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  • Most home insurers will only insure the dongle, but not the software licences on it, which is spectacularly useless to us. The best thing to do is to contact your studio equipment insurer and get them to include the cost of replacement licences with your other studio equipment.

    DG


  • Just wanted to chime in and say I'd love to see VSL implement the Waves solution, with temporary licenses in need of reactivation every 90 days or so. That would sure make me sleep better. I'm really paranoid about loosing my dongles.


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    @The Minstrel said:

    Just wanted to chime in and say I'd love to see VSL implement the Waves solution, with temporary licenses in need of reactivation every 90 days or so. That would sure make me sleep better. I'm really paranoid about loosing my dongles.

    I love the Waves TLC program.

    HOWEVER, before VSL does a similar solution, the engineers and designers must make it SO EASY that a caveman can do it (sorry, a reference to a US insurance company marketing slogan that has jumped the shark). Right now, getting auths and manually copy/pasting to the eLicensor is quite a process -- can't imagine doing this every 90 days for a dozen or more auths on multiple dongles. Waves consolidates auths into "bundles" so I only have 2 auths to deal with. Just sharing.


  • I do NOT wish to have any authorization issue come up every 90 days. That can corrupt a project actually, one day a library isn't authorized and the next time you launch the project there might be something pointing to that in preferences resulting in an unstable project that has to be rebuilt. I definitely experienced this with my broken dongle issue in the interim before re-authorization, and I wouldn't want this kind of thing cropping up to add to my worries.

    If this were *an option*, sounds swell. But having it as policy per se I don't like at all.


  • Waves TLC is an option.

    http://www.wavesupport.net/content.aspx?id=4077

    Auths and prefs are totally unrelated, and one changing should never interfere with the other. Something else must have changed (software version, etc.). A missing auth should NEVER change any session data. 

    Sounds like something else was going on here. Different version of the software? This happened to me on numerous files when upgrading VEPro -- so separate backup is always crucial. VSL version changing is always cautious time -- but never related to authorization. Separate issues.


  • I would have to research that before I agreed or disagreed, 'auths vs prefs in the case of VSL'. In the case of many plugins I am definitely familiar with enough to 'know', that statement is *not true*. IE: you delete preferences and now a new authorization is required. As per hosts*, EG: I delete Cubase preferences and previous issues of blacklisted plugs appear, which were ignored according to the old preferences, and now.require sorting.

    What specifically happened is I failed to have the right key in the right machine, and I instantiated something which required it (*: In VE Pro, which is information I omitted). That was the only problem. It did result in an issue with that vi frame. There was no update involved in that problem.

    Regardless, Waves' would be a good *option* to have, I guess.


  • After I finish today's orchestration, I will pull my dongles and restart all machines, and relaunch a clone of my session (after backups are done. Interested to see what happens if an auth is missing. 

    In ProTools, a missing iLok auth simply loads the session, with the plug or VI disabled. I have forgotten to insert an ilok after a remote session, and it's simply a matter of inserting the iLok and enabling the plug. No data has ever been lost. I must assume VSL is the same? I'll test for my own knowledge and share the results later.

    J


  • Of course, the suggested solution with reactivation every 90 days would not suit everybody. I would never argue that it should be mandatory. But it sure would be nice if VSL would provide such an option, as a means for their customers to protect their investment.

    Regarding corrupted projects, for some reason unknown to me, my eLicensers (got two of them) will occasionally fail to be recognized by my system. Usually one of them only, and it has never happened with my ilok or WIBU-key. Anyway, due to this source of irritation, I've loaded Cubase projects only to find that Vienna Instrument or Vienna Ensemble cannot be loaded. The only thing I need to do to get up and running again is to close Cubase (without saving the project), reconnect the eLicenser, find the VSTblacklist.xml file and remove the nodes referencing VI/VE. Never had any problems beyond this. I imagine saving the project might cause problems though.


  • Obviously the 90 days solution wouldn't suit everyone, essentially professionals with big studio equipment seem to be less interested in it. It would rather suit the hobbiest, essentially the SE user who are more prone to take their dongle and software around since...well since they have no studio :-)

    But I think it would be easy to satisfy both world simply by providing the 90 days method as an option. Originally VSL was probably more "pro-oriented" but, with the introduction of SE which opens to the non-professionals, new solutions need to be found.

    I don't honestly believe that insurances are a good solutions: I might be wrong but I believe it wouldn't be that easy to get your money back once your key gets stolen or lost or brakes. It would probably take loads of paper work and time or it would have to be an awfully expensive insurance which would turn out to be totally unconvenient. It's unthinkable for a non-professional to consider this solution which porbably works only if you insure a whole studio. I think this is rather a trick of the sotware company to try to put the blame on the user "well you should have thought about that, you should have insured your software" and try to soften their responsibilitie, but from the practical point of view I don't see this solution working for non-pro costumers...


