Participant

Question

Bought a Perpetual License - Adobe went to subscription , wont acknowledge license anymore

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
August 4, 2025
4 replies
807 views

Hi,

We bought a perpetual license in 2015 for 170 users. The definition of perpetual license is a license grants the purchaser the right to use software indefinitely, with no expiration date

We are less that 10 years into our license and we can no longer use our licenses purchased. After talking to several departments I was in touch with the perpetual license department where ultimately they pointed me to make a post here. I was told As the product is outdated I am unable to transfer to the dedicated team. Hence I request you to post you query and our dedicated team will get in touch with you.

I am hoping to get this resolved as Adobe should have had a solution already in place for changing their licensing for those "grandfathered" in to a perpetual license.

A

Annamaria

Participant

Hello, I have a similar issue with an Acrobat Pro DC Education license assigned by my university in 2015.

Acrobat worked normally for almost ten years, including after restoring my Mac from a backup. Today it suddenly requested a new sign-in; after signing in with the same Adobe ID, my account now shows only a Free plan and Acrobat Pro no longer opens.

I have both the original Adobe license-assignment email and the official Software License Certificate, including the order and serial-number details. The old activation link now returns a 502 error.

Could an Adobe employee please advise how to have the historical license checked, or how to contact the appropriate Licensing team? I can provide all documents privately.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Anand Sri Bhattacharya

Community Manager

Hello @Annamaria

I hope you are doing well, and we’re sorry for the trouble you had.

As you shared that you have the Education license, we suggested contacting the technical support team via chat. The dedicated team will assist you with the reinstallation of the product, and can guide you with the activation process.

I hope this helps,and please let us know if you need any help.

Regards,

Anand Sri.

A

Annamaria

Participant

Hello Anand,

Thank you very much for your reply.

I will contact Technical Support via chat as you suggested.

However, I believe this is not a reinstallation issue. Acrobat worked correctly for almost ten years and stopped only after a new sign-in request, when my Adobe ID was suddenly recognized as a Free plan.

Since I have both the original Adobe Teams assignment email (2015) and the official Software License Certificate, I hope the support team will be able to review the historical licensing records associated with my Adobe ID.

Thank you again for your guidance.

H

hebeler_6795Author

Participant

Is there any other way to reset the machines attached to a license? We have a virtual environment that had a cyber attack 2 years ago. Those machines were destroyed and new ones were spun up.

kglad

Community Expert

no. there's currently no other way.

that changed within the past several months. previously adobe support could reset all activations. and previously deactivations could be done via adobe account web pages, but that was several months ago.

but why bother?

H

hebeler_6795Author

Participant

The only reason to bother with it is to get these pop ups to go away everytime we open a document.

H

hebeler_6795Author

Participant

Last issue we had with these perpetual icenses, Adobe said we wont get an error as long as we use the older version our perpetual license was intended for. And they generated us a new key and it has worked for about a year. Until last week when we started receiving the serial number is in use on too many machines.

These machines do not show up on our dashboard to deactivate. If Adobe can just reset all then maybe the issue would go away, or maybe we need a new key again.

kglad

Community Expert

that's an excess activation count error. the only what to resolve is to deactivate that acrobat on a computer that has a current activation. that computer must meet adobe's security standards to convey the deactivation to adobe's servers. ie, that computer must, at least, have an updated os and default browser and can't have anything blocking the connection (like security software, hosts file, vpn's etc).

however, it appears you have the full use of the acrobat shown for the next 90 years or so. ie, enjoy that prolonged trial.

kglad

Community Expert

what app/version?

what problem are you seeing?

A

Anshul_Nautiyal

Legend

Hi @hebeler_6795,

Thank you for reaching out.

Could you please confirm which application the perpetual license is for, and let us know the exact error you're encountering when trying to use the app? This information will help us assist you more effectively.

Regards,
^AN

LMCPA65976201

Participant

Hello,

We are getting this for our adobe acrobat 2015 installations, even with already installed working software. Quick look online says adobe shut down license verification servers, possibly on April 1st. We need an immediate resolution for this!

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