Eh. Psp going back to PACE.

[Compyfox]

Call and Response? Something in the OS changes, things go poof

[Kr3eM]

Did you read my post completely?

I am aware of this, and I wrote that this happened post v3.1.2 (so v3.1.3 and up). I also wrote how to fix this, and that this is documented by Pace/iLok in the knowledgebase. If(!!!) you want to fix this, if(!!!) you really needed to update, etc. Else... uninstall the manager, reinstall an earlier version, the issue should be gone and you should still be able to(!!!) activate licenses.

In fact, there are threads on both KVR and GS where people ask for sub v3.1.3 versions still.

I went the extra step and updated my OS regardless - because I was bug hunting (I'm currently on v3.1.5.1779, current version is v3.1.6 - I was NEVER forced to update if I didn't want to). I'm still on Windows 7, only I'm on "considered SP2" now. And tell you what - I have absolutely no cut ins performance wise. I only lost a day since the update took so long due to reasons unknown. And yes, my OS is also heavily tweaked.

...and please notice that I don't want any advice for troubleshooting what so ever, I have no intention to install it anyway, ever.

Fair enough - it's ultimately your call to reject help.

Yet you join a discussion with your "wisdom" and try to tell others how to "do it right"?
Or rather, how "not to support such schemes" - because it's not working "for you".

Ok so I made a misstake, my bad but it's not so far out of the ballpark to make that misstake, the iLok manager installer specificly tells me that windows need to be updated, it does not tell me that I have an option of using an older version. So I choose to describe that as a "Demand".

It's not the first logical solution that I would think that if I install an older version I don't need to update windows.
But if you say it works I'll take your word for it, and I have edited my post (not deleted anything just added that my claim is incorrect)

Ironicly it's just because of the other developers habit of forceing updates of various kind you are mentioning that made me take it for granted that an older version could not be a working alternative.

Also I do not appreciate being accused of "spewing".. if this is actually me you are refering to.

But in turn, you opt out in favor for spewing negative commentary towards a copy protection scheme that you consider "intrusive" and "plain downright bad" (if others are worse IMO with "forced updates on launch" and limiting your usage rights - like: Native Instruments ACCESS especially, IK Multimedia, Syncrosoft, etc), something that you "will never install (anymore)".

[Compyfox]

Fair enough, I edited my post as well into:

But in turn, you (singular and plural) opt out in favor for overflowing with negative commentary towards a copy protection scheme...

[Kr3eM]

Fair enough, I edited my post as well into:

But in turn, you (singular and plural) opt out in favor for overflowing with negative commentary towards a copy protection scheme...

Well I am in this thread because I am a PSP customer and have been for a decent time. The move to iLok is not something I am happy about, so yes I opt to voice my opinion, like most people here, including you.

And are you seriously accusing me of 'overflowing with negative commentary towards a copy protection scheme'? Sure I do voice my opinion as a customer, but overflowing really? I'm not sure how many of my posts of mine are about that but of 200ish posts I get 9 hits when searching for iLok. Well 10 with this one I guess.

Even if you are commenting on a group of people and are generalizing you appear to include me.

You have also expressed it all in such context that I gives the apperance that I do not have any issues with other managers like IK Multimedia, Syncrosoft and Native Access. Well the first two I have no products with and when it comes to Native, well they seem to have dropped offline support for Kontakt last week with the last update so they basicly told my offline DAW to ***** itself.

I assure you I would be banned asap if I expressed my view of that as cumstomer of +17 years.

And FWIW I only posted images to explain why I had that assumption I had to beginn with, and therefor stated that I didnt' want any help with troubleshooting...and yes I could have left out the last "ever" but sometime irritation will be expressed.

[plexuss]

...For the last couple of months, problems with our in-house authorization system has been our main cause for support requests, especially on macOS. It seems every OS update brought us new hassles and headaches.

Hmm.. their authorization code is a simple string of numbers and letters, how can that be a major problem?

