Activation Issue Again

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
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41

It’s not clear that publishing traditional desktop apps through the Microsoft Store (which is currently on waitlist status) actually brings any benefits to developers other than publicity and reputation. Specifically, the references to “this is where you’ll pick the pricing model you’ll use with your own commerce system” basically makes it sound like you still have to take care of your own sales and licensing, unlike with UWP apps.

Publish apps and games to the Windows Store – Develop for Microsoft and Publish traditional desktop apps through Microsoft Store are the only information out about it right now that I could quickly find, but nothing I saw there leads me to believe this would be an alternative to Paddle.

42

Support was not especially helpful, and there was no secret method of resolving the issue that they shared with me. I’m now facing a situation in which a pirated version of your app would be more functional and reliable than the one I paid for.

DRM often ends up like this. Unless it works very, very well, it creates more problems for the legitimate users of your software than the pirates, who are able to bypass it without too much trouble no matter how invasive it is.

43

I’ve already contacted support, but I wanted to add to the topic anyway. I’m having issues with both Scrivener versions on Windows, despite them being registered under different emails (and so I assume would probably be two different users on their databases?).

So it could be an issue with Paddle, sure. But it could just be my computer, or it could be a mix of both. Who knows?

update: it’s happened three times today with S1, twice with S3. :confused:

44

@prox, you realize, don’t you, that by using any pirated software, you’re laying yourself entirely open to whatever malware the pirate decides to put in with it, as well?

Hardly worth this, especially given how virulent the results are these days. Like ransomware causing you to lose everything on your machine – and the cleverer varieties wait until they’ve also infected your backups.

As far as I’m aware, these problems you mention are cured by a) whitelisting Scrivener in your virus software b) entirely removing all installations of Scrivener you may actually have, then c) fresh install.

You might be able to skip a) and see if b) & c) remove your trouble. And/or, you could replace your AV software as an easier and quite possibly better solution. Nortion gets cheaper, is compatible as any AV should be actually, and is very good…

There may of course be other situations, given Windows being what it is – or effects of other pirated software you may have installed with its ride-alongs?

I hope not, of course, and not accusing you, just listening to what you say…

45

I do not currently run any pirated software. However, I’m sure if I were interested in doing so I could find a way to do it with minimal risk. My point is that the product Scrivener is offering - at least in my case - is inferior to the product pirates are offering. This is the opposite of what you want if you’re in the business of selling software. This was the point Gabe Newell (of Steam) made about piracy being a service delivery problem, not a pricing problem.

I have done a fresh install. I only use Microsoft Defender, as I find it sufficient for my needs, and I’m not whitelisting an app in there for anybody. It’s never given me any warnings about Scrivener, and if Scrivener believes AVs are the problem, most major vendors allow publishers to file false positive reports so that the engines will no longer flag it (I know, because I’ve had to do this myself.)

If you’re selling software, and the pirate version is a superior product - in features, not price - you’re doing it wrong.

46

Hmm. Well, the only way one could imagine any safety whatever with pirated software would be to run it in a VM, and an amount of it is apparently getting clever at bypassing those as well.

This does give an idea, though – you cuuld try installing Scrivener with your details on a VM, and see if it still shows activation problems. This would help determine if it’s something about your machine or remnants of the activation vendors problems L&L have had to deal with. This is admittedly a consultant-leverl approach, but it is there.

I reallly think the Scrivener/L&L folks will be helpful, and if you had any trouble, imagine it might have been along the lines of their natural need to be careful of just what kind of request is being made. I’d give it a shot again – @kewms Kathryn for example is surely seeing this conversation.

As far as them requesting every vendor of web protection software to allow for them, it seems hardly likely that the ‘free’ or ‘free version’ people are going to be receptive and helpful. I think you can understand that. Pushing them to clean up would feel like pushing on Microsoft – i.e. pushing a rope…

The underlying point here is that almost none of Scrivener’s wide user base has these problems; and that where they have come, they’ve been due to an understandable hiccup from a vendor. I think we’d all like to help them fininish getting the results of that moment cleaned up, and then all should go back to how it has been over a decade: nothing unusual or problematic about Scrivener’s registration at all…

Maybe since you seem to have some background for it, you could help them as well.

