Photoshop CS6 suddenly a trial version of Extended.

[oldbalddude]

Launched Photoshop CS6 this morning, and suddenly it is a trial version of CS6 Extended. I did not ask for this, I do not want this, I bought, paid for and registered the regular version on the day it was released. I am not renting the software via that stupid creative clod thing, I bought it the regular way. What is happening here? Is this going to happen every time they release a minor update? How do I make it go away?

[PeteHam]

I have the master collection, fully paid for, installed from physical discs, and am having the same problem. Since Adobe is aware that this is a widespread problem, I find it odd that they haven't done an update to correct this not insignificant bug.

[ArtFox-he2DLW]

I have the CS6 Premium Suite and the problem showed up after the latest  Photoshop update. I used a Time Machine backup from right before the update and restored just Photoshop to 13.0.2 and so far the recurring pop-up/nag screen is gone. This was super simple on Mac OSX 10.6.8 and should be with any version if you have Time Machine to restore from. Just select the Photoshop CS6 folder to restore to when prompted and choose to "replace". You do have to enter your serial number after the restore the first time you launch Photoshop, but after that everything is back to normal.

[NVJims]

Having the same problem, but I am 1000 miles away from home where my serial number is..... I tried logging in, and it showed that today was my first log-in and I can't find the section where the serial numbers for PS6 and LR are kept... not a happy camper...

[ClintGryke]

The serial numbers should be under My Adobe : My Products.

[q38]

This first happened to me 1,200 miles from home at one of the 10 largest companies in the world who I had convinced to get Photoshop licenses to run actions I was about to "use in battle" that week.  This was not a software company, and I was being an Adobe evangelist of sorts.  The message sounded sort of like this to me: "This is the IRS and we will freeze all your bank accounts while you are traveling unless you pay us".  I was in a situation where I couldn't search the web immediately and find this page to see that it was just a bug.

Adobe, some of us have staked our lives on you.  Please don't fail us!  This event is not isolated, Adobe does not seem to be the company it was 10 years ago.  Please please do not slowly turn your million evangelists into a million folks wishing for an alternative.

A few years ago I had a serious problem with my Macintosh.  It was Christmas Eve.  Within 2 minutes I was talking to very knowledgable technical support that quickly solved the complex problem.  There is nothing wrong with basing support anywhere in the world, Indians have a high priority on technology and are brilliant, as are Californians, many of whom are Indian.  The problem is having customer support anywhere that is underpaid and undertrained and not connected with the technical team.

Thank you for helping your "evangelists" resolve problems. 

[ClintGryke]

This is why I always bring a copy of the installer disk image with me and the serial number, both encrypted into a disk image with my other Mac software and I carry a backup MacOS on a USB drive for my MacBook Air. I also make a point of never getting new software or doing updates when I'm travelling or even for a several days before I go. If something is going to go wrong with software, it will be inevitably with an update. So far I've never needed to reinstall when I've been on the road but one never knows. I guess I'm ultra cautious.

And I would hate to have to rely on customer service. The only time I would ring them would be if I couldn't activate. So far that's never happened with Adobe. User forums are the first port of call when there is a problem. For sure the computer, camera, software companies are aware of this so that most free customer service is just designed to handle the most basic problems. At least here we have people like Chris Cox et al popping in to reassure and advise.

[Dragoro21]

Brand new copy of CS6 photoshop and getting the same problem. Hopefully they will fix this soon. Till then, I guess Ill leave it running in the background for the most part.

[sungyle]

Dear Q38,

As much as I am not happy with PS CS6 extended 13.0.3 trial version, if this were your problem too, then, let me assure you:  the trial version is good and working, most likely until day 0, I hope.

No, I did not have time to learn and find out more about the 3D thing.  I have never had any use with that.  For this holiday month, one older gentle is so kind he rented a Santa Clause costume and all the old ladies got very excited, sitting on him and wanting their pictures taken with Santa.  As a result, I had been very busy photoshop'ing them 73 years olds into 37's and they are all even more excited.  That's why I don't have time to explore the trial version.

But, go ahead.  Just use the trial version.  I am sure in the end, all is well.  If it is not well, it is not the end.

Hug, bottoms up.

[Seahedgehog]

Have just received the following email from Adobe regarding this problem:-

Your Adobe ID:XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Your Case Number:XXXXXXXXXX

Hello Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ,

Thank you for contacting Adobe Support. We are responding in reference to your case: Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx regarding Adobe software.

We would like to inform you that the issue that you are facing is now declared as bug : 3432896 , and our engineering team is working on it , once we will have an update , we will get back to you , for more information click on the link below

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4936441?tstart=0#4936441

Inconvenience deeply regretted .

For further queries

Please call us at 02073 650 735 (Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm GMT), for any further assistance you can also visit www.adobe.com/go/supportportal for any assistance regarding Adobe products. You may also visit www.forums.adobe.com as it’s a useful resource for self-help.

Thanks & Regards,

Adobe Support

Note: the link is for this forum discussion.

[smei_ch]

Good to see, but it took them 16 days to acknowledge this as a bug?

I still wonder how they could just close my support case.

[Chris Cox]

It took a few days to determine that something was going wrong (above the normal noise of user mistakes, piracy attempts, corrupt files, etc.).  And we've already said it is our problem and that we are working on a solution.

[castl1]

Did you try "My Orders"?

[jimhere]

For me this happens to all CS6 apps (Master Collection, osX 10.7.5 mp and 10.8.2 mbp).

