Waves License Manager sees a new device ID for my PC

[tonedef71]

All of a sudden today, none of my Waves plugins were authorized anymore. I started up Waves Central and brought up the "Manage Licenses" tab. Apparently, my PC was reporting a new ID to the Waves License Manager and all of my plugins were registered to the old ID which Waves License Manager now reports as a "Disconnected device". Thankfully, the "Recover Licenses" function allowed me to move all of my licenses off of the old device and back to the cloud. The last time I witnessed this happen was when I updated to a newer Waves installer. This time, nothing changed related to any of my Waves software. No device driver updates today as far as I know. It is possible that one of the non-Waves plug-ins I installed today updated a common Windows Visual-C runtime library, but I doubt that would cause the problem.

Has this problem happened to anyone else? What do you think causes the Waves License Manager to all-of-a-sudden see a different device ID for the PC?

EDIT: It appears that something happened to my PC. Windows 10 had also asked me to verify my PC today. My O Deus ASIO Link Pro driver also needed to be re-authorized, too. Some hash ID on my PC must have changed, but I do not know how or why.

[lfm]

That is the problem I see with Windows 10 and the policy with forced updates. Constantly changing system as soon as online.

I looked yesterday for PC machines on a site - and 90% of computers were with Windows 7 preinstalled, and Windows 10 as an update. I think they had one or two computers with Windows 10 - from about 150 different models. End rest with windows 8/8.1.

Microsoft really has to reconsider this policy. I will never buy another computer with Windows 10 or later unless they do.

Some ideas though.....

I recently upgraded the second disk for more space, so I investigated a bit preparing for this.
Superior Drummer was safe as long as not OS drive - talking with their support. And no problem otherwise since you can remove one authorization and replace with a new.

For Waves I could plan and put in cloud before doing upgrade. But you could consider putting these on a flash drive if you can spend an usb port. I think they work with usb hubs as well, but not sure. So then authorizing will not be dependent on computer.

Other common causes can be usb devices with unique mac address id, like usb internet sticks and WLAN. If present at install it can override network card. We did this on some software I worked on - doing a system id from mac id as part of identifying computer for authorizing. And common problem among user base was that system admin that did install for the company added such devices while installing - and when they removed it software did not authorize.

[Ryan99]

I had the same problem a couple of years ago. I had to recover licenses to get my licenses back. Waves support told me that it could be because of my router that is giving the computer a dynamic address that is changing over time, or something like that.

I never put my Waves licenses on my computer again, since the recover licenses can be done only once a year. All my licenses are now systematically transfered on a usb stick that is connected all the time to my computer and I never had this problem again.

[Andy Gone]

Same here. Recovered and moved my licenses to a USB stick, never will move to a computer again.

All machines are different, and some have configurations that may deceive the licensing software.

If you do not want or cannot use recovery, another option is to call tech support and let them extract your licenses remotely.

[4damind]

I had this problems after installing Vmware, which installs a new virtual network adapter... Waves told me, that this device IDs are based on the network adapters IDs. So after installing a new network adapter or changing the hardware there is good chance that the Waves licenses are attached to an old device.
The good thing is, you can recover them (2x every year?) or if you running into problems, Waves can manually recover the licenses and so they are back in the cloud.

This is unfortunately a side effect of this "software based" copy protection to avoid the using of plugins on different machines at the same time.

Btw. Afaik this IDs are not taken directly from the hardware, they are provided by the operating system. But I don't know if this IDs are changed after an update, I never had a problem after an OS update.

[Andy Gone]

<...>
Btw. Afaik this IDs are not taken directly from the hardware, they are provided by the operating system.
<...>

I think this is why everybody is vulnerable. Unfortunately this is how it works. That's why I prefer dongle-based protection even with all inconvenience of dongles.

[tonedef71]

Thank you for all of the feedback. I think this thread will be useful to other users who have Waves plugins installed and registered on their Windows PC.

[Andy Gone]

Thank you @tonedef71

[commerce]

The good thing is, you can recover them (2x every year?)

Only once per year.
This problem happens more often.

[commerce]

All of a sudden today, none of my Waves plugins were authorized anymore. I started up Waves Central and brought up the "Manage Licenses" tab. Apparently, my PC was reporting a new ID to the Waves License Manager and all of my plugins were registered to the old ID which Waves License Manager now reports as a "Disconnected device". Thankfully, the "Recover Licenses" function allowed me to move all of my licenses off of the old device and back to the cloud. The last time I witnessed this happen was when I updated to a newer Waves installer. This time, nothing changed related to any of my Waves software. No device driver updates today as far as I know. It is possible that one of the non-Waves plug-ins I installed today updated a common Windows Visual-C runtime library, but I doubt that would cause the problem.

Has this problem happened to anyone else? What do you think causes the Waves License Manager to all-of-a-sudden see a different device ID for the PC?

An external docking station with multiple monitors is a part of my notebook now according to Waves Central.

[jens]

See here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=533824&p=8098096#p8098096

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/change- ... s-windows/

You don't neeed access to the old network device -you only need its MAC-adress, which Waves Central will tell you
(Licenses -> disconneted devices - the row of numbers and letters below the device name is the MAC adress)

If you can't change the MAC adress (sometimes it's not possible with some devices), you somehow need to add another "network adapter" . That may be a USB-Wifi adapter or some WIFI-Routers register as network adapter too (which is part of why the Waves method is so stupid - Waves Central may believe that the machine changed just because you use a different method to connect to the internet - I kid you not - happened to me). You can then move the licences to the cloud, remove the adapter and afterwards move them back to the machine.

So far I always managed to (re-)access my licenses in the end, once even after a computer had died on me which they were sitting on and even though the machine I wanted to use them on did not let me change the MAC adress of its built-in WIFI-adapter (Lenovo laptop iIrc)

[commerce]

See here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=533824&p=8098096#p8098096

Thank you.

I have tried it (before writing my first post) with my internal Wi-Fi, but the MAC address is still the same. I will have to find an external Wi-Fi and try it again.

[jens]

You can try and see what happens if you disable you WIFI-adapter in Window's Device Manager...

[gondii]

Interesting. Waves seems to work fine, but my Adobe Creative Cloud has recognized my Laptop as a "new ID" yesterday.

[Greybox Audio]

As long as at least one of the affected plugins has WUP coverage, make sure to contact tech support!
They are usually pretty fast and helpful and should be able to help you recover your licenses without affecting your yearly recovery limit.