Thoughts on Ilok?

[Adinoff]

Cannot stand it, if a plugin has ILOK im not buying it

I couldn't imagine going without Eventide, East West Opus, or Relab LX480.

Wow i was thinking of purchasing East West, i didn't know it had ILOK

[BONES]

This is not quite true. I'm going through a "License Reset Request" right now. A BIOS update locked me out of my old Windows installation and i had to reinstall my OS. I've sent the request to deauthorize those inaccessible licenses on Monday this week, a few vendors responded very timely in 1 to 2 days, while the other half of my plugins is still not deauthorized a week later. Looks like i will have to contact those companies to get things hopefully moving.

Have you contacted iLok? Because when I did they responded overnight with a full reset of all my activations.

[nitex]

This is not quite true. I'm going through a "License Reset Request" right now. A BIOS update locked me out of my old Windows installation and i had to reinstall my OS. I've sent the request to deauthorize those inaccessible licenses on Monday this week, a few vendors responded very timely in 1 to 2 days, while the other half of my plugins is still not deauthorized a week later. Looks like i will have to contact those companies to get things hopefully moving.

Have you contacted iLok? Because when I did they responded overnight with a full reset of all my activations.

I have used the iLok "In-App" feature to report those licenses to be reset. There was a form where you described the problem and why those licenses are not accessible anymore. From my understanding this notifies the plugin vendors and they need to approve it. I got a summary mail directly after with all reported plugins and then every now and then a mail came in, when a vendor approved the reset. In those mails is also the following mentioned:

Here's what you need to do:

- Keep tabs on the progress of your request by looking at the details for the computer in iLok License Manager. You'll know that the software publisher has approved your request if the status of your activation changes from Reset Requested to Reset Approved.
- Once a reset is approved, you will be notified via email so that you can activate the license(s) to another location.
- You may need to contact the software publishers and ask them to approve your reset request.

For my case it's mostly inMusic brand plugins which are missing and one other vendor, so i will try to contact them next week, see if that helps. If those vendors are not reliable i will certainly try contacting iLok directly again.

[jamcat]

Cannot stand it, if a plugin has ILOK im not buying it

I couldn't imagine going without Eventide, East West Opus, or Relab LX480.

Wow i was thinking of purchasing East West, i didn't know it had ILOK

Something else to know about it is EW gives you 10 authorizations for Opus/Play, but only 1 authorization per library. You can purchase more licenses which are less than full price, but it’s actually cheaper to buy the whole library again on sale.

[BONES]

I have used the iLok "In-App" feature to report those licenses to be reset.

I didn't do that, I just emailed them, told them my problem and they reset all my activations. So was your problem with licenses or activations? i.e. Was it a case of no activations left or had licenses actually disappeared from your iLok account?

[sQeetz]

Cannot stand it, if a plugin has ILOK im not buying it

I couldn't imagine going without Eventide, East West Opus, or Relab LX480.

Neither could I without anything from Pulsar or Softube.
Never had a problem with ilok, ever. transfering all my licenses from Windows to the Mac about 2 years ago was a breeze .

[MJACau]

For my case it's mostly inMusic brand plugins which are missing and one other vendor, so i will try to contact them next week, see if that helps. If those vendors are not reliable i will certainly try contacting iLok directly again.

I'm so sorry this happen to you, I hope they get back to you.

[nitex]

I have used the iLok "In-App" feature to report those licenses to be reset.

I didn't do that, I just emailed them, told them my problem and they reset all my activations. So was your problem with licenses or activations? i.e. Was it a case of no activations left or had licenses actually disappeared from your iLok account?

Maybe a direct mail would've been the better choice at the time, but since the iLok Manager directly offered to report those inaccessible activations it seemed the right way to go at the time to me.

When looking at my screenshot from earlier there is 2 times the same PC listed. The greyed out one is my old Windows installation, old BIOS, same PC, the black one is my new installation, new BIOS same PC, no hardware changes or anything else. Technically no licenses "disappeared". The iLok Manager just thinks i have another PC running with those plugins. Upon installing fresh my PC got a new Location ID assigned. For vendors giving more activations than one i could technically activate them but would lose the remaining activation, the plugins offering only one activation i'd have lost till the reset is approved. What i'm trying now is basically to deactivate activations from the ghost machine to be able to use my activations fully again on my actual PC, which is the same as said.

Not sure how this Location ID is computed, as there is literally no change to any hardware at all, just one letter in my BIOS version number changed. Having a hardware iLok key would've also saved me from that, but i don't have 50 bucks just lying around to spend on copy protection.

I've been building PCs since the 90s and so far never had a BIOS update interfere with a Windows installation, lesson learned i guess. Windows 11 and it's bind to TPM seems to have changed this. After the update i got a message on the Windows logon screen my PIN was invalidated and i shall assign a new one. For this to work it wanted internet access which it told me is not accessible for some reason. Tried a Linux boot and there the connection was just fine. I was stuck in the logon screen with no way to figure out why it wouldn't have an internet connection, safe boot wasn't possible either, same problem. Tried a repair install, but that failed due to a version mismatch of the downloaded Windows medium compared to the installed one. So in the end i used the Linux boot to copy over the contents of my system drive to a backup and installed everything fresh. Quite a hassle all this.

