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?

[steveh1974]

Adobe's official "solution" at the moment is to keep your serial number in a text file on your computer for a quick copy and paste...

http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/64-bit-creative-suite-applications-repeatedly.html

Er, yeah, thanks for that - I would never have thought of it!! 😉

Now, if you could kindly get to the bottom of this mess and pull your finger out, that would be appreciated.

I like the way they say "This issue is only affecting a small number of users but is currently under investigation" - well, it's affecting 2 out of our 4 iMacs running CS6, so that's a 50% hit rate - this multi-page thread suggests it's not just isolated incidents either. Perhaps you'll test your patches properly in the future please!!

[PaulHealthwise]

Re-entering the serial number or re-installing is a great solution for individual users. But corporate users like myself are out of luck as we don't have the license, the media or the Adobe ID the I.T. deptartment does. I.T. doesn't have the time to repeatedly relicense my software and as a Mac minority, I try to bug I.T. as LITTLE as possible.

The trial mode has been happening to my whole CS6 suite on and off since December some time. At first I just dismissed it and the software still worked, but it's progressively getting more annoying and the countdown on my trial period is closing.

My install was a push install through remote desktop so I also don't have access to reinstall.

Adobe, PLEASE fix this!

[sungyle]

Wow, this is getting bigger than I thought.  What's your I.T. department saying about this?

[jerr3d]

oldbalddude wrote: "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?"

This happened to me also. I saw that Photoshop was launching as the Extended version after installing an update. I was not bothered by it think it was just an Adobe promo. I found out differently when the trial expired and my registered version of CS6 would not launch. I work for a company that owns several stores, but only has one IT guy. This happened on a Friday and he was out of town and unable to get to the software's registration number until Monday. It was stored in yet another city from me and I did not have access to it either. I also worked on Saturday without being able to launch my registered version of Photoshop CS6 all day.

[Waker13]

I have had this issue since January when I purchased CS6. I have to re-enter serial number everytime I launch CS6. Assume you have Windows 7 64 bit also?

[MarketingDen]

I was able to resolve the issue on the one Mac that was having this problem. I installed a second hard drive, did a clean install of the OS on it, copied over the user account from the first hard drive, and then installed CS 6 on it. Everything worked fine. I had to re-serialize some of the other software, and reinstall CS 5.5 from scratch, but other than that it was a simple 8 hour operation that cleared this small bug in Adobe's licensing scheme right up.

[deangc]

I have had this issue intermittently for the last while, but last week it got much worse. I launched it, and found that it was once again a trial version. Since I am a Subscription user, normally all I do is click "Licence This Software" and then Sign In - after that, CS6 would start.

However Friday when I did this, I was prompted for a serial number. Since I am/was a subscription user, I don't have a serial number.

Yesterday I spent two hours with technical support. Their final suggestion was for me to create a new Windows admin account, and install Photoshop under that new account. I have not tried that yet, but even if it does, as a solution it leaves a lot to be desired.

[Noel Carboni]

A broad question for those of you having this problem:

Are you using any kind of "cleaner" software (e.g., a registry sweeper, Mac Keeper, etc.)?

That you are losing your activation status and login info implies something on your system is being lost.  Computers shouldn't (and don't normally) lose data.  A computer system so egregiously broken that it regularly loses data (e.g., because of a disk problem) wouldn't work otherwise.

So the question you should be asking yourself is WHY am I losing data?

Are you losing other data regularly?

As a long-time Windows user myself, I have NEVER unexpectedly lost my activation status.  It's not something that normally fails or is to be expected.

-Noel

[MarketingDen]

I don't see it as a symptom of the machine "losing" data per se. I see it more likely an indication that the licensing scheme is periodically writing information to a file in an insecure manner, or worse, holding the file open. You are just one bad file write away from losing your registration data. Even with CS5.5 I've seen machines forget their status. Often the fix is a trip into time machine to recover the right folder in /Library (can't recall off the top of my head where it is located -- FlexLIM or something).

We keep our Mac maintenance pretty simple - Disk Warrior to stay ahead of directory structure issues, and Onyx to run Unix maintenance scripts and reset the various System caches once in a while. These get run every few months, usually when a machine starts getting fussy about fonts.

When I ran Windows at home I used a registry cleaner once in a while but I don't think Adobe keeps the licensing information in there.

[Noel Carboni]

MarketingDen wrote:

I see it more likely an indication that the licensing scheme is periodically writing information to a file in an insecure manner, or worse, holding the file open. You are just one bad file write away from losing your registration data.

I guess that's my point - what's a "bad write"?  No such thing is supposed to happen - computers are not just expected to make errors, not good ones anyway.

