HD 9 iLok Asset Upgrade Procedure

[Chief Technician]

Dear Avid,

I respectfully request that you revisit the process of upgrading existing HD licenses to v9 HD. I have ran into this problem five (5) times now, and I will run into it another six (6) times because I am upgrading eleven (11) HD systems.

Here is what is happening.

1. Visit avid.com/activation (OK)
2. Enter activation code (OK)
3. Choose what type of license you are upgrading (this is what needs to change)
4. Go to iLok.com to download the HD 9 license
5. Click the License Surrender Details link.

At this point, I see that either iLok or AVID has arbitrarily decided which iLok license I am upgrading. I have several iLoks with HD v7.4 licenses. However, I am never prompted to select which one I want to update to HD v9. Some computer system is arbitrarily picking an iLok with an HD v7.4 license and then forcing me to update that particular iLok. This is not cool. You need to provide users the ability to choose which iLok they want to update. Please find who is responsible for this (AVID or iLok) and bring it to their attention.

Thanks for reading.

[Avid]

I have several iLoks with HD 7.x and 8.x licenses on them. When I tested the upgrade process again a couple of weeks ago, on the Avid activation page, I was given a choice there of which version of HD licenses that I own that I wanted to surrender.

I see what you are saying, that at iLok.com, it tells you which iLok you can use.
I also see this at the bottom of the Download Licenses page:

Multiple licenses above require surrenders. However, you should do only one surrender at a time and with only the ilok required for the surrender attached. Otherwise if a matching license is found on a different ilok, it might be surrendered from there instead.

I'm wondering if that means that if you are only shown 1 iLok that you can use, if you are able to insert a different iLok, and hit the update (synchronize) button. Or if you can move your license to a different iLok, and then have that iLok be recognized.

The only thing that I can think of if you do not see all of your options on the Avid page (not the iLok.com site) during the activation process is if the query to iLok.com does not see all of your iLoks or licenses.

I would make sure that the license that you want to surrender is actually on an iLok, and not just in your iLok account not transferred to an iLok.

And that the iLok or iLoks that have those licenses have been synched recently on the same iLok account that you are entering during activation.

Once you do get to the iLok.com site to download your 9 license, I think you do need to have the correct iLok inserted in your USB port and recognized by iLok.com so you can do the surrender. You can use the "Move Licenses" feature at iLok.com to make sure you put the license you want to surrender is on the iLok that you want to initially put the PTHD 9 license on.

On the mid-left side of iLok.com when you are logged in, there is a button to update (synchronize) your iLok, which you may need to do before the iLok with the HD 7 or 8 license is recognized as being plugged in to your computer. See next item, which may be part or all of the problem....

Since I updated to the official release of Firefox 4 for Mac, some functions at www.iLok.com are not working correctly for me. I don't have the same issues with Safari (latest version).

On Firefox 4, it shows this on the left side of the page with my iLok inserted:

Found iLoks
Your ilok.com software needs to be updated. Get new software before doing any ilok operations.

This is not the case, my iLok client software is up to date (v3.4 for Mac).

On Safari, with the exact same iLok inserted, the left side shows this:

Found iLoks
HD3 iLok
Update (synchronize)

This may also be an issue on Google as well as Firefox, but I know it works correctly on Safarii if you are using a Mac.

[Chief Technician]

Avid,

Thank you for responding. My comments are inline below.

Originally Posted by Avid

I have several iLoks with HD 7.x and 8.x licenses on them. When I tested the upgrade process again a couple of weeks ago, on the Avid activation page, I was given a choice there of which version of HD licenses that I own that I wanted to surrender.

I am given this choice too. I am upgrading a system as I write this, and these are the steps I am going through.

1. Go to avid.com/activation
2. Login to my AVID account.
3. Enter my activation code.
4. Enter iLok user ID and core card serial number.
5. Please choose the product to be upgraded - HD 7, HD 7.2, HD 8, HD 7.3, HD 7.4 License, HD 7.3 Upgrade from 7.2.