Cannot stand it, if a plugin has ILOK im not buying it

I couldn't imagine going without Eventide, East West Opus, or Relab LX480.

Neither could I without anything from Pulsar or Softube.
Never had a problem with ilok, ever. transfering all my licenses from Windows to the Mac about 2 years ago was a breeze .

For what it's worth: Eventide, GRM Tools, Softube AB, Soundtoys and UVI all responded and reset everything pretty quick. No complaints here.

[dblock]

Been using it for 15years. Never had a problem. I don't take it anywhere though. It just sits there.
One thing I love is that I just got a new computer and I didn't have to look for a bunch of serial numbers to activate a couple hundred plugins. Just plug it in and go.

[electro]

Been using it for 15years. Never had a problem. I don't take it anywhere though. It just sits there.

That's the key. Treat a dongle like cash. Be vigilant if it has to go somewhere else. Also transporting a dongle introduces a damage risk. Getting dropped, then stepped on and you're in trouble.

[pierb]

I don't like iLok and it's really a factor I consider when buying products. Given two similar products I will always choose the one without iLok.

I sold all my UVI stuff and was really happy to become less dependent on it. I still have some Eventide products but I would sell those in a heartbeat if I could find some non-iLok replacements.

It's completely useless, like those anti piracy adverts on physical Blurays you've payed for (yeah some people still buy physical media). Everything is cracked and pirated eventually. Why not give the best possible experience to your paying customers?

Plenty of successful plugin companies like U-He, FabFilter, Spectrasonics, KiloHearts, Spitfire, Native Instruments, etc, don't use iLok and are doing just fine.

[SLiC]

I just had to reinstall (reset) windows as it wouldn’t boot….all Ilok licences lost 110 of them…I can see them, just can’t use them even though it’s the same machine…I hate ilok, I did nothing wrong and now have to beg for a reset and ilok just sent an email saying I may have to contact each company separately…I won’t buy anything in the future that needs ilok and I only have it as I have EW Play, eventide and UVI…

The dongle has the issue it can only be on one computer at a time, I suspect many of us have laptops and a DAW that lives in the studio…continuously swapping is not a good solution…

[ghettosynth]

I just had to reinstall (reset) windows as it wouldn’t boot….all Ilok licences lost 110 of them…I can see them, just can’t use them even though it’s the same machine…I hate ilok, I did nothing wrong and now have to beg for a reset and ilok just sent an email saying I may have to contact each company separately…I won’t buy anything in the future that needs ilok and I only have it as I have EW Play, eventide and UVI…

The dongle has the issue it can only be on one computer at a time, I suspect many of us have laptops and a DAW that lives in the studio…continuously swapping is not a good solution…

Um, buy two dongles. If you have more than one activation, you put the second activation on a different dongle. I use this to great effect. I have one dongle on my main machine and then one that is portable so that I can use it on other machines. For example, I often take it to my video production machine so that I can use some audio effects that I only use from time to time to clean up dialogue. Or, I can take it with me on a lanyard so that I can use certain effects live.

Hard drives can become unbootable, especially if you're not tech-savvy to begin with.

[plexuss]

I just had to reinstall (reset) windows as it wouldn’t boot….all Ilok licences lost 110 of them…I can see them, just can’t use them even though it’s the same machine…I hate ilok, I did nothing wrong and now have to beg for a reset and ilok just sent an email saying I may have to contact each company separately…I won’t buy anything in the future that needs ilok and I only have it as I have EW Play, eventide and UVI…

The dongle has the issue it can only be on one computer at a time, I suspect many of us have laptops and a DAW that lives in the studio…continuously swapping is not a good solution…

Um, buy two dongles. If you have more than one activation, you put the second activation on a different dongle. I use this to great effect. I have one dongle on my main machine and then one that is portable so that I can use it on other machines. For example, I often take it to my video production machine so that I can use some audio effects that I only use from time to time to clean up dialogue. Or, I can take it with me on a lanyard so that I can use certain effects live.

Hard drives can become unbootable, especially if you're not tech-savvy to begin with.

I also do this. I paid about $45 for two 2nd dongle/keys and for licenses with at least 2 activations, I put the each on each key. I don't use machine activation because of the issues related to the computer dying in a way I can't get at the licenses and having to do all the work to try and recover them. I don't have enough cloud licenses to bother with having a copy on the cloud although that would also be some recoverable redundancy.

The issue of unrecoverable licenses due to system failure is not just a risk of iLok - some other non-iLok licenses also are at risk of this. Trust me I know I went through it.

[jamcat]

You have a better chance of losing a 2nd dongle than you do of your computer dying.
If you're going to use a USB key, you should only use it on a stationary workstation (never a laptop!), and you should plug it into one of these inside your computer:

USB-A

https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Female-M ... B0878S6BD5

or

USB-C

https://www.amazon.com/Duttek-Converter ... B09M8J7CNW

That way, there is no chance of anyone walking off with it.