I use Photoshop hundreds of times a day.  I cold start it hundreds of times a day.  And I've never had it forget my licensing status.

There could be a fault in Adobe's own code that causes corruption of licensing data - I think that's even been confirmed for certain versions - but if that were the case in general, wouldn't everyone see some low level of loss of licensing info?  In fact, it seems that some people see it again and again, while others never do - hence my question.

No one outside Adobe knows how they encrypt and where they store their activation info.  It may even be they do stuff that's so tricky some machines don't handle it well.  But if we could detect a correllation between the people see the problem and the specific things they do, then we could at least advise not doing them.

I do know this:  Windows NEVER needs any kind of "registry cleaner".  I advise everyone using one to re-evaluate what it is they're trying to solve by doing so, and find a better way to solve it.

-Noel

[MarketingDen]

Whats a "bad write"? A broken or crashed application that wrote nonsense in a critical file?

I had one of our production girls leave me a message that "photoshop crashed on Thursday and now nothing will run." So I check out the machine and sure enough running any CS5.5 application just brings up a message about the licensing has stopped working and to reinstall." Generally speaking with the terrible state of Adobe's installers and how godawful slow they are, with a ridiculously slow update process that follows, reinstalling is a last resort for me. Instead I fired up her Time Machine (the Mac's built-in backup scheme) and restored the contents of the FlexLM folder (buried somewhere in the system Library folder). Bingo, everything worked again, and the problem never resurfaced on that Mac.

So yeah, crashes happen, stuff gets corrupted. Happens. Possibly happens to some more than others because of particular work habits or workflows that cause more exposes more problems for them.

Personally I've never had this issue on my own machines, but my work habits and workflows are completely different from everyone else in the building.

[MarketingDen]

Windows never needs registry cleaning... Sure. The way around keeping irrelevant, old, or incorrect values out of your system registry is to simply periodically reinstall the OS when it starts to slow down. I don't think there's anything wrong with occasionally cleaning the registry, provided you know what you're doing, and it'll keep you from having to reinstall your OS from time to time. Just saying. But this has nothing to do with Adobe. They don't keep their licensing info in the registry.

[q38]

This is shot in the dark about the registration issue.  I've been having situations where CS6 seems to clobber itself, perhaps a stack overflow?  For example if a "change to RGB mode" is executed from an action (I know, sounds weird, and it changes every few days), then the actions panel does not update visually until the cursor is moved back over the image.  The first time this happened I kept clicking on things to get a response, not realizing I was blindly destroying my action.  Restarting Photoshop is the only thing that resets it, then playing the same step in the action sets it off again, so there are some action steps I do manually for several days until it becomes something else.  I build a lot of custom actions to recover image problems for Hollywood.

I'm sure Adobe is doing some really clever things with the licensing, but maybe some new thing is too "clever" and is sometimes writing past the area it should be and clobbering itself, Photoshop, or other running programs, which would explain some odd behaviour of the system sometimes when Photoshop is running intensively.

I had the "trial version" problem a thousand miles from home on a Photoshop-critical trip!  When I got back home, reentering the registration just once cured it for my system.

[uhanepono]

Ah so perhaps it is related to an IP or ping or routing issue? What does adobe keep track of on our machines via IP? Does the IP logged in from somehow trigger a "trial" popup? Do we give it permission somehow for this data traffic and how can we change this permission. Perhaps, now, with subscriptions there is a new protocol for tracking user access all round? I know bridge now requires an open port (even though it states it doesn't use it to send or receive packets via IP) to to send and receive to/from itself to/from other apps in the suite. Hmm. Any thoughts on this from staff?

q38 wrote:

I had the "trial version" problem a thousand miles from home on a Photoshop-critical trip!  When I got back home, reentering the registration just once cured it for my system.

[deangc]

Noel Carboni wrote:

A broad question for those of you having this problem:

Are you using any kind of "cleaner" software (e.g., a registry sweeper, Mac Keeper, etc.)?

That you are losing your activation status and login info implies something on your system is being lost.  Computers shouldn't (and don't normally) lose data.  A computer system so egregiously broken that it regularly loses data (e.g., because of a disk problem) wouldn't work otherwise.

So the question you should be asking yourself is WHY am I losing data?

Are you losing other data regularly?

I don't use a registry sweeper. Adobe acknowledges that this is a bug in their activation/registration/licencing system.

Here is my guess: Adobe uses a complex set of criteria to determine whether or not the machine that Photoshop is starting on a registered machine. That algorithm is going wrong in some cases, and it incorrectly determines that Photoshop is on an unlicenced machine. Adobe is doing this because people pirate this software so widely, but it is a complex problem, and I would guess that the licence verifier looks at many things on a machine to determine whether or not it is the same machine - and in some cases those things are changing in an unexpected way.

