Traktor 3.2 is installed, but Service Center won't run...

For sme reason my idyit brain thought you were running on OSX, and no that won't help you then. On Mac there was a probelm with the installer that broke the disk permissions and the plugin could not be called properly.

One plus purely from my perspective; problems of this nature are contained to the windows world... so far
So let me recap whet I think we have discovered in your case....
- Application begins to initialize but reports 'No Flash Error' and quits.
- Its on Windows XP SP2
- You've tried flash 8 and 9
- You've uninstalled and reinstalled Traktor and service center
- You have verifed Flash works for other applications (Beatport Store and BeatPort in Traktor 3.2)
- S.C. reports No Flash Error for the app when called from within Traktor and when started standalone.
- Have rebooted after reinstalling
- Have checked flash functions properly on the Adobe Flash website.

What else did I miss?
Can you please Zip up the Service Center.exe on your system and send it to me by email jplewis01 AT comcast.net
Can you also check that you do not have other versions of service Center on your machine as well.

Phil

 

*phil: I'd think the Opera install should be included in your list. Has anyone ever tested S.C. with Opera installs?

 

I can add it, but I think it may be chaff. He has tested with IE and got the same results... right? He also uninstalled Opera and tested just IE and that also did not work. Besides that Service Center is a Flash container app that does not seem to rely on the browser explicitly for functional support.

Phil

 

Phil, as far as I understand the scenario, Flash was first installed when Opera was installed and subsequently landed in an Opera directory.
Subsequent installs of Flash will use the same directory and IE will pick it up from there, too.

Now, how much would you bet that S.C. has a few hard-coded locations for the Flash dlls (and the Opera directory isn't one of them)?

 

Well that makes WAY more sense than anything I have thought of so far, I would be willing to bet you are on the right track if not having nailed it exactly, It might be why others have been fixed by deinstall, reboot and reinstall.

Phil

 

No prob - at least my disks are properly chkdsk'ed now =)

That's pretty much it. Plus:
- I've also tried Flash 8 full version as a last resort without success
- I manually copied the Flash dll NPSWF32.dll to the "Service" Center dir and bin dir without success
- Traktor v3.2 is the first app to install Service Center on my machine, it did not come with 3.1.3, right? I've no other NI progs installed.

You'll get it in a minute.

That's exactly what I found suspicious. But that's why I un-installed Opera completely then and re-installed Flash twice more. Once to c:\windows\system32\Macromed\ or somesuch and then to the IE plugins dir. If that doesn't fix it I wouldn't know what else.

Cheers, h00la

 

The chkdsk thing only applied to Mac. It came about while testing LE on OSX and flash barfed and refused to install. In that case the disk permissions were Effed up and Flash plugin install failed. I've not seen such an issue on windows.

Given that we know flash works for other application (Beatport works on this system) then the theory that SC is looking in a specific location for flash or for a specific version (dll) that is not present is valid. If you really want to dig then debugview and or Filemon might provide clues. Debugview when bound to the app might show the missing dependency and Filemon might show a fileopen or dirscan that points to the calling location.

Either way its likely we would have to wait till Monday to solve this problem.

 

OK, I got it! Filemon did it. Good hint to use this prog, Phil, Thanks!

I have the Adobe Creative Suite installed, a part of which is Adobe Brige and that contains a Flash dll. This is what NI "Service" Center tries to load. Don't ask me why?!?

I simply replaced that dll with a newer one and it started without a hitch...

What a drag. And my suspicion that it all is just for a graphical bling bling for a prgram that pretends to help the user but actually is just another peace of Big-Brother-ware was very much right.

NI, maybe you should spend less time on vain attempts to fight the warez kiddies and rather spend that time on Traktor and friends...

Well, let's hope the new version makes me happy now (if not, Phil, I'll promise to shut down my PC for today and not vent in the Forum =).

Cheers, h00la

 

SWEET! Thanks for sticking with me as we waded through seemingly un-related stuff. You taught me a lot about how to debug problems with Service Center.

Don't you dare shutdown the computer! If you want to make me happy, go mix like a madman for as long as you can stand it, find out what is good, what is bad what is ugly and report back later today when you are done. Just as important as finding hearing the goodness is hearing the badness and if you have things to report then I am all ears.

Nice find BTW... We can have a discussion about Service Center and stuff another time.

Phil

 

Huge thanks to you & Phil for doing all the donkey work to find the source of this problem...

I had Adobe Photoshop Elements installed, which had its own Flash dll (version 7.something). I uninstalled PE because I can't remember the last time I used it, and Service Center sprang into life...

This still doesn't change my opinion that SC is a great big steaming pile ofNO CARRIER

 

I agree - dump the Service Center, it's too big and serves no purpose in relation to the Traktor software. If you have a problem with illegal versions being used then devise some technical solutions to prevent it from being used illegally.

I was excited to see there were new features available but there was no documentation on how to install the upgrade and presuming it was a minor upgrade went to install. When I got to the screen that asked me to save the Service Center to my computer I immediately cancelled to look for more info on exactly what Service Center is...and I don't see anything explaining what or why.

To reiterate what another user stated, we paid for this software and we shouldn't have to deal with these types of hassles and blind install issues. At a minimum please disclose any potential issues, limitations, changes in size of program, etc. before lauding the few things it supposedly does better.

 

Thatz some cleverness right there. Dump the service center and come up with a different piece of copy pretection software? Pffft!

On the one hand you say dump copy protection and in the very next sentence you say apply some different copy protection? WTF! What would that be exactly? Something a whole bunch easier to hack? How about a USB dongle or online runtime activation so that you can only use the software when you have an internet connection?

