

what is the new location? all the files i have are still at c:\herolab ...

C:\ProgramData\Hero Lab\

That's where your .user files are most likely.

Your portrait files are likely in your Documents\Hero Lab\ folder.

I originally had Herolab installed to C:\Program Files (x86)\Hero Lab

Now it's decided that my license can't be reassigned. *sigh* I knew I shouldn't have applied this update... I figured whatever it was that messed up everybody's licenses was fixed already.

I had the same problem (and have submitted a license reassignment request), but wanted to provide some information for bug fixing.

When 3.7 updated on my PC (Win 7, 64-bit) on 6/11/2011, it appeared to do so as a fresh install. I cannot tell whether the 3.7 installation correctly migrated my existing files. I'm describing below what I find on my computer as of this morning.

I find two installations of Hero Labs directories:

One is located in C:/Program Files (x86)/Hero Lab and contains HeroLab.exe (modified 6/4/2011), HLExport.exe (modified 6/4/2011), eight .DLL files (modified 10/16/2008), readme.txt (modified 6/4/2011), and two uninstall files (.dat and .exe, modified on 6/11/2011). I also have two subdirectories, which are "docs" and "product". My shortcut on the desktop is currently pointing to HeroLab.exe file contained in this directory.

The other is located in C:/ProgramData/Hero Lab and contains three files and five directories. The files are herolab.prefs (modified 6/12/2011), herolab.prefs.preconvert (modified 6/11/2011), and installerinfo.txt (modified 6/12/2011). The subdirectories are "cache", "customoutput", "data", "download", and "skins". I note that in the "download" subdirectory are "hl36g_install.exe" (modified on 6/2/2011), "hl37_install.exe" (modified on 6/11/2011), images.hl (modified on 5/14/2011), and mutants3.hl (modified on 6/11/2011).

Is it possible that having the HeroLab.exe file in the C:/Program Files (x86)/Hero Lab directory and having the data files in the C:/ProgramData/Hero Lab directory is causing some sort of confusion about whether my M&M 3rd Ed. installation is licensed?

I hope this helps with tracking down this problem. If a solution can be found to fix this without needing to send me a license reassignment, I'd be grateful for quick advice, as I have a game running here in 4.5 hours. Thanks.

I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I tried to update my HL this after noon through the update feature from within the program. I selected the 3.7 update and it started to download the file. When the progress bar reached the right side, I was informed that "it" (I am assuming "it" is the program) could not write to the disk and that I should check the disk.

Anyone care to comment on my issue? I am on Win 7 64

@Oracle68:

Covering the obvious possibilities, do you have enough room on that drive to download the update?

Are you running it as admin?

Duggan said:

@Oracle68:

Covering the obvious possibilities, do you have enough room on that drive to download the update?

Click to expand...

LOLOLOL!

Yea, I do......

I even downloaded the actual Heorlab Installer on the drive. I have this problem everytime I have to update the program file. I am ultimately forced to uninstall and reinstall the program. It's very annoying.