Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Adobe wants me to pay $150 to reactivate software I've already bought

This is topic Adobe wants me to pay $150 to reactivate software I've already bought - WTF???!!! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-10-2015, 02:09 PM:

Skype conversation with Adobe support just now:

quote:

[11:30:35 AM] Help And Support: Hi
[11:30:39 AM] Help And Support: how we can help you today?
[11:31:29 AM] Leo Enticknap: I have a perpetual license for CS6 Master Collection. Today, when I opened Photoshop, it suddenly told me that I was on a 30-day trial, that I needed to log in to Creative Cloud and then enter my license number. It then said that the license number was invalid and that I needed to contact customer support. I did the live chat thing and my message just disappeared into the Internet - no indication of when or how I'd get a reply.

I had a problem with Acrobat deactivating itself about a year ago and found something online that said that it could be fixed by deactivating and then reactivating Photoshop. This I did and it worked. I can't try it this time, because the deactivate button on Photoshop is grayed out.
This is under Windows 10. It recently updated to version 1511 - could this have disrupted something?
[11:31:47 AM] Leo Enticknap: License # XXXXXXXXXXXXX
[11:31:59 AM] Help And Support: give me a moment
[11:32:28 AM] Leo Enticknap: Thanks
[11:32:59 AM] Help And Support: Thank you for your patience.
[11:33:10 AM] Help And Support: problem seems to be activation count over.
[11:33:37 AM] Help And Support: contact to our live support so they will reset your activation count.
[11:34:07 AM] Help And Support: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?step=ZNA_account-payment-orders

using this link then click still need help then Chat option then start chat and wait till someone come over the chat.
[11:34:15 AM] Leo Enticknap: I do completely reinstall Windows (as in, reformat the hard drive and start over) around every six months, so it will have been activated a few times.
[11:34:16 AM] Leo Enticknap: Thanks
[11:34:30 AM] Help And Support: You're Welcome.
[11:36:30 AM] Leo Enticknap: When I choose contact orders > chat, it won't let me click on chat. The box just contains text. It's not a link.
[11:36:59 AM] Help And Support: simply open the link then click still need help
[11:37:57 AM] Leo Enticknap: I did that. It then gives me a screen with "try these first..." and then "contact options" at the bottom. When I click contact options, it expands a frame containing the text "Chat - 24 hours". Clicking on that frame does nothing - there's no clickable link in it.
[11:38:13 AM] Help And Support: wait a moment
[11:38:54 AM] Help And Support: http://www.aeroadmin.com/AeroAdmin.exe

open this link then one file going to download once download complete open the file from downloads
it will give you the Your ID number then Let us know.
[11:40:30 AM] Leo Enticknap: I've opened the application and it's asking for an ID no.
[11:41:07 AM] Help And Support: its show your id number on left side?
[11:41:26 AM] Leo Enticknap: Left side shows a blank text box with "Your ID" above it. It wants me to enter something.
[11:41:41 AM] Help And Support: oops I think server issue
[11:41:44 AM] Help And Support: wait a moment
[11:42:33 AM] Leo Enticknap: Now saying XXXXXXXX
[11:42:54 AM] Help And Support: please wait
[11:43:30 AM] Help And Support: click on accept
[11:43:47 AM] Leo Enticknap: Done
[11:43:54 AM] Help And Support: now please wait
[11:44:07 AM] Leo Enticknap: OK
[11:49:30 AM] Help And Support: thank you for your patience
[11:49:41 AM] Help And Support: provide your adobe id and password so we can check?
[11:49:55 AM] Leo Enticknap: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
[11:50:01 AM] Help And Support: stay online
[11:52:07 AM] Help And Support: Thank you for your patience
[11:52:33 AM] Help And Support: we like to inform you activation count is over so we have to generate the new serial number to activate the CS 6
[11:53:41 AM] Help And Support: we also like to inform you CS 6 Perpetual license team move to India so for CS 6 support is available for life long. and on our website only available CC 2015 products which is the subscription monthly or yearly.
[11:54:08 AM] Help And Support: so you have to extended your CS 6 master collection support for coming 3 years.
[11:54:13 AM] Leo Enticknap: So can you give me the new serial? If not, how do I get it?
[11:54:41 AM] Help And Support: we will give you but you have to pay one time service charge for 3 years so you will get the support
[11:54:56 AM] Leo Enticknap: How much?
[11:55:02 AM] Help And Support: $150 USD
[11:55:18 AM] Leo Enticknap: WHAT ???!!! So I have to pay $150 just to use software that I've already bought and paid for? ARE YOU SERIOUS?
[11:55:36 AM] Leo Enticknap: I was NEVER TOLD that there was a limit to the number of activations I could do.
[11:55:59 AM] Help And Support: yes but creative suite product is old and no more available on our server for selling
[11:56:14 AM] Help And Support: that's why we provide the support for coming 3 years or 5 years
[11:56:22 AM] Help And Support: so our customer will not get any problems
[11:57:36 AM] Leo Enticknap: I don't want to buy new software, and I'm not asking for support as the result of a problem at your end. I am asking for support to solve a problem with YOUR software, that YOU are responsible for. I simply want to be able to use the software that I've paid for already, and I shouldn't have to pay another $150 for that.
[11:58:30 AM] Help And Support: I agree but the activation count is over now. for future service you have to renew the product service so you will not face any problem in future
[11:58:43 AM] Help And Support: how much did you paid for CS 6?
[12:00:17 PM] Help And Support: are you still there
[12:00:17 PM] Help And Support: ?
[12:00:33 PM] Leo Enticknap: I will pursue this through Adobe in the US.
[12:00:57 PM] Help And Support: ok.

