Pro Tools 9 suddenly became unauthorized

[dBSaxMan]

I just had an hour of my time wasted and experienced great annoyance because after 2 or 3 months of using my brand-new, out of the box ProTools 9 software, suddenly on a Saturday morning (when Avid phone support is closed), my ProTools 9 software wouldn't launch, because it said it's not authorized. On page 9 of the Pro Tools Software Installation Guide, it clearly says "If you purchased a new boxed version of Pro Tools [which I did], it comes with a pre-authorized iLok. You can skip this section and proceed with "Installing Pro Tools Software" on page 11.

All went well for a few months, then this morning, I get an error saying Pro Tools is not authorized. It says you can "insert the activation card" to authorize. Don't have one. Tried to get support. All closed. Tried to get an ASC code. Got one. Tried to enter it. Got an error: "invalid user". I am fully registered, etc.

So essentially, what seems to have happened is that my so-called "pre-authorized iLok" had expired, somehow. There's nothing in the documentation (as far as I can see) that says you have to go to iLok and get it authorized. But, you do. I had an old iLok on my old G5. So I had an account with iLok. After lots of fiddling with iLok.com (e.g. they don't support the Firefox 4 browser, so I had to do it with Safari), and resetting my 6 year old password and account on iLok.com, I downloaded their client installer and their driver, re-inserted my iLok, and it detected that I was authorized to use Pro Tools 9.

All I wanted to do was fire up Pro Tools and work on my music. But instead I got sucked into authorization hell for an hour. There is obviously either a) a bug in the software which causes the so-called pre-authorized iLok authorization to expire; or b) an error in the installer guide, which should read "you need to go to iLok.com and authorize your iLok".

[Park Seward]

You didn't list your computer, RAM, or OS version. It would be helpful.

Yes, it would seem you would need to go to iLok but I didn't see that in the installation manual either.

Did you try to update the app and perhaps tried to load PT HD? Was anything changed in the computer?

This is the first time have read about an iLok "expiring".

[dBSaxMan]

Originally Posted by Park Seward

You didn't list your computer, RAM, or OS version. It would be helpful.

Yes, it would seem you would need to go to iLok but I didn't see that in the installation manual either.

Did you try to update the app and perhaps tried to load PT HD? Was anything changed in the computer?

This is the first time have read about an iLok "expiring".

Hi Park, thanks for replying. I'm new to this forum and it asked for my OS etc when I joined, though I guess one would have to dig to find that info. But for the record it's a MacPro with 8GB ram, OS 10.6.7. No, I didn't update the app recently (although a few weeks ago I did download an update to Pro Tools; however I've run it quite a few times since then without any authorization problems). I haven't tried loading PT HD, it's just version 9 (and with the update, the version is 9.0.2). The whole thing just seems inconsistent; if it's true that the iLok is really pre-authorized, there should be no need to go to iLok.com; the fact that my going there solved my problem suggests that Avid's "pre-authorized iLok" scheme is not really working as they think it is. Or yeah, maybe as you're suggesting, perhaps the fact that I updated to 9.0.2 somehow flipped the flag that says I am authorized, and maybe it gave me 30 days of authorization then killed it. In any case, it's a pain. And it'd be hard to imagine I'm the only one who gets this problem; I'm just a Pro Tools newbie who bought it off the shelf and installed it out of the box. The only quirk in my case is I had a previous iLok account, but the Pro Tools entry wasn't even listed until I went through re-installing and re-authorizing the new iLok.

[Park Seward]

Seems that iLok needs to know who bought that version of PT. So you should set up an account for the license if you don't already have one.

But the installation instructions don't talk about that.

Yes, upgrading may change the authorization.

[therealak]

my iLok did the same thing yesterday... not for an hour. the authorize screen loaded but it was like...like a bad tv there were white lines across it and it was dulled.. weird.. just saying, server may have gone down or something? interesting. i quit protools, unplugged and re-plugged my iLok and launched protools without a problem.

[dBSaxMan]

The plot thickens... I tried to launch Pro Tools just now and got an error saying no iLok authorization could be found. I groaned. I verified my iLok is plugged in. I went to the iLok web site and fiddled around for a minute but didn't actually do anything. Then I tried to re-launch Pro Tools and it launched. The iLok website says my Pro Tools authorization never expires.

[bradch00]

Is your iLok plugged in directly or through a hub? (if a hub, have you tried it directly and... what else, if anything, is plugged into the hub?)...
Is it an "original" iLok or an iLok2?

[dBSaxMan]

Gee, it just keeps getting better and better. Another authorization error today; so I called Avid tech support, who basically told me it's an iLok problem, they haven't heard any reports of this, try reverting to 9.0. Nice. Really helpful. I said I paid 500 pounds for this program, and you do have a report of it now, I'm reporting it. Avid was not helpful.

[dBSaxMan]

@Brad, no my iLok's not plugged in through a hub. Avid asked me if I'd tried it with more than one port. I have.

[dBSaxMan]

Okay... I hereby acknowledge it... I'm an idiot. This was purely user error on my part. In the end the problem was I DID have my iLok in a hub... but it was the OLD iLok. I didn't think that mattered because the new iLok with the Pro Tools authorization was plugged directly into a USB port. But what was happening, which I finally figured out by going to iLok.com and more carefully examining the error message that Pro Tools was giving me when I tried to launch... for some reason Pro Tools was trying to find the authorization on the old iLok. I thought it would be smart enough to see its authorization on the new iLok, but apparently it was getting confused by the presence of two iLoks. It was weird because I have an AltiVerb authorization on the old iLok, and when Pro Tools would run, it could see AltiVerb just fine and gave me no problems. Anyway what I ended up doing was using the utility on iLok's website to move all my authorizations onto the new iLok; I unplugged the old iLok completely; I reinstalled PT 9.0.2; it ran; then it told me there was a critical update so I downloaded and installed 9.0.3; now PT seems happy that I'm authorized and all is well. Apologies for wasting anybody and everybody's time with this. Regards, -Dave