  • Hi I'm new to this thread. I was getting ready to spend several thousand on Vienna Products, but am very honestly nervous about the vienna key failing or being stolen. Has there been any more progress on this subject since this thread was first posted? I need peace of mind with this kind of investment and I'd be happy to pay extra for it in the form of some sort of protection like ilock has.

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    @passenger57 said:

    Hi I'm new to this thread. I was getting ready to spend several thousand on Vienna Products, but am very honestly nervous about the vienna key failing or being stolen. Has there been any more progress on this subject since this thread was first posted? I need peace of mind with this kind of investment and I'd be happy to pay extra for it in the form of some sort of protection like ilock has.

    iLok does NOT have any protection from theft or loss, unless you are speaking of Waves TLC.

    iLok "ZDT" (zero down time) is no protection, really -- read the fine print. If you have a ZDT iLok and your iLok is damaged, ZDT will restore a bunch of temp auths that will work while your iLok is being repaired. HOWEVER -- if you lose or your iLok goes missing, ZDT will get you some temp auths. It is then up to you to figure out how to replace the auths -- and just like VSL, you best have insurance for many (most). Unless you have Waves TLC, which is the time-bombed/phone home solution...

    If you are paying $29/year per iLok for ZDT, and you THINK you are protected from loss or theft, you are mistaken. You are better off investing in better insurance, or a theft deterrence system.


  • PS -- read this... and then ask iLok what happens when the 14-day temp auths expire.

    http://www.ilok.com/ilok-zero-downtime.html


  • Hi! No news at the moment. Same problem here: I was interested in the new Instruments software and in the choir package but after my sad experience with the key loss I prefer to wait and see whther they introduce something new in the authorization system or if something nice comes out elsewhere. Let's see...

    Best,

    Cesare


  • "iLok does NOT have any protection from theft or loss, unless you are speaking of Waves TLC." Wow that really really sucks!! I spent over $10,000 on software so far this year and if something happens to this stupid piece of plastic I'm totally screwed. People like us who are honest and pay for this stuff are the ones being handcuffed for using it. I wish it was more like NI where you just activate it online, end of story.

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    @jeremyroberts said:

    It is then up to you to figure out how to replace the auths


  • There is technology and knowledge on earth that can solve the problem.

    There is money to solve the problem or more money made when problem is solved (at least I'm not buying anything more untill it's solved).

    There is just lack of ambition, which I hope will change thanks to this thread.


  • I'd prefer a watermark system like Cinematic Strings has. Easy. I was going to purchase Vienna Suite the other day, but after reading all the comments, I'm now honestly nervous about shelling out the $600 without some sort of protection from my vienna key failing and losing the license. That's my main concern. I have occasional power outages in my studio and am afraid of the thing getting zapped. I shocked some kind of protection plan is not already in place. Something like a zero down time plan. I am certainly willing to pay for it to protect my investment. Especially when I take my laptop with all my samples and authorization keys on the road for work! Anyone know of options - some kind of music insurance maybe?

  • If the dongle fails, you can send it back and the licence would be transferred to a new dongle. Always worth having a spare, empty dongle for safety.

    For power outages, you really need to get some anti-spike protection. if you don't, you are risking more than just the dongle.

    As far as insurance, you will need to shop around, because many insurers won't cover software. However, it is possible to get cover.

    DG


  • "If the dongle fails, you can send it back and the licence would be transferred to a new dongle. Always worth having a spare, empty dongle for safety." Could you please elaborate on this? Where would I send it to? If I have a spare dongle, would VSL give me a new license for it if my old one was damaged? What is the policy? I just want to be prepared. And yes, I have Furman power conditioners, the works. Even though I have a furman I still worry about my gear being damaged. Can never be too safe. If my system goes down I'm in big trouble as I depend on it everyday for work. I have 5 dongles on my system. And if anyone knows of a company that insures software, I'd sure love to know! Thanks for your help

  • Hallo!

    How does the watermark system work? Thanks for pointing out this new set of strings, didn't know about their existance.

    Did anyone get a chance to try Waves TLC? That really sounds like a great solution. I wonder what those who tried it think of it, wheteher there where issues etc.

    Concerning the damaged dongles: each company is free to deal independently with the damaged or malfunctioning keys. As far as I've heard, Vienna is willing to transfer the licenses (i.e. to make them activable again) once you send the bad dongle back and buy a new one.

    Cheers,
    Cesare