Apple is trying to stay ahead of the curve on security of their OS. one of the selling factors for Apple is that their products are secure and people opt for Apple because of this. Especially these days with so many people trying to hack into systems and take them down or otherwise comprimise privacy and security. Apple imposes more and more "sandboxing" in their OS to constrain how much freedom there is between various features and functions. This makes it a challenge for devs because they have to adapt to the increase in constraints around permissions across chunks of code and files. So for PSP they would have to be re-coding to make their auth system work on ever evolving security contraints imposed by Apple. The result for the customer is an up to date security on Apple products but ongoing effort for devs.

So for devs that insist on copy protection they have to deal with these added efforts. PACE is one way to off-load this effort from the plugin dev to PACE, with added cost and constraints of iLok on the user.

It comes down to the individual user's take on this and whether they want to put up with it.

I'm fine with it. Once i got over my irrational emotional barrier over iLok I am not happily using iLok protected software and enjoying the security of having those licenses on a dongle. Moving my music platform from a macbook pro to a macpro helped because I didn't want dongles constantly having to be plugged into my laptop. but on the desktop its a transparent experience.

[Compyfox]

Trust me, Kr3eM. I share the opinion on the "NI ACCESS" engine... I can't even make backups. it's download only (no physical medium - and definitely no Blu-Ray - thanks Apple for thinking that OPTICAL DRIVES ARE A WASTED CONCEPT!!!! ), install, delete the installer. Did a mistake? Let's re-download 5GB again!

Everything is automated.



The thing is, this whole topic (iLok, USB keys, etc) flames up more often that I'd actually (personally!) like it to see, and it's more than annoying at this point. I'm sorry that you feel ticked off by my commentary, and that you feel it includes you. But the thread would explode if I'd address/exclude individual people with their individual problems. Which in turn would be soil for the "penny pinchers" to pick apart commentary, twist and turn things, then call people names (been there, done that).


I understand the issue with going away from Serial or C/R back to USB keys (even though I do prefer USB keys due to the fact, that there is mostly no online-access needed!). I definitely get the frustration and the mass pruning/selling of tools (see market place).

But what I do not get (and actually downright hate at this point) is the constant bashing of one thing, while ignoring another. This... black/white thinking without any shades in between.

[Kr3eM]

But what I do not get (and actually downright hate at this point) is the constant bashing of one thing, while ignoring another. This... black/white thinking without any shades in between.

Well you can exclude me from that. I am firmly opposed any development that does not strive for the functionality and ease of use of a simple *.dll file to copy and paste (and or are freely portable). A customized dll is the optimal in my view and the more dependencies you add to that the further away it gets and more messier and vonuralbe it becomes. From that standpoint I evaluate everything...no exceptions.

And just for the case of a sad laugh, I just bought PSP Springbox today, although I know I will not be able to use any of the future updates to it since I refuse iLok. Still I decided to buy it... now that's real customer support


I am sympathetic for PSP and I do understand their choice and don't blame them, heck I blame Apple (and MS more and more)... But Native Instruments is a different story........ NI can. ... yeah you heard me. *mic drop*

[Compyfox]

I didn't go deeper into the topic yet - but what type of iLok activation would they offer?
iLok/HDD and iLok/USB or iLok/USB only?

The former might be (emphasis) an option if you don't have the USB key yet. But it's a dangerous game as this is basically C/R, bound to your Mainboard or HDD. iLok/USB is way better to handle, but I do understand the commentary "laptop usage, too big, etc" (not: it can break, can get stolen). In fact, I recently bought an USB3 thumb drive just for brainworx and Waves licenses. However, I'm using a desktop rig.

[plexuss]

I am sympathetic for PSP and I do understand their choice and don't blame them, heck I blame Apple (and MS more and more)... But Native Instruments is a different story........ NI can. ... yeah you heard me. *mic drop*

I don't think Apple is to blame. Despite being an Apple customer, I can't stand Apple as a company - but for me it's the currest best platform for my needs so I put up with them/it.

Those to blame are the scum hackers that create viruses and other malware and otherwise try and break security and privacy. Apple is just responding to that to try and keep their systems clean. Perhaps Apple can find better ways to do this that work better with copy protection schemes - however it's really the plugin industry that is creating a part of the problem by insisting on copy protection. Apple is 3rd on the list of culprits here: 1. the hackers, 2. the plugin companies inisiting on copy protection, 3. Apple.

