Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
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By Neodymium Thu Nov 10, 2022 4:31 am
I've not had the issue yet, but on Saturday when I tried to activate them. it failed saying they weren't registered, when they were. When I booted on Sunday, they activated, but I had mad no changes at my end.

At the time, my laptop couldn't access the page to activate, but my phone could. I live in Vietnam, sometimes sites cannot be accessed from here. Modwiggler won't work on my phone, but will on my laptop. I sometimes have to contact administrators and they have to make acceptations on their systems to allow me to access. (I can't remember which, but Geraslutz or KVR had to do this a few years back.

The MPC One has no Wifi, so re-activating is more of a pain, than just selecting an option. My router in the house is tucked away, I rent so I can't move it. if am using my MPC One somewhere else, then I'd have to have my ethernet cable with me, and find a router I can plug into, so more of a pain.

In my opinion, once activated, it should just stay that way. As pointed out, we cannot transfer licences. Although I don't now how many MPC's I can own to use the same plug in.

If they do want a periodic activation, then it should be made clear. And a warning message should appear giving 2 week warning on boot up. And if you happen to have not used you machine for those 2 weeks it should always have a minimum of 48 hours, so any false registration issues can be resolved with Akai before the time ends

My OPX4 was registered weeks ago, and my MIni D and Flvour Pro days before I installed. My MPC One stated it was on-line and that I had not registered plug-ins, when I did.
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By Lampdog Thu Nov 10, 2022 8:53 am
Neodymium wrote:Although I don't now how many MPC's I can own to use the same plug in.

3
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By kja Thu Nov 10, 2022 8:56 am
jamos wrote:Defensive? I have nothing to defend... why would I be defensive?

Nah.. I just don't like it when people deny obvious issues. Again, the very nature of fragile systems is that nobody knows when they will fail. Akai needs to get its shit together.

Please, I never denied the issue.. all I said was some people have gone months with not having to activate anything.. that is not saying they're is no issue, infact I said it is probably a bug or a problem with the processor pages ago.. I have always only wanted to figure out what is going on. You said it is still a monthly activation besides proof that it is not.. so now it is a weak system to blame? I thought it was the fact it needed routine activation? It seems like your story changed while putting words in my mouth..
Last edited by kja on Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By kja Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:02 am
The Akai site clearly says you can transfer licences, do people just say these things as truths here with no real reason for doing so? You are sure of things you never even bothered to find out if they are even correct?
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By bitermc Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:12 pm
This is gonna become a shitfest :mrgreen:

IMHO, the great minds that direct Inmusic's marketing and sales followed this chain of thought:

  • Users can activate a plugin in up to 3 devices
  • A user could activate a plugin and keep the device offline forever and ever. This way, he would be able to de-register the device from the web and reset the counter.
  • An evil -and especially moronic- user could even have an unlimited number of unregistered plugin instances just by buying new MPCs and keeping them offline forever. God forbid!!
  • To prevent this, let's force all users to go online and reactivate their plugins periodically

The problem with this, as we've seen, is that the plugin can stop working unexpectedly in the worst moment: places with less connectivity, airplanes, professional studio paid time (you're about to record and, boom, your plugin needs reactivation... stop and go find a wired connection).

There are more elegant solutions to this problem, but, hey... f*ck our customers!. Force them to keep going online periodically and punish them if they don't.

And, of course, if the activation server goes down, you cannot user the plugin you paid for until it comes back.

Also, the day the current line of MPCs and its plugins are discontinued, the activation services can go down forever, and forever gone your plugins will be. I know this is a distant future, but musical instruments are supposed to last.

For the moment, my money is not going to be spent on new plugins. Not until I have a 100% crystal clear confirmation that a plugin doesn't need reactivation unless the firmware is updated.
Last edited by bitermc on Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By kja Thu Nov 10, 2022 1:11 pm
At this point, we don't even know if that is true. Some users are reporting that you don't need to verify periodically and it could just be a bug.
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By NearTao Thu Nov 10, 2022 1:37 pm
After updating both my MPC to 2.11.6 and Force to 3.2, the next day they both had to have all plugins re-activated. Besides the upgrade on the same day, I'm not sure what may have triggered it. Seems strange, but I'll certainly keep a closer eye on it if it happens again next time.
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By EnochLight Thu Nov 10, 2022 4:13 pm
bitermc wrote:The problem with this, as we've seen, is that the plugin can stop working unexpectedly in the worst moment: places with less connectivity, airplanes, professional studio paid time (you're about to record and, boom, your plugin needs reactivation... stop and go find a wired connection)..


:hmmm:

I'm not sure what studios you've been in lately, but every studio I've been in (say for the last 15 years) all have a pretty solid Internet connection and WiFi. I'm not saying having to re-activate isn't a major PITA, especially if you're paying by the hour or are feeling the rage of a client, but I also wouldn't set foot near a studio on my dime (or a client's) if I didn't check my gear (i.e., connect to the Internet and authorize all necessary plugins, etc) beforehand.
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By bitermc Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:20 pm
Yes, but at studio time you're supposed to stay focused on what you're doing, not on activating licenses that were already activated. As you said, it's a pain. I've met people who paid their Cubase license and ended up using a pirated version just to get rid of dongles, remote activations and that kind of crap.

An even worst case scenario is if it asks for activation when you're about to perform live in front of an audience :WTF:

Hopefully, it will be as Tutor says

MPC-Tutor wrote:Yes firmware updates do seem to lead to reactivation and often having to log back in to your inmusic account. This might be necessary as they are continually updating the licensing system in each release


Re-activating once after each firmware upgrade is completely reasonable. I hope he's right and I'm wrong.
By Gorgon Thu Nov 10, 2022 6:32 pm
Servers go down, it happens, applications on those servers also get updated, not just the mpc OS. Ponder that for a minute. Every online service has down time, look at the gaming industry

The standalone units are designed to stay activated offline as long as you remain logged in. This doesn’t mean being online logged in, it just means being logged in and offline. A lot of people seem to think it should still work after logging out. This is not the case. Logging out will deactivate your plug in and you’ll then have to go back online and log in again to reactivate. There’s not actually any reason to log out, your plug ins will stay activated if you go offline and don’t log out.

Firmware updates are also not designed to log you out either.

Resetting your preferences probably will

**** around with your system clock will also invalidate and deactivate your plug ins. It’s plausible, daylight savings changes in some countries could maybe cause issues with that. But it’s all resolved by going back online, logging back in and re activating
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By kja Thu Nov 10, 2022 8:31 pm
I really hope they can take all the negative feedback, and just make it where it they are on a mpc and paid for they will work. It might take some time to get there, but hopefully eventually they will make them just be there and there is no way to deactivate unless you hit the deactivate button on the mpc. That is my hope..
I know this is all in the infancy though and needs years to be polished out into a system that carries over mpc generations.