Activation problems with Vokator, Spektral Delay and Pro 53

I am a very satisfied customer of NI products for a lot of years. The best virtual instruments are provided by NI!

Since some days I have activation problems with the latest versions of Vokator, Spektral Delay and Pro 53. I am using the latest version of the Service Center (1.2.1.2).

NI gave me three links to get new serial numbers for the products mentioned above. I got new serial numbers for all of those three products, all serial numbers have the format 99999-99999-99999-99999-99999.

But I am not able to enter these serial numbersn in the latest version of the Service Center, because the mask for Vokator is 9999-99999-99999-99999-99999 and the mask for the Spektral Delay and for Pro 53 is 999-99999-99999. But I (and NI) need a format like 99999-99999-99999-99999-99999. So an activation is not possible.

There are two opportunities:
1. NI gives me a new serial numbers, which I can enter in the mask of the service center.
2. NI modifies the Service Center, so I can enter the serial numbers NI e-mailed me.

NI: You have really great products, but I am concerned. I had great problems with activation of new updates in the last weeks (Reaktor and Kontakt). And now again. Sorry, but this is a shame.

Please help me, what can I do? I am now waiting for days to get a solution. I need these products!

 

No activity from NI

Since 4 days I am not able to use Vokator, Spektral Delay and Pro 53 because of problems with the authorization.

When I installed the update of Kontakt 2.2 I was not able to use Kontakt for about one week, because of issues with the authorization.

Later I installed the update of Reaktor 5.1.2 and was not able to activate it. Even the reinstallation of Reaktor 5.1 from the Komplete 4 DVD did not work. I was not able to use Reaktor for 1 week. That meant, that I was not able to work on any project for 1 week!

And now again. Up to now I am waiting since 4 days. I would need at least Pro 53.

I don't want to install any new updates.

 

After a short phone call with the registration support the problems are solved.

For everybody with similar problems:
For an offline activation of Vokator, Spektral Delay and Pro 53 click on the export button in the menu. There you can enter the new 5x5 digit serial numbers.

That was my problem ;-)

 

I have been trying to activate Vokator, Spektral Delay and Pro 53 since MAY! Well really I got so frustrated with the support (Yes, Toni Santowski, I am talking about you) that I just gave up trying for a few months.

So I tried again today, we are now in August, and it still fails.
Worst is, I spent ages trying to understand how to do it, got some appearance of progress, which is I received the email with the three new serial numbers, like you did alpha-w, but I just CANNOT SEE AN "EXPORT" BUTTON anywhere in the service center application. Also I know that I got the latest service center because even today it updated itself automatically .
So please please I beg you alpha-w, can you describe *exactly* step by step how you were able to perform this offline activation? When I start any of the three applications, it does not give me the option of an offline activation.

This is really horrible, I set out this Sunday afternoon to make some music, but I ended up wasting the whole afternoon just trying to make software work, and failing.

I will never buy any NI product again unless they completely redo their protection system, and announce this loud enough that I hear from it on some other website than theirs. It is a complete disgrace.

:-(

 

So after reading a lot of the message in the forum, I got back some hope, looked and looked again, and i finally stumbled upon going in the Service Center to the "Product Overview", then the "Product Details", then clicking on the little "+" in a box next to the products that refused to activate, then entering the number I had received by email, then running the online activation again, and then it works.

So this now turns in a personal message i guess for Marius Wilhelmi: the help and documentation provided on your website is worst than worthless. Because of the seeming availability of support, with request forms, and an automated activation utility, I did not look at the forums in May, I just waited for support to come back to me but all I got is messages in what appeared to be correct english, but asking for ARF file but not telling me what an ARF file is, or how to get an ARF file, and sending me into a maze of frustration and hate for NI.

In the service center the button that generate an .html file that you have to guess that you have to save on your hard disk, then open, then read and follow the link, really is atrocious user interface design.

If there was money for your company received only after the activation was successful, I am sure you would have a better user interface for activation.

I tried and tried to activate and to get support through the official apparently good channels, for days in May of this year, and for hours today. It is only finally by accident that I found the extremely counter-intuitive way to activate, without having received any real help from your support or from your automated activation tool.

You wasted a *lot* of my time and energy.

I stand by my words: no more purchases from NI until you fix your activation process and communicate loudly enough about it.

 

Based on the informations I got from NI they are still working on improvements for the product activations. I wasted a lot of time, too, when I tried to activate the updates (!) of Reaktor and Kontakt and I was not able to use both programs for about one week. I am a half professional musician and that means, that I lost money!

Likek you did, lol4882, I had problems with the activation of Vokator, Spektral Delay and Pro 53 and solved those problems very fast with phone support by NI. There were no problems, but a poor documentation about the activation process.

Nevertheless, NI offers the best VST instruments I know. That's, what I can say. But I really don't like it to change any versions of NI software, because of the known problems with the activation.

 

Quite right indeed alpha-w

By the way Marius, in the Sticky message at the top of the list of messages, you give incorrect and misleading information, you write:

Service Center 1.0.0.018 and higher:
a) Go to "Product Overview" (Main menu) and click the "Support File" button"
b) Zip and send the file named "ActivationRequestFile.htm l" to our registration support.

But actually that is not true, the html file is useless, when I sent it to support they asked for some other file (without explaining how to get that other file, as per my previous message of today)
May I suggest that you
- correct this information!
- make this information more visible than just a forum post, there are tons of pages of "support" on the NI site, still failing to give this information!