iLOK warning

[rACatkvr]

So does it seem that PACE have changed their tune a little?
I too was opposed to iLoks for years but when I finally decided to buy a licence for some software that used iLok, I invested in the dongle as well.

[Agreed]

I had that happen to me once and that was enough times, but I really love some of the plugins that require iLok so I just got a physical one and I pay the Zero Downtime ransom, they win, peace of mind for a regular fee.

[BONES]

Eventide and SSL have approved the reset so now I am really only waiting on Air so I can get my other Vacuum Pro activation back. Meanwhile, I have my spare activation so it's not a problem. All sorted in just a few days, well before I've finished setting up the machine again, so effectively zero downtime and pretty much painless.

[garck]

When the same thing happened to me about 2 years ago (suddenly didn't recognize my "location") and I had to chase up 8 different software co's to sort it out (took 2 weeks in total), I decided to sell all my iLok software and my life is much simpler now. Awful system. I'm anti-dongle. Even Steinberg has trashed the dongle model now, thankfully. iLok was the licensing system that by far I had most problems with. Even the Waves system is better (and that's saying something).

[garck]

I can't imagine what it's like for people with 20 or more licenses. Pure hell.

[Kypresso]

I can't imagine what it's like for people with 20 or more licenses. Pure hell.

I've got a 157 licenses on my ilok, its pure heaven for me.

Built a new machine a few months ago and i installed all my audio software, all ilok plugins were available to use immediately, authorising all the others took bloody hours.

[mothra]

I have 153 total, only 118 actually activated. You figure, every 10 plugins or so are from one dev. 2 or 3 single companies have 15 each here, and stuff like the whole SoundToys bundle is there. It's not that hard to manage at all. Just get a dongle and make it easy to move about.

[SOUND7_Brandon]

In my experience iLoks generally create more problems than they solve. I stopped using them about a decade ago. They have their value, but I came up against the same issues.

[jancivil]

Here's my very recent experience with iLok. I have more than one stolen computer out there with iLok License Manager installed on it. Recently I was getting interrupted frequently with 'another computer has closed your iLok cloud session'.
Before VSL went all iLok, I wasn't using any iLok Cloud. Now, all of my paid licenses reside on that cloud. I'm dead in the water with no cloud session. So I would have to stop work and reopen a cloud session; it took me a few instance of this to find the simplest way, which was to open something standalone that cannot be accessed otherwise and this forces the reconnect.

So I had to get these machines clean of any licenses. I did this entirely in license manager, reporting from there to iLok.
While my expectation is that if I wanted to use those old licenses I would have to individually contact each vendor and request the move, I didn't really care, the point was clean these machines from having anything iLok.
But they actually contacted each of these entities on my behalf - opening all the older licenses up to authorize on this machine - and eventually there are no old machines in there, in my License Manager, at all. I don't imagine there's any way for the thief to f**k with me now, in any case this has stopped.
They did this pretty quickly, too. Brilliant support. (I have 122 licenses activations on the Cloud, 56 on the machine. 149 licenses. No dongle.)

[BONES]

Yeah, this is a similar experience to mine. No complaints at all from me. I am still waiting for Krotos to deregister one of my Concept licenses, non-iLok, where iLok did all the heavy lifting for me with half-a-dozen other vendors.

[jancivil]

as pertains to the older stolen machine, whatever licenses I was able to free I had to contact the vendor. that's changed. Those were all freebies. I have one thing which has to be activated on the dongle, and it can't be iLok 1. iZotope Trash. I evidently have Trash 2 working here so whatev. Not something I would buy and don't think I did (musta been free with hardware). Looks cool tho.

[cron]

The problem with on-machine activation is that they offer it.

Sure, you can shell out for the dongle and avoid these problems, but why would anyone new to iLok who isn't plugged into forums do that? It's not like they say "by the way, on-machine auth isn't actually fit for purpose" when you buy your plugs at checkout. You have to stumble across a random forum thread like this one to know that. So you go ahead and install your brand spanking new plugins that - just like literally every other piece of software you own - don't require a dongle. You don't need to use the plugs on more than one machine, so why would you spend the cash? One Windows update later and *surprise!* your licenses are gone and everyone talks to you like you're an idiot for believing that - unlike almost every other piece of software you own - the on-machine copy protection would work properly.

So yeah, the problem is that they offer it. The advantage of a dongle should be portability, not that it's secretly the only option that works properly. If they're going to offer it, it should work. It should be resistant to the basic realities of maintaining a machine - updates, hardware replacement, restoring from a backup etc - and be quick to recover whenever it isn't. Until then, stop offering it.

[BONES]

How, exactly is on machine authorisation not "fit for purpose"? It works perfectly well, just like any other product authorisation system. iLok mostly makes your life easier, like plugin managers.

Enjoy the work that is needed to be done when a wonky intrusive copy protection method breaks your authorizations and then act like Pace is doing you a favor by doing the legwork it caused ?

I don't think it was iLok's fault that I didn't deactivate my licenses before my laptop got wiped by the repairer. That was 100% my own stupidity but, despite that, iLok did all the heavy lifting for me to get my licenses back. I still had to do a few non-iLok things manually, some were easy - Plugin Alliance allows you to do your own deactivating, for example - but others were a PITA. If nothing else, I bet iLok get faster responses from devs than we do. It's like having a man on the inside to take care of things for you. How you can possibly see that as a bad thing beggars belief.

[_leras]

When doing a reinstall of plug ins i.e. new computer. Anything with iLok i just install and run. Simple.

Plug in managers also make installs easier.

Least favourite is needing to add a password/serial number as it takes ages.

[chk071]

The problem with on-machine activation is that they offer it.

Why exactly is that a problem?

In your long post, you don't really explain that, you only state that it's "not working". Last time I tried it, it was working though.