KVR Audio

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:13 pm

I agree with that, feel free to suggest an alternative...

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:30 pm

NI have announced they will no longer activate discontinued products would be a pretty accurate description of the current situation. Matt (an NI employee) may have posted that this is now under consideration, but there has been no official statement or announcement.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:32 pm

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:35 pm

It's not even under consideration, work has been commited for creating the offline authorization tool to be used by NI support. So, those discontinued products will still be possible to activate, but not through Native Access or Service Center.

PAK · Post by **PAK** » Sat Mar 28, 2020 11:34 pm

People need to STOP using the word OFFLINE. The proposed solution is horrible and is nothing of the sort. I regard the usage of "offline" as misleading. Let's parse what's actually written, shall we?

we are now focusing on a new offline activation tool which would allow our support to activate all the products listed. I don't have a full overview on how this would work yet but it looks very promising. I'm hoping to have something official about this in our announcement article next week.

The usage of "offline", in this context, is disingenuous at best. What actually appears to be proposed, as written, is an ONLINE challenge response activation. Except now, instead of a server automatically providing you with your response, someone from NI's customer service must be asked to step in and manually generate the response to the software you run locally, then forward it to you.

This means, come holidays, trade shows, or the apocalypse, you'll potentially be waiting several DAYS for an activation code. Such a solution also gives NI total control over when, and even IF, it chooses to continue activating anything in future.

Why they'd continue to demand this level of control, over some of this old software (especially the non-3rd party library stuff), is anyones guess.

Some of you guys want to praise them for this?! Yeah, it's a solution and it's better than nothing. But it's a bloody horrible one. Again, as written, it's saying support would have to intervene to activate.

So far all I've managed to be convinced of is that I'm no longer willing to support software which uses challenge response going forward. It was always my least favourite method, but you know what? Life is short and I'm done putting up with this. Even most dongles place activation control entirely with the user, with no additional intervention required once a license is on the dongle.

We're in a very fortunate position, in the audio world, that there isn't a dominant player like Adobe (closest equivalent would be Protools). Not only do we have increasing hardware alternatives to turn to, there are many great devs who don't treat their users like this. We don't have to put up with this sort of treatment, and we shouldn't..

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 12:53 am

Couldn't they just use Control Center for old software and Native Access for the newer products ?

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:04 am

Teksonik wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2020 12:53 am Couldn't they just use Control Center for old software and Native Access for the newer products ?

No, it's incompatable with modern OSs.

digitalboytn · Post by **digitalboytn** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:07 am

Teksonik wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2020 12:53 am Couldn't they just use Control Center for old software and Native Access for the newer products ?

That would be too logical

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:50 am

noiseboyuk wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:04 am
Teksonik wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2020 12:53 am Couldn't they just use Control Center for old software and Native Access for the newer products ?
No, it's incompatable with modern OSs.

Personally I don't think it's up to NI to make Spectral Delay etc. or it's authorizer compatible with modern OS's. The thing that bothers me anyway about this all was/is just being able to authorize a frozen machine for older songs etc. You should be able to authorize software you bought on hardware from that time on an OS from that time.

surreal · Post by **surreal** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 5:08 am

noiseboyuk wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:04 am
Teksonik wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2020 12:53 am Couldn't they just use Control Center for old software and Native Access for the newer products ?
No, it's incompatable with modern OSs.

They should be able to program older products serials to integrate into native access like they have with the current products and do a offline activation like they used to with Service center. Or simply leave the service center servers running so that we can still do an offline activation like always..... I feel that the REAL issue is not so much the activation story but that Native Instruments had retrenched a third of their workforce (as per the new investors instruction and the new Ceo) ( remember the news about two years ago that NI had a massive investment boost??). Now that the work force is reduced they want to kill off the support for older products and move more towards a "unified platform for all users" thereby having a more "focused" (limited) product support with reduced product ranges. Sorta like 1synth does all, one sampler does all, 1 hardware controllerbase does all, 1new reaktor base does all and then just focus on creating content to sell instead of havimg a huge product base with limited staff to support.

Disclaimer note:- That all said is just my personal theory from observing NI announcements and movements over the last 4 years

AnX · Post by **AnX** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 6:23 am

edit: not worth replying really, it will only get deleted....

surreal · Post by **surreal** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 6:45 am

Inbox me Krim, lemme know your thoughts

AnX · Post by **AnX** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 7:00 am

it wasn't a direct reply to your post

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:02 pm

surreal wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2020 5:08 am but that Native Instruments had retrenched a third of their workforce (as per the new investors instruction and the new Ceo)

20% workforce cut is not one third, it's one fifth from what it was. Also, which new CEO? Haver has been the CEO of NI for a long time now.

If you haven't been following the thread closely, there are real issues in continuing to keep the old activation methods inside NA, and Service Center won't work on Catalina and onward because it's 32-bit. So the solution here is to remove those old methods from NA entirely, and EOL of Service Center, and introduction of support-side auth tool for those old discontinued products.

imrae · Post by **imrae** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:49 pm

If NI is truly unable to "crack" its own products but can still activate them, then another option would be to distribute an activation tool for those plugins which runs on the user's machine without phoning home. It doesn't need to be maintained going forwards (but does need to work on the OS range supported by those products), and upholds the promise to provide a means of activation when NI is unable to do so.