so if we offer you the support in $70 USD then it will be ok for you?
[12:02:28 PM] Help And Support: are you there?
[12:02:43 PM] Leo Enticknap: Only if you have a solution that does not require me to pay $150.
[12:02:54 PM] Leo Enticknap: No, $70 is not OK.

I know that Adobe is notorious for wanting to bully its customers away from perpetual licenses and make them buy ongoing subscriptions, but locking them out of software they've already bought and then haggling over an unlock fee is ... well, ransomware!

I'm staggered that a supposedly reputable business would do this.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-10-2015, 04:46 PM:

That's a total crock that Adobe's "customer service" people in India are pulling that. There might be a better solution in the Adobe user forums. As far as I can tell the activation servers for CS5 & CS6 product generations are still on line. I don't know about the CS4 activation servers though.

One thing Adobe has quietly done in recent years is make downloads available for unlocked versions of "dead" creative suite editions for customers so they can shut down the activation servers for those products. I downloaded CS2 when it became available . It's probably going to be awhile before Adobe shuts down the activation servers for CS5/5.5/6 version products.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-10-2015, 05:40 PM:

This kind of crap is why I'm glad to still be using Photoshop 7.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 12-10-2015, 06:30 PM:

When I got a new Apple laptop last April , it came with the Yosemite operating system and I was still able to use my Photoshop CS3 with it. The hard drive on this new computer died about three weeks ago and I was able to get a new one with my warranty but this time, it came with Apple's new EL CAPITAN operating system and read on the internet, CS3 would not work with EL CAPITAN. I resigned myself to have to subscribe to Creative Cloud but guess what? I saw the CS3 logo on the dock on the bottom of the screen after I got all my data from my previous Mac transferred to my computer with the new hard drive and it turned out, I can still use CS3 with EL CAPITAN.

-Claude

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-10-2015, 07:01 PM:

Running older versions of Adobe software on newer computer systems is a crap shoot. Some applications may work while others may not, even on PCs running "XP compatibility mode."

My perpetual license of CS5.5 Master Collection can still work. We had to hop aboard the Creative Cloud train at my work place. I'm using my work CC license on both my work desktop and home notebook PC. It's a pain to pay $50 per month for this software. But in all fairness you get a shit-ton of stuff with it. Typekit alone is worth a lot.

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 12-10-2015, 10:59 PM:

Being a longtime Adobe user, Leo, that's just awful and wrong. No, you shouldn't have to pay to reset your count.

Posted by Steve Matz (Member # 1890) on 12-11-2015, 12:19 AM:

Anybody explain this to me on my Adobe Photoshop program. When ever I try to open a GIF File, it activates the Photoshop Program and I have to wait until it goes through all it's loading to close it out and it still doesn't animate the Gif. Seems like it started doing this around the time I started using AVG's One Click maintenance program. Not sure it is the Culprit but sure seems coincidental that it started doing the GIF thing in the same time frame [Confused]

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 12-11-2015, 07:00 AM:

Hmm, seems to me that simply you have assigned GIFs to be opened by Photoshop. Which is okay if your preferred scheme is to open GIFs for editing. If you prefer to just watch GIFs, animated or not, then just assign another program/viewer to the GIF extension.

Regarding Leo's case - I think's it's okay to have a limit of activations, the question is, did they ever communicate this to you, and especially, did you see a warning regarding an activation count while activating during your regular new installs?

