This thread has been forked from another thread so that it's more easily discoverable by others who may run into this problem in the future. The original thread will be found here:
http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=10876
Below is the problem report from the user.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WayneLigon
What's happened is this. I updated to the latest version, 3.6c. When I start HL, it keeps trying to check for updates. It keeps doing that forever. If I stop it, it says it can't get download updates at this time. I downloaded the update file directly from you, but everytime HL starts, it just searches for updates forever.
If I stop it and load a game system, it tells me it's running in demo mode.
I have my license number. Trying to re-activate it, it says it cannot reach the licensing server every single time. No AV stuff I have has ever interfered with it before, and I even turned off my AV.
Update. Removed Hero Lab, downloaded from site, Pathfinder and M&M HLs. Imported both into HL (which still continuously tries to run an update), tried to re-activate license: still told it can't reach the license server. Made sure Window Firewall has an exception for Hero Lab.
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We haven't changed how Hero Lab communicates with the internet, and everyone else appears to be able to contact our server through Hero Lab. This seems to indicate that something on your computer is interfering with Hero Lab trying to access the internet. So we need to figure out what it is.
Hero Lab was working fine on your computer for some amount of time. Then it failed. This means something has changed on your computer. If you've added HL to the Windows Firewall, then it's highly likely to be an issue with your internet security software.
Please check when the last update occurred for your internet security software - it should be shown somewhere within the tool. Those tools generally update themselves automatically, which can be a recipe for confusion and problems, so that's why I always disable that feature immediately on my computers. :-(
It's possible that your internet security software has changed such that it now blocks Hero Lab. So the first thing to do is to configure your internet security software to explicitly allow Hero Lab to get through. It that doesn't fix the problem, then it's possible a recent update of the internet security software changed how it intercepts the Windows built-in functions that Hero Lab uses. Please see my separate post at the link below for details:
http://forums.wolflair.com/showpost....54&postcount=4
Even if you "disable" your internet security, changes to how the security software intercepts the Windows API could still continue interfering. This has happened many times over the years, and the single biggest offender has been Norton. The only way to fix this problem is to either go back to an earlier (non-broken) version of the security software or wait for them to fix the bug. The latter generally takes them a couple weeks to deal with.
If there is a way to "roll back" to a previous version of your internet security software, please give that a try. The good products provide this capability. Doing this will return you to an earlier version of the security software that doesn't include the bug and therefore allows Hero Lab to get through, just like it was doing in the past.
Please take a look at the post linked to above. That post includes details on running the internet connection diagnostics. Those diagnostics will help us confirm exactly what's going wrong for you, so please email them to us. If you want, you can send them directly to me at helpdesk at wolflair dot com, since Nancy at support will simply forward them to me anyways.
The other important aspect of that post is that it include details on how to use Hero Lab in the interim while internet access is blocked for the product. That will get you operational while we figure out how to solve the interference.