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Martina Misar
Martina Misar
Participant
October 8, 2014
Question

adobe cs3 activation fails

  • October 8, 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 708 views

due to hard drive crashes i had to restore my imac for several times the last 4 months each time i had to reinstall photoshop cs3 und indesign cs4 as the restored versions did't work.

this time i could not activate ps cs3 anymore (code 159:18) - it asks for activation via phone - a service which is no longer provided.

i just chatted with your help desk and provided them with my ps cs3 and cs2 serial numbers and was told it is a technical issue with no longer support for this software (case number: 0213937091)

funny ...: i can activate (and deactivate) the product on my husbands mac - but not on my imac anymore ...

i am really looking forward for help.

thank you in advance. martina

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    N
    Narmitaj
    Participant
    December 26, 2014

    I had a similar issue with a MacBook Pro. Again I had several restores after hard drive crashes, and finally Adobe could not re-activate my CS3 following another crash. My hard drive was about to fail completely, showing up red in the Disk Utility, and I replaced it with a cloned backup drive. CS3 works again now. I haven't tried de-activating and re-activating again as an experiment, but I think that was the main issue: the physical hard drive's imminent failure meant there was some hardware problem that meant Adobe could not activate.

    DvdW__
    DvdW__
    Inspiring
    October 8, 2014

    Hi Martina,

    + Check first if you run a compatible OS.

    + CS3 does only run on XP or os X 10.4 see sys req: Adobe - Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection : System requirements

    + If you run any higher version activation might be an issue due to changes in the OS.

    If you run CS2 please use the replacement software: Error: Activation Server Unavailable | CS2, Acrobat 7, Audition 3

    In case of a newer OS, please consider a upgrade for the best experience, CS3+ customer are alienable to a discount: Creative Cloud pricing and membership plans | Adobe Creative Cloud

    Good luck!

    Martina Misar
    Martina MisarAuthor
    Participant
    October 9, 2014

    The OS is compatible, as I was running PS3 on the system until saturday. In the evening i had a hard drive crash and restored the system on sunday. i could activate PS3 on sunday - worked for some hours and had another crash. On monday the next activation did not work anymore But probably there was an automatic Update from OSX 10.9.4 to 10.9.5 in the meantime ...? Could that be the problem?

    If thats the problem I have to find an alternative.

    Thank you for your help.

    DvdW__
    DvdW__
    Inspiring
    October 9, 2014

    Hi Martina,

    I do understand it did work for a long time. We can contradict about the fact if your system is compatible or not (as it worked till now) You are on your own getting it activated again as the system does not meet the requirements anymore. The OS is "really new" (2014), and the software (April 2007) not changed or adapted to the new OS release. You can consider to revert back to OS X 10.9.4 and test again or consider a upgrade of the software. Sorry.

    Good luck again!

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