• Please note: In an effort to ensure that all of our users feel welcome on our forums, we’ve updated our forum rules. You can review the updated rules here: http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=5528.

    If a fellow Community member is not following the forum rules, please report the post by clicking the Report button (the red yield sign on the left) located on every post. This will notify the moderators directly. If you have any questions about these new rules, please contact support@wolflair.com.

    - The Lone Wolf Development Team

Activating License Woes!

R

Rithralas

Member
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! :mad:
 
after activating the code did you restart hero labs? The activation won't be active until you shut down and restart the program.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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....
 
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.
 
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!
 
@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.
 
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!
 
LOL! @ Rob. I got the secondary license working for my laptop for the Pathfinder set! I'm stoked! Now, I just need to wait on my request to un-fubar the primary license. :p
 
Please delete this thread! I don't want potential customers reading this and assuming that your product is clunky....when I was the one causing the problem.
 
Last edited:
Actually the fact that the customer support was prompt and polite is a bigger win in my book actually and the thread should be left to show this. Also the fact that their have been two threads about Activation sense I joined a year ago also shows that it is 99% flawless in it's use. This again shows that is nearly perfect which is almost unheard of in the software industry.

On top of that HL license lets you re-install onto a new computer every 120 days is also VERY generous as I can't even think of another software that does that.

The fact is that people think that they can buy one copy and share it with their whole gaming group means that software activation is needed. The fact that they say this stuff right in front of the WL guys at their booth at GenCon shows how little thought their is in stealing software.

So until some better idea comes along we are left with the need for software activation if a company wants to stay in business.
 
So, as I understand it. I can activate HL on my laptop and desktop in the initial license, and then pay a fee (think I saw $10 somewhere) and gain a third license to install on my secondary laptop (which is currently in use by my son). Is this correct, or did I misread something somewhere and I am being an idiot?
 
That's correct. The first two licenses are included, the third and fourth are $10 each. The 2nd-4th are obtained within HL, after you've gotten your first license set up (in the License menu, select the "Manage License..." option).
 
Mathias said:
That's correct. The first two licenses are included, the third and fourth are $10 each. The 2nd-4th are obtained within HL, after you've gotten your first license set up (in the License menu, select the "Manage License..." option).
Click to expand...

Yay for me not being an idiot. Thanks.
 
BPIJonathan said:
So, as I understand it. I can activate HL on my laptop and desktop in the initial license, and then pay a fee (think I saw $10 somewhere) and gain a third license to install on my secondary laptop (which is currently in use by my son). Is this correct, or did I misread something somewhere and I am being an idiot?
Click to expand...

Correct, but with one VERY important caveat to how you described it above. You must obtain a SECOND license number for use on the second computer. This second license is FREE, but you need to use a different license number on EACH computer. To obtain the second license number, first activate the initial license, then go to the License menu within Hero Lab and select Obtain Secondary License. Complete the process and you'll be issued a second license number for use on the second computer.

If you purchase and additional secondary license (your third total license), you will then repeat the above process to have the third license number issued to you. Then you can utilize the third license number on the third computer.
 
rob said:
Correct, but with one VERY important caveat to how you described it above. You must obtain a SECOND license number for use on the second computer. This second license is FREE, but you need to use a different license number on EACH computer. To obtain the second license number, first activate the initial license, then go to the License menu within Hero Lab and select Obtain Secondary License. Complete the process and you'll be issued a second license number for use on the second computer.

If you purchase and additional secondary license (your third total license), you will then repeat the above process to have the third license number issued to you. Then you can utilize the third license number on the third computer.
Click to expand...


I should have mentioned that, but yes that was the way I had understood it. I already have my second license, got it pretty quickly but was concerned about the third pc in my household.
 
Same issue

I just bought a Pathfinder License today and am having the same issue.

I ran the internet connection diagnostic as described above and got the attached error message.

Do you know what I should do to fix this?
 

Attachments

You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top