[Jace-BeOS]

Punishing one's own customers (or treating them as thieves) is bad business. The real thieves don't suffer at all from protection schemes. Why punish actual paying customers with ANY added complexity?

I just spent extra time on my replacement computer re-authorizing a bunch of the plugins I've paid for and, while not difficult to do, it was more work put on me for no reason (dealing with moving to another computer is a PITA enough); the process didn't fill me with extra love for the developers.

[sonicpowa]

@plexuss: Thanks for the explanation.
Oh well, I just have to deal with the fact I don´t get updates anymore for my PSP plugins.

[stratology]

The main reason that I pay for software, apart from obvious ethical implications, is that I want stable, reliable, secure, well working software - which you don't get with pirated software.

Pace/iLok removes all the advantages of paying for software.

Plug-ins are 'application level' software. Pace software needs to talk to USB hardware, so it's 'system level' software. Quality requirements for system level software are much higher than for application level software. If a plug in misbehaves, the worst that can happen is that it brings down your DAW, everything else keeps working. If system level software misbehaves, it affects everything - which is exactly what happened on the one occasion when I tried Pace/iLok protected plug ins. Never again.


Pace developers do not have sufficient expertise to produce system level software that meets professional standards. The multitude of reported issues is a fairly obvious indication of that.

PSPaudioware write fantastic plug-ins. Using Pace removes all of their competitive advantage. What's the point of a great sounding plugin when you have to expect downtime due to Pace issues? When you have to expect system wide issues that are completely unrelated to working with audio?


I've already started to look for alternatives. I bought most of the PSP plug-ins in the past, I'm going to miss them...

[Armagibbon]

Apple is 3rd on the list of culprits here: 1. the hackers, 2. the plugin companies inisiting on copy protection, 3. Apple.

Nah man the biggest culprit is this walled garden, high-level abstraction bullshit.
Viruses and hackers couldn't do shit to regular users if the controls for it all were exposed to the user in the first place, and users were taught how to deal with it. I remember when basic programming guides were part of every computer manual. Now we're lucky to get anything more than a big shiny f*ckin start button that does everything for our stupid asses.

Real problem is, if users can control all that? Software devs can't protect their work. So yeah, wanna talk about culprits? It's that need for devs to protect their shit from thieves. Not even the fact that they do it, but the fact they they NEED to do it. It's one huge fact of reality nobody knows how to work with and why any dev using drm won't port to linux. All that other shit is in periphery and any response to it is just gonna further complicate things.

[stratology]

Nah man the biggest culprit is this walled garden, high-level abstraction bullshit.
Viruses and hackers couldn't do shit to regular users if the controls for it all were exposed to the user in the first place, and users were taught how to deal with it.

No. The vast majority of computer users is non-technical. Abstraction makes sense - if you want to record audio, you don't need to know underlying details of how networking with an external USB drive works under the hood. To get sufficient security expertise to be able to protect a system as an end user is a full time job. Security is complex.

If you are a technically inclined user and want to go past high level abstraction and dig deeper, feel free to learn how to use Terminal, and get the free Developer Tools.

[Armagibbon]

Nah man the biggest culprit is this walled garden, high-level abstraction bullshit.
Viruses and hackers couldn't do shit to regular users if the controls for it all were exposed to the user in the first place, and users were taught how to deal with it.

No. The vast majority of computer users is non-technical. Abstraction makes sense - if you want to record audio, you don't need to know underlying details of how networking with an external USB drive works under the hood. To get sufficient security expertise to be able to protect a system as an end user is a full time job. Security is complex.

If you are a technically inclined user and want to go past high level abstraction and dig deeper, feel free to learn how to use Terminal, and get the free Developer Tools.

You wonder why there's still an anti-itb hold out and pro tools as a multitrack is as far as they'll ever f*ckin go?

It sure aint because they're non-technical.

And security aint complex, it's one of two things. Something you use to get trespassers to f*ck off, or one half of an oxymoron. Guess which one has to do with computers?