47

I believe we recently had to blacklist a license due to piracy.

As has been noted, we are not able to handle licensing issues through the forum. Please open a support ticket, here:

48

Scrivener trial expired. Hmmm. This is the fourth time.

But, I am suspect with traveling across state lines, Paddle (their software protection utility) may trigger this. Not proven as of yet, but I am investigating it.

Upon laying my eyes on the error, I moved to examine the Paddle directory:

Directory of C:\ProgramData\Paddle

08/02/2021 09:35 PM .
08/02/2021 09:35 PM …
08/02/2021 09:34 PM 943 NTU4NjYy.padl
08/02/2021 09:34 PM 663 NTU4NjYy.spadl
04/21/2021 04:34 PM 943 NTYwODA4.padl
04/21/2021 04:05 PM 643 NTYwODA4.spadl
08/02/2021 09:34 PM 623 Paddle - Copy.ipak
08/02/2021 09:34 PM 623 Paddle.ipak

I see two NT*.spadl and NT*.padl files. Both have dates several months back, and today (at the time of this writing). Spadl and padl files are different.

After registering the software again, Scrivener worked.

A little back story:

  • I travel from Los Angeles to Phoenix Arizona every 2 or 3 weeks. I live in both states.
  • Viewing the dates of the files, they’re 4 months apart. They’re also equal in size.
  • I’ve compared the files with Beyond Compare and noticed differences in the [license_data] key (spadl file). The [product_data] in the padl file changes when it converts it to trail mode. This is evident in comparing with original file.

I didn’t get a chance to track the network packets going to the server. I didn’t snoop around with the Paddle acti-aggravation software. Was curious to see if it’s sniffing my network info to determine a “valid license”. Eh. A waste of time. I’ve got the key anyway.

I am sus when I travel across states and where I’ve activated it. Traveling may be sensitive to Paddle. For example, if I used it in Los Angeles, and four months later I use it in Arizona --then I would have to register again.

And, this was the case. Today (current date) I opened Scrivener again and guess what? “Trial license expired.” I had to register again.

If I travel back to Arizona next week, I’m going to assume that I have to register again. It could be possible Paddle uses network info as I’ve sus’d above.

Oh well. It’s no bother. There’s other things in life that’s worse. This team did a great job. I know what they sacrificed to write code for two platforms. I get a smile when see C# errors (C# developer here).

Oh… And by the way… Have an awesome day!

1 Like
49

Thank you for your efforts on this. If you haven’t already, could you send this to the support team?

Other people with the same issue, do you also travel? We’ve so far had trouble duplicating this, but a connection with travel would be something solid for us to investigate.

50

Hmmm. This is interesting, well sleuthed, and when you look into it at Scrivener ‘Labs’, might look into VPNs and any similar effects as well. (markered for @kewms :slight_smile: )

Otherwise legitimate (e.g. banks, but not only them by a long shot) sites are becoming increasingly and exceedingly annoying by blocking VPN connects. Some of them do so entirely: you can’t even raise a reply from their site, just time out on accessing the link. None of them give any warning why they are refusing to communicate - just a ‘some problem occur, mayby you should try later’ is the message categorically, if you get one at all.

VPNs could cause trouble here, if they do, just because they are a VPN, as mentioned, or if you use one in such ways that your location may appear to vary, if location turns out to be an issue with Paddle.

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@kewms

Other people with the same issue, do you also travel?

I always use a VPN, which may occasionally look as though it’s coming from a very different physical location from one session to the next.

As @narrsd says, VPNs sometimes causes problems with certain websites, presumably because of IP blacklists. Some software occasionally does something similar, where it won’t talk to the auto-update servers and such, presumably for the same reason.

