P: Activation or Deactivation versions of Lightroom 6

[piotrt44076464]

Hello,

I have installed LR 6 on new machine. I can't activate it unless deactivated on other machine. So on other machine I did "Sign out". There is a message - "it will deactivate LR on this machine" - I clicked OK. Still can't activate. On my Adobe account there is nothing under Plans and payment->Activated devices.

So haw can I use a product on new machine? I know LR 6 is quite old, but still it is something I purchuased and I want to use.

[Mystifah]

Thanks, I'm currently in queue ... trying again....

[kompsognat]

I too have a same problem: installed LR6 on a new computer and couldn't activate it. Tried to deactivate the old installation but it wasn't possible - I got even an info "Your Adobe serial number has expired or is invalid". I tried to follow an advice here to contact Adobe but agent wasn't able to help despite me repeating I needed an activation reset not a support. Careeeesa can I send you a PM? The only advice I got from a Adobe Customer Care was to send a messege to this forum.

[BigMouse]

LR6 stand alone does have activation. Activation questioned later. The problem with that is, you cannot sign out without having to sign back in and reactivate to use the "stand alone" product. So if you enjoy being connected to the adobe server at their whim, stay signed in. On the other hand, if you enjoy your independence and sign out and consequently go somewhere with your laptop that has no internet connectivity, guess what? You are not able to use the "stand alone" product that you purchased. Several days in the desert shooting astro, third world countries, any place isolated, you see there are many reasons that the "activation" is a major hindrance. After all, we did choose to purchase the "stand alone" product.

So what does activation mean? And, what does stand alone mean?

My definition of activation is: During the installation, you enter your key code and validate that you have indeed paid for the legitimate copy of the "stand alone" product. That should be the end of it. My definition of stand alone is: Independent and unattached.

[Jim Wilde]

BigMouse wrote:

On the other hand, if you enjoy your independence and sign out and consequently go somewhere with your laptop that has no internet connectivity, guess what? You are not able to use the "stand alone" product that you purchased. Several days in the desert shooting astro, third world countries, any place isolated, you see there are many reasons that the "activation" is a major hindrance. After all, we did choose to purchase the "stand alone" product.

Staying signed-in and staying connected to the internet appear to be two different things as far as standalone LR6 is concerned. From my limited testing, provided you have remained signed-in (and thus activated), you can go offline for as long as you like and continue to use your purchased product. Lightroom and/or the CC app will locally still have you recorded as "signed in", so it will continue to function. Also from my limited testing, there is no prescribed "call home" interval (unlike the CC version), so I think in theory you can carry on using the product even if you never ever reconnect to the internet. Problems would only arise should you need to reactivate for any reason (system rebuild, for example), in which case you would find it easier to go online (though I believe there is still an offline activation protocol).

I'd be interesting in knowing if other standalone users have a different experience.

[BigMouse]

Jim Wilde said  "From my limited testing, provided you have remained signed-in (and thus activated), you can go offline for as long as you like and continue to use your purchased product."

So Jim, can you define "activated" and "stand alone"?

From the dawn of software purchasing we have been validating our purchased product. Fine and good, I understand a company wanting to protect there product from piracy. As a consumer, I do not like companies being in my business, Microsoft, US Government, Adobe or any other. Asking me to remain signed in is beyond acceptable to me. If this issue was made clear to all stand alone users, they may be right here speaking their mind also. How many users even know that they are constantly signed in? This was not part of LR5.

Has Adobe claimed the same status as the US Government and feels justified in obtrusive policy? This is a legitimate claim about customer privacy and deserves more than brushing under the rug.

[Jim Wilde]

Look, I'm just a user like you, telling you how I think it now works, because it might help other users. If you don't like the way that it now works, please take your issues up with Adobe, this is a user to user forum and we have no influence over how Adobe have chosen to implement their anti-piracy measures.

[sammc007]

In the context of LR6, "standalone" means you've paid a one-off fee to use version 6 and all it's updates for life (or as long as your future OS lets it run). CC gets you access to LR6 (and beyond) for as long as you pay Adobe monthly or annual rental fees.

In both cases you need to be connected to their servers on some basis (frequent or infrequent is unclear, to me at least) to be able to continue to use the software.

Adobe's use of the term "standalone" is at best misleading.

[ISeward]

I wish someone could clarify exactly what is happening with the "sign in" situation - Adobe??

I have no problem with "activation" / "deactivation" but I see reports on these and other forums which appear to suggest that you cannot sign out on your computer as this deactivates LR.  So this means that Adobe is constantly monitoring your computer usage if you are connected to the internet.  Also if you block LR from the internet with a firewall LR slows down or becomes unresponsive.  With Photoshop CS6 you activate your software but then it only checks your activation every so often - no problem. 

I am concerned about the reports that LR continually monitors your computer even if you have un-ticked the box in the options page to NOT participate in Adobe monitoring.

Can anyone provide a definitive answer?

Ian

[dick2]

Thanks everyone.

I found my error in that I was looking for Deactivate just like Photoshop has and not seeing Sign Out as meaning deactivate. If the error message had said "You must Sign Out" in stead of saying you must deactivate I would have seen it right away.

