Activating License Woes!

[Rithralas]

Downloaded, updated, purchased software, extracted Pathfinder data set, activated license...still running in demo mode. (After umpteen attempts!) This is on my home PC....

Ok, so brought my laptop to work to get on the wi-fi, downloaded, updated, activated secondary license, still running in demo mode.

HELP! What am I doing wrong? Does it need to be this difficult? Very frustrated with this at the moment!

[Praetor]

after activating the code did you restart hero labs? The activation won't be active until you shut down and restart the program.

[Rithralas]

Yes, many, many, many times....I really don't know how this can be so difficult. Seriously, I deleted and re-installed at least 4 times over the weekend....re-started to activate the license at least a dozen times.

[flamepulse]

unfrtounatly this is the biggest downfall of HL, i am constantly having issues whenever their is a program update. every time i have to send an email into support and have my Liscences reset. Honestly if their was a good alternative to HL i would switch becasue of it.

[Rithralas]

That's a shame, because the program is exceptional. I missed a game this weekend because I was so determined to get this working that I ended up raging! :-P

Likewise, I already had my license reset, but it is still not getting out of demo mode.

[rob]

For Rithralas...

First (and obvious) question: When you complete the license activation wizard, is Hero Lab reporting that the license should now be activated and ready to go? Or is it reporting an error of some sort? I'm going to assume the former, since you wouldn't sound so frustrated and confused if Hero Lab reported an error.

There are only two ways I'm aware of that Hero Lab can *think* it successfully installed the keyfile - but didn't really do so.

The first (and most likely) possibility is that you have some sort of internet security software installed on your computer that is badly implemented. Since Hero Lab uses the built-in Windows API for accessing the internet, any internet security software you have will potentially block Hero Lab's attempts to contact the licensing server. A few such programs will intercept an internet request from a program and then *pretend* that the request was successful, telling the requesting program that the request worked fine while actually returning invalid data. Obviously, the proper behavior is to return a suitable error to the program making the request. If Hero Lab is told by Windows that the download is successful, it believes the return from Windows. But if the internet security returned bogus data, the keyfile is invalid and will not work when you restart Hero Lab.

You can verify whether a poorly written internet security program is stuffing things up for you. Go to the Tools menu within Hero Lab, then the Diagnostics submenu, and select Check Internet Connection. Do the diagnostics report any problems? If so, then you know the culprit and can hopefully get things reconfigured to allow Hero Lab to get through successfully. If you're not able to do so, post the diagnostic results here and we'll do our best to offer suggestions.

The second possibility is that Hero Lab is unable to successfully write the downloaded keyfile to the disk. I've only ever seen this happen once in 5 years. After you complete the license activation wizard, do NOT let Hero Lab restart. Instead, exit Hero Lab normally. Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the folder where you installed Hero Lab (which is "C:\HeroLab" by default). You should see a file named "hpkey.lic". Is it there? If not, you've got things setup in a way that Hero Lab is unable to properly save the keyfile to your computer. If that's the case, let us know and we'll try to figure out why that's happening and get things sorted out for you.

You should still be able to get Hero Lab up and running without the product being able to access the internet. You can use the Manual License Activation wizard and your web browser to complete the process. Use the wizard to generate the proper info file. Use your web browser to upload the info file to our server and retrieve the proper keyfile. Then copy the keyfile into place yourself. After that, you should be good to go.

Hope this helps....

[rob]

For flamepulse...

There is no absolutely reason I can think of for your Hero Lab license to require a reset every time you install an update. That's just plain bizarre, so something very strange must be going on with your system configuration to cause this behavior. Please send me an email at helpdesk at wolflair.com with details about the problem you're having. I'll then ask you a bunch more questions and we can hopefully figure out the source of the problem. If we can do that, we ought to be able to get the issue fixed - whether by tweaking your system configuration or changing things within Hero Lab.

[Rithralas]

Rob -

Firstly, I'm an idiot. :-) Secondly, I really appreciate you taking the time to diagnose my problem.

Colen has indicated that my license is tied to the M&M3 data set, which I have no clue how I purchased. I fully intended to purchase the Pathfinder data set.

So, after mindlessly spamming the activate button and coming up here ruffling feathers and such, I loaded the M&M3 data set..and alas!....it works! Doh!

So, hopefully we can rectify that somehow...I don't play M&M3!

[Duggan]

@Rithralas: Email Support@wolflair.com and explain the situation, including any information necessary to identify yourself as the person who bought the license, and they can usually resolve that pretty quickly. They just switch which license you're registered as having bought.

[rob]

I guess there's a third possibility I should add to the list above: picking the wrong game system to activate for your license!

Since Pathfinder and M&M3 are adjacent in the list, it was probably a simple and unintentional oops to pick the wrong game system. That's something that Colen can get corrected for you quickly, after which you should be off and running.

I'm glad it was something easy for us to fix for you!