Error, missing PACE authorization for Pro Tools.

[rocketsurgery]

Hi everyone I've been beating my head against a wall for months with the "Error, missing PACE authorization for Pro Tools..." and been through the wringer. Hopefully this will save someone a massive headache.
I recently upgraded my trusty mobile rig to a "new" MPB & PT Ultimate. What a nightmare! Did the usual migration from my previous rig and kept getting the error message. Decided to do a complete reinstall to a reformatted drive, bought hundreds of dollars in adapters, both powered and unpowered. I've talked to every software support company involved and came up with nothing. Just dealt with constant crashes. FINALLY I got this back today from pace/iLok...

There is some software that has been known to interfere with USB recognition. Do you have any of the following applications installed:

~Duet or Duet Display
~USB Network Gate or any other software from Eltima
~Shadow PC

To be thorough, please send us your system information:

On an OS 10.4 or above Macintosh, the system information can be found here:
1) From your 'Hard Drive' go to the 'Applications/Utilities/' folder and run the "System Profiler" or "System Information".
2) From the "System Profiler/System Information" menu choose 'File' and then 'Save'
3) Make sure to archive (ZIP) the file from the system it was generated from before sending it to us.

Best regards,

PACE Anti-Piracy Technical Support

then...

Yes! I am sorry, we're only recently discovering the scope of the problem with Duet. If you contact Duet, I know they were able to help one of our users with a command line script that stopped it from interfering with USB recognition.

hopefully this helps someone!