New iLok goes dead

[PookyNR]

In a most unfortunate turn of events, my new iLok2 went dead and all 131 licenses on it went 'bye bye.'

Awesome.

I'm glad that Pace is willing to replace this new and now dead iLok for free.

But, of course, they're charging ~$50 to recover the licenses. And if you want "zero down time" to get some temp licenses ASAP, that's $30 + a $100 'expediency' fee. And then of course there's shipping to send a new iLok back (~$27).

Sorry to complain, but surely there has to be a better way of maintaining licensed software without these hideous expenses due to no fault of my own.

I'm certainly not impressed with Pace / iLok. Their new product fails quickly and I'm stuck with a huge bill for the problem.

And of course everything in the studio is on hold until this is remedied.

[grekim]

That's crazy. If the iLok is faulty then they should replace for it free and immediately. I can see if you stepped on it or the dog took it for spin. Bummer. All I have on mine is Melodyne and Waves Platinum, both of which I could live without for a bit.

[PookyNR]

Well, they are going to replace the iLok itself for free (minus the shipping). It's just all the other crazy charges that have me unhappy. Because you're right. It's a faulty product and they're making a lot of money off of me for me to get their faulty product serviced. And with my downtime, I'm losing big money in billable hours.

I've got Waves Mercury and the RND set on there. I use those plugs everyday and many of them I find it hard to live without them.

I have to spare iLoks, but of course now that this one is dead, I can't do any license transfers.

[Lee Blaske]

iLok is truly the bane of our existence. Not only do we have to deal with all their fees, charges and yearly dues to continue to own things we bought, they're also holding back a good portion of the plug-in world. I'm desperate to have most of my plug-ins be 64 bit, and many of the non-iLok protected ones are. Many companies with iLok protected software say that iLok is the only thing holding them back from releasing 64 bit versions. It's a disgrace.

Fortunately, some companies (like iZotope) are releasing challenge protected versions until iLok versions are available, because they feel they can no longer wait.

iLok equals a colossal PITA for us. The only people having an easy time of it appear to be the folks using pirated software. What a mess.

BTW, eLicenser stuff works great, and they've been able to protect 64 bit software from close to the time 64 bit software was released.

[Lee Blaske]

In a most unfortunate turn of events, my new iLok2 went dead and all 131 licenses on it went 'bye bye.'

Awesome.
But, of course, they're charging ~$50 to recover the licenses. And if you want "zero down time" to get some temp licenses ASAP, that's $30 + a $100 'expediency' fee.

Without the "expediency" fee, nobody would buy the silly insurance.

[PookyNR]

Without the "expediency" fee, nobody would buy the silly insurance.

It's quite snakey. It's only truly 'zero' down time if you pay the extra $100 for 'expediency' beyond the $30 for the 'zero down time.' And that's exactly why I didn't buy it. I will not give in to dishonest / poorly explained / fine print / hidden writing / etc schemes like this.

I agree with your previous post. iLok is the truly a huge PITA and the bane of our existence.

There must be a better way to do copy protection. I hate being punished for being a legitimate user.