The iLok I am using at this moment has HD 8, so I select HD 8 from this list. This iLok is also connected to this system at this moment. I have also just synchronized this iLok with iLok.com.

After clicking continue, the next page says to go to iLok.com to retrieve my license. I logged into iLok.com and clicked Download Licenses. I then clicked License Surrender Details for the HD 9 asset. The next page tells me to insert an iLok named MBox 2, not the iLok that I just synchronized with iLok.com (Studio H 8).

The only thing that I can think of if you do not see all of your options on the Avid page (not the iLok.com site) during the activation process is if the query to iLok.com does not see all of your iLoks or licenses.

If the options I listed above are all of the options that I should be seeing, then this is not the case.

I would make sure that the license that you want to surrender is actually on an iLok, and not just in your iLok account not transferred to an iLok.

The HD 8 license I want to surrender is indeed on this Studio H 8 iLok.

And that the iLok or iLoks that have those licenses have been synched recently on the same iLok account that you are entering during activation.

I synchronized it moments before submitting my information to AVID.

Once you do get to the iLok.com site to download your 9 license, I think you do need to have the correct iLok inserted in your USB port and recognized by iLok.com so you can do the surrender.

This is true. I think your definition and my definition of correct iLok are different.

You can use the "Move Licenses" feature at iLok.com to make sure you put the license you want to surrender is on the iLok that you want to initially put the PTHD 9 license on.

This is what I have been doing, but this is not a step I should have to go through.

On the mid-left side of iLok.com when you are logged in, there is a button to update (synchronize) your iLok, which you may need to do before the iLok with the HD 7 or 8 license is recognized as being plugged in to your computer. See next item, which may be part or all of the problem....

Synchronizing with iLok.com again did not change which iLok I need to surrender a license from.

I respectfully assert that something is choosing the iLok named Mbox 2 as the iLok I need to surrender from. I want to be given the option to choose which HD 8 license I am surrendering. It doesn't matter which HD 8 license I surrender as long as I surrender an HD 8 license, right? So why not let me choose which one to surrender instead of forcing me to surrender a particular one?

Thanks for reading.

[mtidmu]

I am having the same issue. iLok is sync'd and has a valid PT 8 HD license on it, but I do not have the option to use that iLok for PT 9 HD upgrade.

[Bill Denton]

Having noticed several of these issues posted on here, and doing just a little thinkiing, this becomes the question...

Is the "system" looking for the exact license associated with a given core card, or is it just looking for any HD license?

If Avid can answer that I think they will be answering all of the questions regarding this...

[mix109]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

Having noticed several of these issues posted on here, and doing just a little thinkiing, this becomes the question...

Is the "system" looking for the exact license associated with a given core card, or is it just looking for any HD license?

I also came across this issue that Chief Technician mentioned:That ilok requires
surrender/deliver to a specific ilok,and i also believe that Bill has a good point in his post,as in a recent crossgrade 8->9 it asked for a specific ilok that if i remember well was included in a HD1 package.
I think that it would be a good idea that Avid should change this sort of auth scheme instead.

[mix109]

Now that we have finally reached the 10th Grade ;-)
Any chance to get this issue fixed finally?_perhaps?

[mix109]

Dear Avid support,
As we are about to do a (10)Systems HD8->10HD Crossgrade(s) could you please clarify/verify that this issue has been resolved or not?
Thank you

[rdraudio]

I am having the same problem....have a show to do this weekend, and no response from ilok OR Avid.....can someone PLEASE resolve this.

[cathedral]

Dear Avid,

I have a similar problem. I own 1 version of PT 9 HD and 1 version of PT 9, which I bought this summer for usage on a Mac Book Pro.
Last week I purchased an Update for PT 9 (Not HD) to PT 10 (Not HD) to check it out on my Laptop.
When I tried to download my PT 10 license to my Ilok, Ilok tells me, It looks at my PT9HD and PT9 as a bundle and I can only update to PT 10 ( not HD) if I surrender the bundle.
But that would mean I´d lose my PT 9 HD License for my studio, would´nt it?

What am I missing? I don´t understand this.