Licenses sometimes get lost on a computer

Support
#1

I got this issue some time ago and read notes from others with similar issue: licenses sometimes get lost on a computer. This means that after you put licenses from the cloud to your machine, licenses disappear after reboot.

I am not a big computer expert, but from what I understand, licenses are attached to MAC address, which is a device’s unique identifier, assigned to a network interface controller. So, when Waves Central moves licenses to a machine, the licenses ‘remember’ the MAC of that machine to ‘recognize’ it when want to use the plugins. On some machines, in rare cases, probably the WiFi adapter messes up with the network card, so the machine is not always reporting the same MAC. At least it looks like that :crazy_face:

As a result, next time the licenses will see different MAC on the same machine, so they stop working. In Waves Central it appears like the licenses were moved to a devise which is ‘not connected’.

A solution for me was to use recover function to restore my licenses to the cloud, and then I moved licenses to a USB stick. Now they are in a more safe place :slight_smile:

Correct me if I wrote something wrong. And hope this helps :slight_smile:

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#2

@Andy_Gone
The steps (Recovery of Licenses) that you followed would be my last resource. As the recovery of Licenses can be done only Once in a Year

I would suggest to first try the troubleshooting steps mentioned at

Computer appears as Disconnected Device in Waves Central

These steps have saved me once with this kind of issue & I didn’t have to use my last resource of License Recovery. :grinning:

Obviously a USB Flash drive is safe to store the licenses

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#3

Yes, it was some weird mess between NICs on that computer. It looked like they go enabled and disabled by themselves, so I did not succeed to bring it back to the initial state and ended up in recovering licenses and placing them to the USB.

#4

As @punitb mentioned, if you encounter this issue - follow the steps in Computer appears as Disconnected Device in Waves Central .

Possible Reasons (From link above)
Central recognizes computers by their Network Interface Card’s (NIC) MAC address. Hardware MAC addresses are assigned at manufacturing and cannot be changed.

In light of the above, it may be that:

  1. You are using a different computer.
  2. The NIC or motherboard was replaced, in which case Waves Central is “seeing” your computer as a different machine.
  3. You were using an NIC which is now disabled.
  4. You were using some kind of adapter (i.e. Thunderbolt to Ethernet, USB wireless adapter etc.) which is now disconnected.

I can also add that sometimes VPN’s can change mac addresses. If licenses were activated to a computer while connect4ed to VPN, it’s MAC address may change and “loose” the license.

If you still cannot find your device after following these steps, it is best to contact technical support.

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#5

I have the exact same problem and even when I use the license recover feature, my license still removed itself and now I can’t even recover again because I can only do it every year. I’m really disappointed and would love help and feedback.