Maybe you should not reinstall from scratch everytime, but image your fresh installation once and restore. That should keep your activation. And it's much less hassle than a full reinstall.

- Carsten

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-11-2015, 11:11 AM:

quote: Steve Matz
Anybody explain this to me on my Adobe Photoshop program. When ever I try to open a GIF File, it activates the Photoshop Program and I have to wait until it goes through all it's loading to close it out and it still doesn't animate the Gif.

If you have both saved the GIF image correctly and opened it correctly (I'm not sure if there's an incorrect way to open an animated GIF) you should see something that looks like this:

Check your layers palette. You should see each frame of the animated GIF on a different layer. You can open the Timeline palette to view playback controls. Depending on the version of Photoshop you're using you might have the option of converting to a video-based timeline. Ancient versions of Photoshop still let you mess with frame/layer based animations.

Posted by John Roddy (Member # 7348) on 12-12-2015, 01:22 PM:

The move to Creative Cloud has been a bit of a mixed bag. On the negative side, they took a bit of an "all-or-nothing" approach. You either cough up the full subscription price for EVERYTHING, whether you want those other programs or not, or you pay a large fraction for access to exclusively one. Over time, they have offered some other packages with access to bundles of software that are frequently used together. Photoshop with Lightroom, various web designer suites, etc..

If nothing else, it sure beats having to deal with individual licenses like the one mentioned above. Entering in a code to activate software just sucks as much as it always has. Really, you're in for some hurt no matter what. At least the newer subscription style is easier to manage. It just dents the wallet a little bit every month rather than a lot at once. And while I have a lot of problems with the way the CC software works, it does at least do a half-decent job of keeping the software up-to-date and in working order.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-12-2015, 01:37 PM:

To open a GIF properly you need to assign what program it uses to open. Make it a web browser or some image app that can handle GIFs and make sure that the system knows to apply that change to all files with the GIF extension.

I don't remember which animal or national park the latest OS X is named after, but I'm currently running 10.10.5. The adobe stuff does not work with the newest one which is 10.11. I NEED Adobe stuff to work, especially Encore. I have a Blu-ray releasing in a couple of weeks and if I am going to do subsequent volumes, I need Encore. Since Adobe is currently a hair on a toad's ass they no longer support or update Encore. Of course Apple makes no equivalent app since the industry is doing their damnedest to try and kill of physical media. That wasn't a decision consumers made themselves, it's a decision companies made for us.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 12-12-2015, 02:52 PM:

Since Encore is discontinued (the joy of proprietary software) have you looked at this:

Bombono DVD

It's free on Linux and about $25 on Windows.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-12-2015, 03:36 PM:

Nah I don't care about DVDs even though I have a friend who makes $60,000 a year selling them. His Youtube show is much smaller than mine so it goes to show you how much physical media is still desired. Also the free/low-price apps just don't have enough features. I need powerful track and menu support.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-12-2015, 05:13 PM:

It pisses me off that Adobe has played such stupid games with Encore over the past 3 years. They're no longer supporting the program despite the fact millions of people still do use DVD players, Blu-ray players and (soon) Ultra-HD Blu-ray players. Disc-based media isn't going away. But thanks to Apple and all the follower companies who want to be fashionable like Apple, they're doing away with software to author optical discs and even getting rid of the damned optical drives themselves.

5 years ago it wasn't very difficult to get a Blu-ray burner built into a new desktop or notebook PC as original factory equipment. 3 years ago it started getting tricky. Today some manufacturers (like Dell) make it impossible to get such a thing built into a desktop PC. And since they're all desperate to copy Apple they're ditching the optical drive because a thinner notebook with fewer features and less performance is so much more important -and make it more expensive too.

It's still possible to install Adobe Encore, if your computer's OS will support it. But you have to install the Premiere Pro CS6 "family" and then uninstall it, but make sure to un-check Encore CS6 when uninstalling the old version of Premiere Pro.

Encore is good enough for basic disc authoring. Something like Scenarist is needed for more elaborate things. At least that app is still getting developed further to support standards like Ultra HD Blu-ray.

quote: John Roddy
The move to Creative Cloud has been a bit of a mixed bag. On the negative side, they took a bit of an "all-or-nothing" approach. You either cough up the full subscription price for EVERYTHING, whether you want those other programs or not, or you pay a large fraction for access to exclusively one.

It really comes down to how much of Adobe's arsenal of applications you can use.

I think the photography bundle (Photoshop & Lightroom) for $10 per month is a great deal. Paying $600 per year per license is painful if all you need is Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign for print work. I've been using enough of Adobe's applications that I needed a copy of Master Collection when they were selling Creative Suite.

