Photoshop CS6, non Creative Cloud, keeps asking me to register

[BKKDon]

Rogier,

My apologies for not saying that mine is a 'straight' versoin not a cloud version.  And also I am running on Win x64.

Don.

[Jeff A Wright]

Kongotech I have taken ownership of your case.  I am just getting back from PTO but I will reach out to you via e-mail to see if we can arrange a time to work through your case.

[cstiger15]

I am interested in the fix as well.  I have exactly the same problem.  It is very annoying, and for the price of the software i expect better.  Please post the fix.

[Jeff A Wright]

CStiger15 this is rather a complex issue.  Please see 64-bit applications repeatedly ask to activate - http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/64-bit-creative-suite-applications-repeatedly.html.   If you have not contacted our support team yet please do so.  For the best assistance, I recommend our chat support at http://adobe.ly/yxj0t6.

[eisenray]

Ok Iam having the same issue and had a diffrent thread going and this was the advice i got ...

http://http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1070742                  Called tech suport and they said that my PC was shoing up as 2 diffrent machines ID's  on a new PC ok so then i called DELL and they looked at everything thay could to solve the issue. because Adobe tech would not answer phone when dell called them so they removed  the cashe and it seams to be working now but still all that money and it does this crazy....

[Jeff A Wright]

I believe Eisenray is referring too http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1070742.

[eisenray]

yes  I was and I will keep you informed on its progress to see if the issue keeps doing the same

[cstiger15]

Awesome Eisenray!  i removed the cache file as explained in the forum http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1070742 , had to re-enter my serial number one more time and now it seems to have accepted my serial number.  I have rebooted a couple times and each time my CS6 applications launch without asking for the serial number.  Interesting, my system is a new Dell and i purchased CS6 through Amazon, which seems to be a common factor in this problem.  Keeping my fingers crossed, but it looks good.  Thanks Eisenray and Jeff for the help.

[cstiger15]

Sorry guys!  Spoke too soon.  I fired up the program to show that it was fixed and the crazy thing asked for my serial number again......  So I am still searching for the actual fix.  Any help is appreciated.

[eisenray]

Same here today is the 3rd day no problems so far. Lets hope that Adobe will find a fix for this issue soon.  

[eisenray]

4th day and still problem so far its doing good after i removed  C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache\cache.db  file

[eisenray]

5th day and still problem so far its doing good after i removed C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache\cache.db file   Its nice not to have to dig out the box each day and input a ser no#

[eisenray]

6 th day and still problem so far its doing good after i removed C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache\cache.db file Its nice not to have to dig out the box each day and input a ser no#

[Jeff A Wright]

Interesting Eisenray we will certainly look at this as a possible solution as well.  The problem is that you are also wiping out licensing information for other Adobe products when you delete the cache.db file.

[eisenray]

well it was good untill today now it has started the same ol mess again its nuts its getting to the point i can remember my ser no for CS6  any idea why it is doing this and when will ADOBE have a Fix for it. 

[cstiger15]

Hello, I have been out for a few days, hoping a solution was available. So I opened up PS Sunday morning and same problem. I had deleted the cache file two times, but still I kept getting the request to license the software or start trial. I contacted Adobe using the Chat session. He asked that I re-name the cache file, so i did that. Of course it works for a while when I renamed the cache file and re-entered my serial number. The support person was convinced it was fixed, I had my doubts. Later that evening after updating all my adobe products and re-booting my system, launching PS, again i get the CS6 design standard trial window asking me to license the software or start the trial. I installed the software as Administrator, i have updated all of the applications, I have modified the permissions on the c:\Program Files(x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache folder for everyone to have full control.  I thought this may have fixed it until i launched PS tonight (tuesday), and again i get the start trial prompt....

Looking at my cache folder permissions, it looks like it got changed back to their defaults again.  Not sure if this is the problem or not.  I will force the permissions to full control for everyone and try again.  Any help from Adobe on this would be GREAT!

