Why do iLoks fail?

[Craig F]

anytime a device goes from off/sleep to on the voltages bounce a little until they settle in so a 5V USB rail might go up to 7V when first powered up

[jasonthurley]

Could be... since the power input usually caches to a degree into capacitors they should reduce this voltage surge though.

Its a piece of electronics, If you had 5 of these go down I would be concerned but you have 2 cases here and I have had and still have dozens of these Iloks... Only time I had an issue is when I had one crushed onto a wall when the computer was accidentally pushed into it and it was plugged into the back USB port.

The old green ones were much easier to crush, bend, break, but I find the newer Iloks to be build a bit more robust.

If you have had more than one failure in what seems to be a short amount of time for these devices you may try another USB port or if you have another buss (a 2nd usb circuit, like one set in the back and one set in the front) I would try it in another slot. The USB port is another circuit that could be going bad.

Good luck

[philgrab]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Most devices are not made to be powered up 24/7 for months at a time and that's probably what took out your iLok.

Computers my friend are designed to run for months if not years in a power on state. I think you are providing a lot of speculation. Name one other USB device that fails over time. There is only one instance I can think and that is the occasional USB hard drive. Generally however, that is not a port failure but a mechanical failure.

The jump in power state from sleep to operational is an interesting point but since other USB devices are attached and are not affected, even on the same USB port it indicates that there is possibly a design flaw in the Ilok which makes it more susceptible. The only failures at the USB connection in the last 3 years has been the two Iloks. That is suspicious, maybe not inherently designed but possibly design susceptible.

On a positive note, the Ilok people were very responsive in getting me a replacement and it's on the way. Hopefully I will have better luck this time around.

[ronwasserman]

Originally Posted by philgrab

Computers my friend are designed to run for months if not years in a power on state. I think you are providing a lot of speculation. Name one other USB device that fails over time. There is only one instance I can think and that is the occasional USB hard drive. Generally however, that is not a port failure but a mechanical failure.

The jump in power state from sleep to operational is an interesting point but since other USB devices are attached and are not affected, even on the same USB port it indicates that there is possibly a design flaw in the Ilok which makes it more susceptible. The only failures at the USB connection in the last 3 years has been the two Iloks. That is suspicious, maybe not inherently designed but possibly design susceptible.

On a positive note, the Ilok people were very responsive in getting me a replacement and it's on the way. Hopefully I will have better luck this time around.

Absolutely 100% correct.

I think you just had some bad luck. I've run about 10 iloks since their inception and never had one fail. They have mainly resided in 'always on' computers.

[Craig F]

of the things that are also blug in how many are bus powered vs. has it's own PSU and is only using the data pins

[Bill Denton]

+1 to everybody who suggested leaving everything "on" all of the time, and took the time to explain their reasoning.

In the IT world, we typically plug a server in, and it stays plugged in until it is taken out of service. And many shops follow the same regimen for their desktop machines.

And "turn it on and leave it on" has worked well for me...

[zedhed]

There must be thousands of iLoks in circulation around the world. It's a rare occasion someone comes here complaining about them failing for no apparent reason.

Storm in a teacup!

[musicman691]

I can see that servers are meant to run 24/7/365 but the typical machine used in a studio isn't meant to run like that. What I don't like about running electronics all the time that aren't meant for that is very few people really take into account the cooling/airflow issue that arise. Typical project studio isn't built to run that way.

Agreed there is less stress on components letting them run all the time because you don't get the turn on/off surges.

And if you do run 24/7/365 you had better have some good AC filtering and surge protection and protection from brownouts/blackouts. Switchmode power supplies don't much care but the only things running that type of supply are computers (Apple has pretty much from the beginning used switch mode supplies). Everything else is a typical linear power supply. AC power is really crappy.

Trust me when I say I've seen what can happen in a less than properly designed system when AC power gets funky. The damage it can cause down the chain from the wall socket to circuitry ain't pretty. References provided upon request.

What a lot of posters here are talking about are when there's a properly designed and installed system and that doesn't always happen.

[JFreak]

Most likely reason for iLok failure is physical abuse, which is why in 2014 the iLok should look like this instead of what it is now (granted, the 2nd gen key is much better than the original).

[NipL]

The chosen solution for authorization should be completely transparent to end user.

We are not prepared to fiddle with any crap solutions - and then lot's of excuses when it's not working - to use the actuall product that we bought.

So maybe a solution like Waves are more up to date - store on computer or any flash memory drive.

It's really scary with threads like this - to even consider Avid as vendor.

And about you should keep computer up at all times - not to get iLok power surge issues - that tops the list of rediculous excuses.

There are other things like memory management that really get messed up if computer never boot fresh in long periods. It's really asking for other issues - in my view.