[CAMPINNGUY]

I have lightroom installed on my laptop and my mainframe.   I had a hard drive failure,  and obviously could not sign out of lightroom.  I installed a new hard drive and now it says my lightroom has to many activation's.   I have searched endlessly for answer and when I go to contact Adobe,  it basically keeps referring me back to the forums. I don't know if actual people work at Adobe,  or if it's left up to it's customers to solve these issues.  Any help would be appreciated.

[Jim Wilde]

CAMPINNGUY wrote:

I have lightroom installed on my laptop and my mainframe.   I had a hard drive failure,  and obviously could not sign out of lightroom.  I installed a new hard drive and now it says my lightroom has to many activation's.

If you're getting this message about too many activations, it should also give you the option to proceed to activate the current system by resetting all current activations. So the rebuilt system is activated, and it only means that when you open Lightroom on your other system you'll need a one-off sign-in to reactivate it again. If you're not getting that option can you post a screenshot of the message that you are receiving?

[F. McLion]

You need to contact Adobe. They can remove one of the old activations in your account: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?step=LTRM_adobe-id-signing-in_stillNeedHelp

[Jim Wilde]

He shouldn't need to contact Adobe to activate. The system has been designed to allow a user to activate Lightroom perpetual on as many systems as he/she wants, whilst allowing no more than two systems to be active at any one time. That should all be possible online, without having to contact Adobe. If that's not working in this case we need to see the exact message so that Adobe can investigate.

[F. McLion]

I agree with you, and I don't know if it works with LR.

However, I know from my own experience that with PSE(13) there is no way to do it (deactivate other installation) on your own and you need to chat with Adobe.

[Jim Wilde]

Yes, this was a new system developed for LR6 perpetual. Activate 2 systems, no problem....but then try to activate a third system and Lightroom informs you that you're trying to exceed the activations limit. At that point it allows the user to go ahead and activate the third system whilst deactivating the existing two systems (because it doesn't know which of the other two the user wishes to deactivate to allow this third system to be activated). Accepting the option to proceed, and the user ends up with only one system (the new one) activated and then has the option to re-activate either of the first two (or indeed a new 4th system) simply by signing-in again.

This method has worked correctly in the few cases that I'm come across, which is why I'm interested to see if it's not working in this instance.

[CAMPINNGUY]

This is the message I am receiving and I only own a mainframe and one laptop.   When the laptop failed,  I reinstalled Windows 10 and installed lightroom and I get the following error,  even after I say to Retry Activiation.   So now I have one computer running lightroom.   I should be able to deactivate all and start over to get back to two computers...should I not?

The serial number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is already in use by the maximum allowedcomputers. 

You need o deactivate another computer within 30 days to use this product.

Options are to Retry Acctivation.  I have already deactivated on of my other computers.....  or

Provide a different serial number.

[Jim Wilde]

CAMPINNGUY wrote:

I should be able to deactivate all and start over to get back to two computers...should I not?

Yes you should, at least that's my understanding. I'll try to contact Adobe myself, to see if I can get an answer for you.

Presumably when you launch Lightroom on that rebuilt system, before trying to enter your serial number you get the option to continue in trial mode? Which would at least let you continue to use Lightroom while we try to get this figured out.

[99jon]

Activation is hardware specific. When a drive fails and is replaced or a new OS installed the previous activation will be lost and the new hardware will be recognized as a different computer. Only Adobe support can deal with such a situation.

[ISeward]

Does this mean that anyone who has upgraded to win 10 has "lost" an activation?

Ian

[99jon]

No. To be clear it would only be lost due to a disk failure and update of OS following installation of a new hard drive. Updating the OS on existing hardware has no effect on activation.

[CAMPINNGUY]

I have chatted directly with Adobe and they have repaired the issue.   I obviously changed the hardware after failure and then re-installed operating system,  upgraded to windows 10 and re-installed lightroom.  At some point,  the deactivation did not occur and with the new hardware,  Adobe sees a third computer.  I have had no issues with the simple upgrade on my main computer to Windows 10 and it simply activated again.   The issue is that I changed hardware,  going to two SSD's, Windows 10 and a NAS system as well,  so it was enough of a change to confuse things.  I would like to see a "Deactivate All" option, allowing you to go back and activate two computers and Adobe would still maintain it's security rights.  As I said,  Adobe has fixed the issue on line,  so they have the ability.

[Jim Wilde]

Good to see that's it all sorted out, though I'm still uncertain why you didn't receive that first error message in the link that Jeffrey provided. That was the message I expected you to receive, and as you can see it would have allowed you to reset your other activations (by signing you out). A bit of a mystery, but hopefully we'll get an explanation in due course.

[J453]

I'll need to try it again, but I remember testing it and it working similarly for CC and 6. The sign-out method definitely deactivates. (It also removes the serial # from the machine). When you sign in, you need to put the serial # in again.

[User893]

I second every one of these responses and would like to hear a response from Adobe. I fail to see the benefit of having paid for the standalone license with this 'sign in' nonsense implemented. Adobe, please, please address this absurdity.

[Jim Wilde]

joshuval wrote:

I fail to see the benefit of having paid for the standalone license with this 'sign in' nonsense implemented. Adobe, please, please address this absurdity.

The best way to get Adobe to address this "absurdity" is by suggesting a better way to address the piracy problem than the method they've chosen to use. You can make your suggestion at the official Adobe feature-request site, here: Photoshop Family Customer Community