[Jeff A Wright]

CSTiger15 and others on this thread we are continuing to be investigating this issue.  At the moment the likely cause is a compromised Windows Management Instrumentation service.  This basically is causing the activation technology to see the computer as a different computer which is what causes the user to be prompted to be activated again.

We are still looking at ways for our users to resolve this difficulty.  Unfortunately there does not appear to be a method to repair the Windows Manager Instrumentation service in Windows 7 and Vista.

You can try disabling the Windows Management Instrumentation in the Microsoft Configuration Utility but I would not recommend running with it disabled normally.  Windows Management Instrumentation is a basic component of the operating system and is used for a variety of functions.

[kongotech]

Can adobe talk to miscosoft to have this resolved?

Sounds like it is an adobe bug or Microsoft bug not a user error issue.

Sent from my iPad

[Jeff A Wright]

As mentioned we are continuing to investigate the issue.  I did want to provide a few more details though as to the possible cause.

[sherweb]

I just read through this thread and it sounds like the last few months of my time trying to access programs in CS6 and being asked daily for the serial number.  I too have done all the fixes suggested by tech support and none have worked. I did disable WMI as requested but started it up again the next day because disabling WMI disables Windows security. As of now I have been told just to type in my serial number every day.  I have been using Adobe products for years and have never had a problem like this.  It seems to me that the software should be properly engineered to work with the OS.  I am very interested in the final solution as I too have my serial number memorized from typing it in so many times.  Frankly, doing that daily is not an acceptable solution.

[kongotech]

I agree that Adobe should have fix this issue long time ago. I am a software developer myself, I know for a fact that it will not take that much time to fix this issue since they already identify the cause. It is obviouse that Adobe is not putting a priority to fx the problem. I want to ask for a full refund of the software that does not work period!

[frustrated_cs6]

This issue is ridiculous.  My only hope is that with additional posts Adobe might take the time to actually figure this out.  It is sad that my wife who up until now hasn't involved me but has been trying to resolve it herself has told me that Adobe support has had her do the same steps over and over and over again for days claiming the issue is fixed when they have her re-enter the serial.

Do you not track cases or does your support just not read notes.  Come on

On a more constructive note.  I changed her computer name to see if that helped as someone mentioned devices with the same names.  I doubt it will work but it is worth a try.  Also, regarding WMI.  WMI issues are not fun.  I took a look at the event logs and did notice some WMI errors.  I do not know if these coincide with the times the license popup comes up or not.  I asked my wife to refresh the event logs and check next time the licensing screen appears.

If it does seem that the licensing popup and WMI errors match up I'll see about taking some additional actions then.  There are a number of differents hotfixes and things that can be done with WMI to help repair it.  Here are a couple links if anyone else feels like giving them a go.  I have not went through these links to see if any of the conditions apply.   They are just a couple links I have saved for reference when dealing with WMI issues on Windows Server.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2591403

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2011/08/05/suggested-hotfixes-for-wmi-related-issue-on-wi...

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2009/04/13/wmi-rebuilding-the-wmi-repository.aspx

[frustrated_cs6]

Has anyone upgraded to Windows 8 and have the problem go away?  I might give that a try also.  Been meaning to for the extra ram support in Pro.

[sherweb]

Good to know I am not alone in this as tech support told me this was a rare problem!  I have been dealing with it since July.  As requested, I sent the dependencies in WMI as well as the logs to tech support. That is when they told me they had no solution and I just had to type in the serial number every time.  Just to clarify, this is happening to me in all CS6 programs.  Also it is only happenng in the computer running Win 7 64bit version.  So, Jeff, any more updates and preferrably a solution for your frustrated customers?

[kongotech]

Would you please let us know if upgrading to window 8 resolve the issue or not?

May be Jeff can let us know the answer if window 8 has the same problem or not.

[Jeff A Wright]

I have no updates to provide at this time.  As for if upgrading to Windows 8 will resolve the issue I have not personally had a user which has tried that step yet.  I have had some users who have formatted and reinstalled Windows 7 and that did resolve the issue but obviously that is not a preferred solution.