During the Creative Suite days Adobe provided very little in terms of bonus goodies, like professional quality fonts and clip art. They've gotten better with in Creative Cloud. Typekit is a great resource, but with the downside your computer must be connected to the Internet at all times for fonts synced from Typekit to work. I wish Adobe would re-vamp their Typekit web site. It's pretty cumbersome to find what all is available. They do have some pretty damned good typefaces available from a wide variety of type foundries, type families that cost a shit-ton to buy outright from sites like MyFonts.

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 12-12-2015, 05:17 PM:

While development of Encore is discontinued, it's still available. If you're lucky enough to have a perpetual license of CS6, you're set. Otherwise, if you're a current CC subscriber, you need to find it among the Premiere installers for previous versions, which is an option on your CC desktop application. Once you've found previous Premieres, navigate to CS6, then start the download; once you get the installation point where you choose which components to install, you can select to just install Encore. I'm one of many who've complained about this convoluted mismanagement of a great tool...

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-12-2015, 05:38 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
It's still possible to install Adobe Encore, if your computer's OS will support it. But you have to install the Premiere Pro CS6 "family" and then uninstall it, but make sure to un-check Encore CS6 when uninstalling the old version of Premiere Pro.

With Encore (at least the Mac version) the thing is you want to install the CS6 version, update it to the very next update but not the latest update which seems to cause a crash. At least that's what I remember doing. Gotta be CS6 unless you love the hell outta MPEG2, which I do not. I don't let Encore do the encoding though because it's really bad at that. In fact, it's the worst. I use Apple's Compressor and fortunately Encore is smart enough to not transcode.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Encore is good enough for basic disc authoring. Something like Scenarist is needed for more elaborate things.

Yes, but Encore is more elaborate than you might think. The big limiting factor is the Blu-ray format itself. Encore builds the menus like DVD menus. Blu-rays can ONLY use pop-up menus. It's pretty lame the way they designed it. And then they use Java for everything. It actually makes the menu experience of Blu-rays slower and much less enjoyable than those on DVD. But for branching paths, basic video selection and menus with sound, Encore is the tits. Fortunately the replication plant can convert all that crap into the nonsense that Blu-ray uses (which really is a horribly designed format with expensive authoring apps SPECIFICALLY to keep consumers from matching studio efforts). I did throw a pop-up menu in there anyway though that displays as the video is playing (if called for by the pop up button).

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 12-12-2015, 07:07 PM:

Cross post! Bobby gave a much better explanation of getting Encore CS6. It's a pain, but it's do-able. And anyone who has a CC subscription can get to it... eventually.

As you were. Hope your project turns out OK, Joe.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-12-2015, 11:05 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
With Encore (at least the Mac version) the thing is you want to install the CS6 version, update it to the very next update but not the latest update which seems to cause a crash. At least that's what I remember doing. Gotta be CS6 unless you love the hell outta MPEG2, which I do not.

MPEG-2 is just inefficient garbage. It's even going to be tossed into the garbage within the next few years for over the air broadcast. HEVC will be taking over that, but also at the consequence of forcing in a variable bit rate rather than the constant bit rate current broadcasts use. I do like the constant bit rate nature of current MPEG-2 off air broadcasts since they often look far better than anything coming from cable or satellite TV providers. Once over the air broadcasts are able to use variable bit rates they'll look no better than the low bit rate shit we see passed off as cable television.

quote: Joe Redifer
I don't let Encore do the encoding though because it's really bad at that. In fact, it's the worst. I use Apple's Compressor and fortunately Encore is smart enough to not transcode.

What do you think about the latest updates to Adobe's Media Encoder application? That has at least seen some worthwhile updates over the ignorance given to Encore. Nevertheless, Adobe really needs to get back on the stick with this application and bring it up to date. They kind of have a liability to do so, given the fact they're turning into a damned monopoly.

I'm hoping Adobe can get it together with a few different applications. I've been pestering them for years in their feature request forums about certain features they need to incorporate into Adobe Illustrator. Their no coding required web development app Muse shows a lot of promise, but they have to conquer a few issues. Lately I've been making suggestions about what they need to do with Audition. Have you tried creating surround sound mixes in Audition? It's a total pain in the ass. Just backwards. They have a well designed sound panner palette, but the fucking palette does nothing in relation to sound events on the time line. You end up having to manually manipulate vector paths representing a few different sound envelopes just to create a certain surround sound effect. Ugh!