New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Questions or discussions about the Titan and classic consoles and software.

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funkyant
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New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby funkyant » 15 Mar 2014, 10:12

While I totally empathise with Avolites regarding the problem of pirated software and even cheap Chinese clones of hardware, it really seems like the legitimate users are being penalised for this.

I had a large dance event in an outdoor venue in Dubai (permanent installation), full with 2000 people, with no other source of light besides the fixtures being controlled by our Tiger Touch, being left in the dark. No DMX output at all. Every fixture in the venue - no light output. One very unhappy venue owner and a lot of shouting and frantic rebooting. End result? Climb up the truss and manually put the LED Pars into Auto mode.

I highly suspect this is because of the new licensing system, as the console was just upgraded to 7.4 by the local distributor after a service.

Maybe the fault was not with the licensing, but when you are trying to troubleshoot a dead console on a live show full of punters, software licensing should not even be an issue in your mind on a console you paid 10 grand for. A hardware console should have a decent dongle (like Syncrosoft e-licenser) - not an ancient, retarded, question and answer licensing system which relies on an internet connection, phone, or any other device to get your expensive piece of hardware running. We even need to send pictures because it seems your software can't even correctly identify what hardware it's running on? Is this for real? The competitions software has also been cracked although granted we don't see any GrandMA or Hog4 hardware clones yet, but licensing for these consoles does not require the owner to jump through hoops to get the show on.

The type of customer who is going to buy a Tiger Touch clone probably chooses to do so because they do not have the budget to buy an Avolites console, so at the end of the day their choice was to buy a clone, or to buy a cheaper console. They were never going to be an Avolites customer anyway. So instead, your real customers are the ones being penalised with the new licensing system. And a quick read through the forums will confirm that there a quite a few of us having issues.

As an aside, in a permanent install, where everything is running happily, it is super annoying to get nag screens about out of date personalities when the rig has and will always stay the same (if we do something major with the rig, we will add personalities as needed). Now it seems we have to worry about expiring licenses on top of this?

Please Avolites, help us just do our job which is to make lights look pretty.
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niclights
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Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby niclights » 15 Mar 2014, 15:47

If the software has started it will not be a licensing issue. Once fully licensed it will remain so for the life of the console so this is not something to be concerned about.

Assuming the software was running I would be looking elsewhere - either a hardware failure or an external line fault. In terms of hardware it's possible that something bad happened electrically on the DMX line which might have caused a blown chip (designed to be sacrificial). Or it might just be something simple like a faulty cable. Both should be easy to diagnose - if you still cannot get output then try moving to a different output. This would prove if it was hardware. If output works correctly then it was probably a cable fault or similar. If you're still having problems with the console then get in touch with service ASAP.
funkyant
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Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby funkyant » 16 Mar 2014, 07:50

Crazy thing is Nic, that a rented replacement works with no issue, and now the Tiger Touch also works, but intermittently. On one boot the DMX is there, and on another it is not (Using the expert console). I even had one boot where the panels didn't work at all. So I'm guessing an internal USB cable or connection may be the issue. The console literally came back from a service the day before the gig.

But tech support wasn't the point of my post. The point was about the extra point of failure that this new licensing scheme introduces, which you seemed to just skip over.

You say that it will be registered for the life of the console but I can name a few circumstances where this just isn't true.

For example the console may be running on a temporary license. Or a catastrophic failure requiring a recovery. Or a simple upgrade to get rid of a bug, like the pan/ tilt swap bug that was killing us. What happens if the dongle disconnects mid show? I know it is highly improbable, but it's not impossible.

Ok YOU know that once the console is running that the license cannot be the issue, but I as an installer, system tech / end user do not. I can think of a few pieces of (non Avolites) software that had critical bugs introduced with new licensing systems, and knowing that there is some code in there somewhere designed to introduce garbage DMX for non-licensed versions, this is all floating in the back of your mind when the console has critically failed and the rest of the system checks out OK.

Again, I'm all for you guys protecting your intellectual property, but please work on making the whole licensing thing a bit more transparent.
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niclights
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Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby niclights » 16 Mar 2014, 16:19

The main reason I did not address your other comments was that I wanted to stick to the facts and focus on the real issue and how to solve it. I am also reluctant to get too involved in the general discussion as I am not necessarily the best person.

I do fully understand the realities of the situation being an LD myself primarily. In my experience there tends to be either 100% confidence or nothing. It only takes one issue to drop to nothing and I know there is not going to be time to do a logical investigation in the heat of battle. But I disagree that the licensing is a new potential point of failure. If there hadn't been the new licensing system then I'm sure the initial blame would have been something else in the new software. A huge amount of time and effort goes into testing before release to ensure you don't have to worry about it. Clearly some bugs do still somehow slip through the net despite this, for example the swap p/t issue, but nothing that is show-stopping. Like any change it will just take some time to settle. In a years time you will have forgotten all about it and no doubt there will be something else new to worry about instead.

