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Question

Adobe CS6 perpetual licensing issue

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
August 28, 2024
3 replies
2497 views

Hi,

When moving CS6 to a new computer I deactivated the software before uninstalling. I then installed the software on the new computer and it worked. Now, after the summer, InDesign says on startup that my trial has ended.

When I try to attach the license it says:

"The serial number you entered has been revoked. This product cannot be licensed. Pleas contact Customer Support".

I did contact customer support by chat.

They started by trying to sell discounted creative cloud subscription based licensed. Maybe a good offer, but for the moment I'm good with the product we own. They then asked for my serial number which I gave to them and they confimed that the serial number was good. I asked why the Adobe software reports it has been revoked. They refused to answer any questins about CS6 because it is end off support and rI was referred to the community forum where they said many experts are available to help.

I did everything I could find on the comnunity forum and help pages. Uniinstalled, used Adobe clean tool, installed the software downloade from my account product page, installed from the original disc, enetered serial number when installing, installing trial and then entering serial number.

Nothing worked.

Contacted customer support again. Same thing played out as the first chat. And again they said that the community has many expoerts which can help on old software.

So, here I am. Anyone know how to resolve this issue?

The license does show on my adobe account. The acitvation menu says that no activations exists. I have the box and the disc on my desk.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks

Activation billing and install

This topic has been closed for replies.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

I've done some additional research and reached out to Adobe staff to see what the official word is on installing CS6.

A message that the serial number has been revoked most likely means that software was obtained (perhaps unknowingly) through some sort of fraud, typically by an online reseller who was selling volume license keys or out-of-region keys at deep discount.

IF you have a valid individual license for CS6 it should still work if the number of activations has not been exceeded.

PLease see this post by Adobe employee @Jeffrey_A_Wright : https://community.adobe.com/t5/download-install-discussions/activation-limit-reached-for-non-subscription-adobe-desktop-applications/td-p/14804413

and https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/invalid-revoked-serial-numbers.html

Peter Spier

Community Expert

If you are getting a revoked serial number message and believe it is in error you should go to the second link above and click on the chat icon which is supposed to connect you to a team that can resolve the issue. Good luck.

kglad

Community Expert

if you see an invalid serial number you either made an error when entering the number OR you have the wrong installer. details:

assuming you're using a valid adobe serial number (6 groups of 4 numbers), you have a mismatch between your installation file and serial number. ie, you can have a valid serial number, but if it's for program A and your installation file is for program B, you will see an invalid serial number message.

common mismatches are language/region (eg, serial number is for western europe and installation file is eastern europe), platform (eg, serial number is for a mac and installation file is win), license type (eg, education vs enterprise vs individual). and one of the most common is using a program installation file with a suite's serial number. eg, using a cs6 suite serial number with a photoshop cs6 installation file. that won't work even though photoshop is included in that suite.

you must use the (correct) suite's installation file (and you can choose to only install one program from the suite). here's official info about that error, http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/error-serial-number-valid-product.html

leo.r

Community Expert

When moving CS6 to a new computer I deactivated the software before uninstalling. I then installed the software on the new computer and it worked. Now, after the summer, InDesign says on startup that my trial has ended.

When I try to attach the license it says:

"The serial number you entered has been revoked..."

By @andreas_5824

I don't have any solution. But such a situation is common when you attempt to make any changes to license activations of software that's been unsupported for years. The licensing servers have been taken off life support, and their actions are unpredictable. I remember seeing workarounds posted by other users on how to revive CS6 installations, but there's also a chance you won't be able to do this.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

One of the workarounds - change date on the machine - to when software was still "supported".

B

BradCan

Inspiring

Robert, I tried that as I have the same issue. Sadly it still gave me the revoked message. I have the latest version of PS but a couple plugins only worked with CS6. Also CS6 had all the Pantone colors. Adobe used to have good customer service. GRRRR

BobLevine

Community Expert

Getting support for 12 year old software is going to be very difficult. You can contact Adobe again and insist on the case being elevated but I'd put the chances of getting this fixed at close to zero. I am assuming your new computer is not running Windows 7 which is the last version of Windows to have official support.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

CS6 works perfectly fine on Win10.

If the S/N has been "blacklisted" / deactivated - I don't think anyone at Adobe will manually unlock it...

A

andreas_5824Author

Participant

Thanks for you respones.

Windows 10 is fine. I have used CS6 on windows 10 without any issues for many years. It works. The installation worked fins before the summer break.

About "blacklisted". I don't know what to believe. Installation says S/N is revoked. Adobe customer supports says S/N is good and the refuses to say anything more than that, and points to the community.

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