As was mentioned, just closing the sales window (red button) allows the apps to open anyway. Pretty disconcerting the first several times.

[Jo Ann Snover]

Just FYI if any Adobe folks check back here. I have to re-enter my serial number every day or two. I thought it was only after a reboot of my Mac at first, but it has occurred when I didn't restart as well. I must have entered the serial number a dozen times at least since this started (meaning the activation process is  apparently working as expected that on the same machine, reentering the serial number does not count as a new activation).

For those using the trial, it might be prudent to find your serial number now

[billbrenecarmel]

This problem started after we updated, trying to solve a different Photoshop CS6 issue. This morning I spent 2 hours on the phone, mostly on hold, and was given the "enter your serial number" fix. A very temporary fix. Will put up with the annoyance (rather than uninstall/reinstall yet again), but hope there is a fix soon. Also hope that Adobe hires more support people, and perhaps allows them to tell users that this is a problem being dealt with by Adobe.

[Barryvj171]

My CS6 did exactly the same... went from normal CS6 to Extended CS6 which I didn't want and wants licence number everytime I open Photoshop now grrr !! not sure if you sorted out this issue yet, going to read replies...

--Barry

[Dragoro21]

Kinda amazing that a company can create a piece of software that sells for 500 plus but has a hard time coming up with a quick fix for a simple serial check.

[Rob16321]

Well, this bug has existed since December 13 (this was the date of the first post in this thread), and now that we have January 6, there is still no real fix - except a guideline recommending either using this undesired trial version or freshly installing PS or whatsoever.

Sorry, but this is not really convincing. Adobe is not a small shareware company! And with the holiday season: is there no emergency plan ...?

[ClintGryke]

The current bug is indeed very annoying but it hardly qualifies as emergency.

The fix is simple, certainly for users of Photoshop only, as the reinstall works as long as you don't update beyond 13.01. It takes about 10-15 minutes for PS alone. If it was a case where users were actually unable to use Photoshop at all, then that would be a very serious emergency. I presume Adobe would be forced to deal with that but it is currently not the case. Let's see if people who have gone with the trial and who had an original 30 days (The message I got before reinstalling was 32767 days) will be able to continue to use the program after the trial period with or without reinstalling. If not, then that will be emergency.

[richardn]

ClintGryke is right.

With over 300 posts in this tread newcomers are will have difficulty and be frustrated reading through the whole thing to find a fix.

If you are worried about the trial window, and irritated at having to enter your serial number over and over again the simple answer is to reinstall.

I'm a bit wary every time I install something, but for me it only took 10 minutes and the problem hasn't reoccurred since mid December.

So, Uninstall, then install as you would have done in the first instance.  After that DO NOT install any of the updates except 13.0.1 and you will be OK.

I agree Adobe is a large company, but you can only have a few people working on one problem or they start duplicating their work. 

It will be a case of, "try changing this piece of code, test it to see if it works, doesn't work, cross it off the list and move on to the next idea".

There's probably no speedy way of doing it and it's head busting work.

[smei_ch]

It is not always as easy. In my case I have the same problem with PS, AI and ID. Still very open about the number of licence activations on my Adobe data, I sometimes need to activate the additional license on a client machine. And reinstalling needs normally re-registering most of my 10+ plugins, which takes additional time.

Opened a support case on December 12, it was withdrown by Adobe "support" on Dec 24, without any kind of solution or apologies. 5 days of trial left, this is no longer a minor issue for me!

[ClintGryke]

I think for the majority of cases in this thread, the issue is relatively easily resolved temporarily. It seems to me that where the Mac updates 13.0.2 and 13.0.3 trigger this bug and the user is only using Photoshop, then the issue is easy to work around by a reinstall. However, the bug is more widespread (clearly in the case of KirstyMc) and cannot be as easily resolved as it wasn't triggered by a Mac update.

Furthermore there may be other issues which need to be resolved in individual cases. I don't think I've seen anybody else talk about  losing activation counts so perhaps there is something else wrong in your (smei_ch) case. A one-off reinstall certainly works in the case of Photoshop so, if you are having to do this more than once, I would guess that you have an additional problem which the bug fix itself, when it comes, may not fix in any case.

[q38]

This might be a clue, my Mac version responded differently.  After getting back home from the trip I reeregistered, and now it has been fine for over a week, opened every day.

But I'm not using Photoshop heavily right now.  I remember a few months ago finding a case where Photoshop was eventually clobbering its own graphics interface when running a particular long batch action.  And I remember in the past on PCs several versions of Photoshop across several differnet computers had a memory leak, the leak was proportional to (number of processors)-1, so for many years I limited my computers to single core.  Perhaps this is something in the code that is randomly clobbering memory outside an assigned range, that could explain it being intermittent, and hard to debug.

[wkjeiwoi]

Now that I (and some others) have opted to re-install their CS6 Suite, what if any updates can we allow without landing us back in stupidville again, where our licensed CS6 thinks it's Trial Ware?

Until/unless I hear a resounding peal of approval for doing ANY updates, I'm simply not going to upgrade this thing at all.

I feel for those who have scads of plug ins which they have to allow for in a re-install; to my knowledge, the bare nekkid Stock CS6 install works as well as I'd ever hope to need it to, so I'm stayin put for now.

w

[conroy]

Photoshop 13.0.1 and Camera Raw 7.2 do not wreck the licensing. (Camera Raw 7.3 may be safe but I've not tried it.)