The reality is that copy protection is only so good and only for so long.... However, the rage against copy protection is in my opinion made a by a good number of people who lack the ethics to act legally and would rather leach off those of us that do buy software. I am 100% convinced that if any of you who are so against copy protection were the CEO of NI or a majority shareholder you would hold a much different view on the issue of copy protection than you do today.
I would also bet a tidy sum that if every illegal copy in use today were to have paid $120.00 to get legal in the first place, Traktor would be a different product than it is today.

Copy Protection Sucks! What sucks more though, is the need for it at all. Legit users have a right to complain about it, but first and foremost though legit users if you want something to rail against, you should go after the reason for copy protection in the first place... illegal users, fix that problem and the need for copy protection is removed.

Phil

 

Hey Phil,

If you are done ranting and raving and treating a fully paid customer who voiced a legitimate concern like a thieving hacker who used your software free of charge, then please post a link for us all with full disclosure and details regarding Service Center. What it is, what it does, how it affects the computer, what potential risks are involved, potential hazards (e.g. Flash issue) and what other options are available other than 'Service' Center.

That's what I asked for in my first post but you went on some long diatribe about cleverness and ethics and bla bla bla.

If you have the documentation, post a link to it.

 

Hi djnuvoe,

does this help?

NI Service Center
Service Center FAQ

Cheers,
Plangin

 

Service Center is an application authorization engine intended to reduce the illegal use of Native Instruments Software. Service Center requires the preinstallation of Flash version 8.0 or higher prior to execution in order to operate. Service Center replaces the old authorization tool to simplify the product authorization process. It allows users to perform authorization of their software on systems directly, instead of launching external software to do so. There are no known potential risks to using the Service Center. Legitimate users should expect no problems authorizing their legitmately obtained software. To date there are 7 cases reported with users unable to authorize. 3 cases were resolved by unistalling Flash and reinstalling the Service center shipping version (8.0) or diwnloading and installing version 9.0, all affected users were on the Windows platform. 3 further cases have been reported that involve flash version incompatibility with flash installed by Abobe CS2 and other Adobe products (believed to be version 7.x), those 3 cases have now been resolved. This defect use case has been reported to NI registration support and a defect has been filed today against Service Center. There is presently one known outstanding case that has been reported that has not been possible to resolve. It will require direct interaction with registration support to do so. It does not fit the cases descibed above.

Your two options to use Traktor are to run in demo mode or execute Service Center to authorize a legitimately obtained copy of the software using a legitimate serial number. There are 2 possible options within Service Center to authorize; They are, direct authorization which is quick, painless and by in large, problem free. The other option is to perform offline authorization similar to the process provided in the original authorization tool. Limitations are that if you don't install Service Center you cannot authorize. If you don't authorize you can play only in Demo mode. Change in program size is not relevant to a disclosure of service center functionality. Current Service Center Version is 1.0.0.016. I don't have a link to doucumentation but plangin very kindy provided it for you in the previous message. Thank You for that.

That you took offense to being accused of piracy where non was intended was unfortunate. That you missed the initial point to my first paragraph, where you suggest dumping copy protection in favor of... copy protection, is likewise unfortuante, but not unexpected.

When you are ready we could continue discussion of blah blah... or do you have the data that you seek?

Phil

 

thanks for this topic! it's been two days since i'm trying to get past the native instruments service center flash error page. i also had to search for old 'NPSWF32.DLL' files and rename them to get it to work.

there's definately a bug that needs to be addressed. non-techy would have a hard time with this one.

 

Absolutely! hopefully it can be fixed quickly. The fewer people that have to put up with it the better.

Phil

 

Hi all,

those who still have a problem with Service Center crashes on PC, or get an error message about an incompatible Flash version when launching SC, you really have to make sure that SC under no circumstances tries to load an outdated version. There is a certain order in which SC looks for available Flash Players on the computer which is part of the Flash routine, but SC can not handle versions lower than 8.0.22.0.

To really be on the safe side you can do a hard disk search for the following file:

NPSWF32.dll

Check the version of ech of the search results and replace those which are below 8.0.22.0 with the newer version. You can check the version by selecting the file and pressing Alt + Enter, or by right clicking on it and choosing "properties". The version is shown on the "Version" tab.

Sorry for the inconveniences with our product activation.

 

So can anyone help me out!?!?

I am trying to running SC on MacBook and it keeps on crashing
just right after I start it.

Tried reinstalling it, installed latest flash, checked permissions etc.
No luck.

I am really getting pissed over spending 99EUR =[

 

I'm in the same situation I think.

Macbook Pro. Tiger. Latest updates installed.

On starting Service Center, it asks me for the folder containing the Macromedia Flash plugin (I have the Adobe Flash plugin installed, but having tried pointing it to the only Adobe Flash folder I could find, it didn't work), and on clicking "open", it simply presents me with a blank page which I presume should be the Service Center, but it's not being run.

I've just paid €99 for this and am seriously pissed off, not least because Traktor 2 isn't available as a universal binary, so I'm having to spend yet more money to use a piece of hardware I paid £500 for last year on the understanding it was Mac and PC compatible.

Very stressed right now, so apologies for giving NI both barrels, but I'm extremely disappointed.

The worst part of it all is that I'm supposed to be warming up for DJ Fergie tomorrow night - an opportunity of a lifetime - and now it's looking like I will have to lose my main DJing tool because it simply won't be working.

A very gutted munki