To respond directly to some of the points raised:

- If the console is running on a temporary license it will work normally until the temporary license period is over. This limit should provide more than enough time to acquire a full license. Note that I did specifically say 'once fully licensed it will remain for the life of the console'.

- The license token will persist in a standard recovery. A full recovery will require re-licensing but normally this would only necessary if the hard drive has been changed.

- If a new license is required as a result of upgrading then as far as I am aware you should be able to get a temporary one again to ensure you have a console running without delay. However, generally it is advised that you leave adequate time for any software updates just in case. It is unlikely there would ever be a situation where you would need to upgrade in an emergency.

- In all cases there is always support available. In an emergency you can telephone the London office or the 24hr mobile number out of hours. You would not be left in a situation where you cannot use a genuine console because of the licensing.

Regarding the dongle, this has always been part of the system from the beginning so is not a new factor. There have been various ECN's that include hardware changes to ensure the dongle cannot come out accidentally. The 'pro' consoles provide further improvements to this. This is one of the reasons why it is vital that all relevant alterations and upgrades to hardware are performed and kept up-to-date.


Returning to the problems you are experiencing I agree it sounds like this is hardware as you suspect. Given that it has just been serviced I would immediately be contacting whoever serviced it and be questioning them as to why my 2000 cap event was left in darkness. In the meantime, the DIY options include opening and checking/reseating all connections. Further tests (particularly when in a failed state) would be to open Usb Expert Console and see what the status of the panels are. Try using the panel reset switch and see if they come back.

As for health check nagging you about personalities I tend to agree with you, but I guess there are more issues of people reporting 'bugs' that are actually due to out-of-date personality files. The library also contains the factory macros and shapes which you might miss out on. I'd prefer to have a 'do not display this again' type of option, at least just for personalities, but it might just cause more problems in the long run. The time frame for personalities health check is six months so it shouldn't be the end of the world to do this twice a year.
SLS
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Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby SLS » 16 Mar 2014, 19:30

Just to add my pennys worth, we have had problems ever since we upgraded to the 7 series of software. On very much the same as your, complete black out in mid show. Unable to get things back and ended up back with 6.1 taking 2 days
I agree whole harted that this is at the cost of ligit uses, we have 1 TT , 1 TM, 2 T one. Now I have to licence every laptop or PC I use with these and keep tabs with which one is licensed to which dongle/mobile panel.
We now use 6.1 and with regret will over the next year be moving to different platform. :cry:
Paul Heijkens
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Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby Paul Heijkens » 17 Mar 2014, 00:03

i upgrade today to 7.4

The temporarily code didn't work after rebooting the console

https://vimeo.com/89263359

password avolites
gis
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Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby gis » 18 Mar 2014, 09:32

Paul,
I also had the same problem while upgrading form 6.1 to 7.3 with Titan Mobile.
It blocked as yours, after the second start of the software (after full upgrade of software and TM firmware).

I do a complete uninstall of Titan PC Suite and then a new install of 7.3 and everything is good since then, also 7.4 upgrade.

PS. Paul I know yours is not a pc, just to point out you're not the only who experienced the problem. Hope it could help with bugs.
Paul Heijkens
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Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby Paul Heijkens » 18 Mar 2014, 22:43

Thank you for your post
I called Avolites but they didn't know what the problem was and set then they will call me back

I didn't get an answer yet but my own idea was to completely reinstall the software
And start over with a install 7.0 after that I will upgrade to 7.4.

I hope that the same token will work and that I do not have to request a new one
We will see
gis
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Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby gis » 19 Mar 2014, 06:35

Same token worked for me also for the second (re)installation.

Token should be machine-related so I think you won't have problem. I'm not sure if downgrading software is possible on Titan 7.x, let us know.
Paul Heijkens
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Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby Paul Heijkens » 21 Mar 2014, 00:31

Oke

After e-mail back and forth with Avolites I requested a new license.

immediately I received an e-mail with the temporary license and imported that on the console
And it works fine A couple of hours later I received your fool license and that also works.

So if you have any problems with the import of the token file
Just to request a new one it'll probably fix the problem.
funkyant
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Location: Ibiza, Spain

Re: New Licensing System. What it means to legitimate users.

Postby funkyant » 02 May 2014, 10:35

Just wanted to follow up with a positive comment.

New online activation for the software is much more streamlined.

Good to see Avolites is listening and improving. Keep it up.

Looking forward to that new shape generator :)

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