52

Yes, think you are right here that blacklists may be involved, while there are also other factors.

  • one is that geolocation lists that sites use are often very inaccurate. This occurs because a) of course IP actresses can get assigned to other servers b) many, many sites choose to use the now-ancient free geolocation lists, because they are free, and thus they never get locations that are updated.

A case in point is that a quite good VPN’s servers in Los Angeles get reported as being in Romania, quite regularly. You can imagine the fun that ensues.

  • although there seem to be some possible packet inspection methods, probably most VPN detection is done through list services similar to blacklists. These of course are much more up to the poll moment because they have to be, to have value at all.

I keep seeing annoying blockage increasing — the latest let me into a site, and then failed the site on a particular page request, where there was a service.

You can kind of see where this practice in general is coming from, but other than content (price geoblocking) segmentation, which is kind of another pox for many cases anyway, in many regards it doesn’t seem to make much sense.

There are however North Koreas in the world which are in moments of policy where they make a lot of trouble through location mimicry, so reluctantly I might agree that even the banks heading for overboard on geoprotection could make some sense.

Reluctantly, you can tell… :slight_smile:

53

I can do that. The troubleshooting happens to be off the hip once I noticed the license tripped. I too work in software development, and I like to tinker why something didn’t work. I will have to keep notes at next troubleshooting.

Today, I got back to Arizona from Los Angeles and did not see concerning issues. I will keep monitoring the behavior. From the DT (Date/Time stamp) of this response, maybe I did not go over a month of non use. If I remember correctly, I think I didn’t use Scrivener after a month. Perhaps someone at the license company fixed something.

Things I will monitor:

  • Time/Date stamp opening scrivener when in both locations. I will have to also keep in mind a month timeline after verifying other small items (below)
  • File updates within Scrivener (what was last modified and binary compares)
  • Switch network access from private to personal (private IPs compared to “home” networks)
  • Try personal hotspots on mobile

I will update this thread if I see suspicious things.

By the way, I haven’t used the new version as I wanted to. I quickly supported the team by upgrading (even notified a friend to get his upgrade in ^_^). As an engineer, I know the sacrifices made to get this product at code complete. I am very pleased with this update. I salute you with the hard work.

54

^^^ geez. Sorry for butchering my English. I should’ve used Scrivener and the tools to write it :slight_smile: It’s a little late on my end, my eyes are crossed looking at my small monitor.

55

Update: haven’t had any deactivation issues since… but last night I got the far more aggravating compromised license server error? So today I got a fresh copy of the installer as instructed in another thread, and it seems to have solved the issue.

Oh, and for the record, I’ve never traveled with this computer, nor do I use VPNs.

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I think Paddle was having issues? I got the same thing, too. My desktop has never traveled. :smiley:

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Screenshot 2021-09-15 181754
Screenshot 2021-09-15 1817541129×792 92.2 KB

Turns out Acronis had quarantined Paddle.exe the day before.

It hadn’t occurred to me to check Acronis because Malwarebytes is the AV I actually use, but I guess there’s a lot of overlap now?

58

I have already contacted support about this but I’m just updating the thread too so others can see.

This continues to happen for me, and I’m on a desktop (which does not move) and I don’t use VPNs. Every few weeks, sometimes more often, Scrivener makes me reactivate the licence.

59

@kewms Hi Katherine, I’ve been travelling last few weeks.

I opened Scriv 3 twice during this period.

First time I was using ProtonVPN (on the hotel’s open wifi), and received the Scrivener trial expired message. This was my first ever encountering this message. I didn’t bother entering the license key.

The next day I connected to internet via my personal hotspot, received the Scrivener trial expired message and was able to successfully enter my license key. I did not access Scriv again during the trip.

I’m home now and all seems fine. Just wanted to let you know that traveling and/or the use of VPN seemed to cause the expiration message for me.

Best,
Jim

60

Thank you. That’s definitely helpful.

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