That doesn't make this any less frustrating or annoying or time-consuming as an end user, and if it is bad enough it could cost them licenced users. But it is Adobe's problem to solve, and they seem to have gone quiet on it - at the very least I would have expected techical support to have heard of this problem by now and have a workaround, but they don't seem to.

[Noel Carboni]

I'll agree with the assessment that the complex algorithms intended to slow down piracy are at the heart of the problem.  It stinks that people are so dishonest about using software that such schemes have to be put in place.  I've had to put them in my own software as well.

Keep in mind, however, that once the serial number is re-entered, it is allowing people to activate again and again.  That implies that some part of their scheme thinks it's the same system that's been licensed before, and that the activation approval status - wherever and however it's stored - is being lost.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't some folks' systems forgetting their Adobe ID, with which they can log in and get activation approval from the cloud subscription servers?  I may be crossing things up, but I think I've read of folks who have to keep re-entering their Adobe ID.

I'm not sure Adobe has unambiguously acknowledged it's their bug.  They HAVE acknowledged a specific bug that caused problems for many users in 13.0.2, 13.0.3, 13.1.0 and 13.1.1.  The statements they made about that may not apply to the folks who remain in the situation with 13.0.4 or 13.1.2 where their license status is being repeatedly forgotten.

In any case, as a fellow user powerless to see under the covers or do anything to the code, I'm just seeing if I can help by finding something in common you folks who remain struggling with this problem are doing and can avoid to work around it.

-Noel

[KirstyMc]

'Preciate that Noel!

I don't have an issue with my adobe ID - it's always there -as are all my registered products in "my adobe".  Something I have noticed is that if I ever try to try launch CS6  from lightroom that ALWAYS brings up the trial version.  Launching from desk top will be fine for a while, then throw in a trial every so often.

[wkjeiwoi]

Well, back months ago, I opted to remove my CS6 install (that had been "tainted" by the rogue updater) and re-install the base version.

I have not installed or allowed any updaters since then.

Just now, I needed to launch Dreamweaver and got this trial version malarkey again!

What is going on, Adobe?  If this had happened tomorrow while I was at school I would have been out of luck.

So now I must re-install CS6....again...rather than get actual work done.

Is there an actual fix to this problem out there? If so, kindly share it, please?

w

[uhanepono]

Hi 530 kwjelwol, Before you bother reinstalling try this. Purge the user cashe. Now do you have a full license or a subscription? If it's a full go to the user cashe and purge it. and then relaunch. Still there? then do a manual update to the 13.04 from within the app and see if you're ok after that. the 13.04 is a stable update and solves the problem upon relaunching a seconf time.

[wkjeiwoi]

thank you uhanepono...

too late; just reinstalled but before hand I chucked all the adobe stuff I could find: apps, cache, application support and preferences..

are you saying that if I do the 13.04 updater straight away, I'll be ok?

sure hope so!

thanks!

w

[uhanepono]

are you saying that if I do the 13.04 updater straight away, I'll be ok?

sure hope so!

thanks!

w

Yep.  Best  to do so from within the app fro stability's sake. So that's help>updates>etc. Also update the CR2 updates to the most current.

[wkjeiwoi]

OK..I can do that..can you tell me how to find/launch the updater app? This install, I don't see it and couldn't find it in my apps folder I installed everything except for Flash..

thank you!

[wkjeiwoi]

OK.,found the updater, but not clear to me how to upgrade to 13.04 and not to  some prior, trouble-causing update.

any clues?

thank you

[uhanepono]

OK. Open an adobe app.

Along the top find the "help" tab within that app.

pull down the menu for that "help" tab and find "updates"••••.

Click on "updates"

the adobe updater will look for updates and,

since you haven't updated since 13.01 it will see that and the updater will find and present you with some updates to install.  You would be safe just downloading all the updates presented to you. They will do no harm. 13.04 has addressed the problems the previous updates had so no worry in updating to that 13.04 "build". At some point in the install process the installer will ask you to close your adobe app so don't wander off too far during the install process. Close the app when prompted and the installer will continue it's install till the end. I will often log out and back in or reboot the computer after that but it's not really a big deal to just reopen the app and go about your biz after the update..

••••This path may differ on a PC. It may be under another tab along the top of the app but one of the tabs will have the "update" option in it's menu.

Let me know if thia was helpful and if you need more asstance.

[wkjeiwoi]

OK, cool..

now is there a spot on adobe's site where we can just download the actual updaters? If I have to do this again, I'd much rather have those updaters ready to go rather than download them all again.

thank you,  uhanepono