Suggestion, allow user to order the computers in the sidebar

Another issue I have just encountered. ANYDESK and RUSTDESK which I use, allows me to log in to a PC, but Multiplicity, though showing me the log in screen, would not let me log in. Is is this correct, can it be changed or have I set up something wrong?

Thanks.

Only show did the trick. Weird as the computers ARE powered on. Have turned that off and its working. Thanks.

All

Multiplicity 4.05 Beta has been released.  For details, please see:

https://forums.stardock.com/536738/multiplicity-405-beta-feedback

As always, thank you for your time, feedback, and support. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Quoting atomic_cattleprod,

reply 59

I am licensed for both Object Desktop (subscription) and have a separate license for Multiplicity v4 Pro, however Multiplicity is showing the Pro features as disabled:



I suspect that one (or both) of the following are the cause of this:

1) I have an Object Desktop subscription, which entitles me to a basic Multiplicity license.

2) I originally purchased Multiplicity KVM v3 in October 2024. At the time, it was promised that those of us purchasing KVM after September 2024 would receive a license for v4 Pro for free. This did actually work for a time, but then somehow my license was reverted (possibly with the upgrade to v4.0.1)

One other note (this is a constant annoyance and also probably part of the reason why this happened) - for some reason, the license for my Stardock software randomly gets "lost" by the computer after a reboot and I have to re-apply my license (which I do by logging into my Stardock account). I suspect that it was during one of these "refreshes" that my license got reverted to the basic license.

Please let me know when my license has been corrected.

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Please raise support ticket using the link below, use the product not receive option. Include all information details. Remember to record down the ticket number for future reference if needed. Do not raise multiple ticket, that will make your ticket back to the end of the line. Send once and wait. Ticket will be answer by the order they send in.

https://stardock.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/13 

Thanks
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

If you are activating with email \ password (account), don't... Use email \ product key, the MP one from your account

I will try that out to see if that works, however, the other problem I'm running into (that I have to periodically keep re-activating my licenses) makes this a pretty annoying solution. I know my Stardock password off by heart, I don't know my license keys, so doing it the way you suggest means I'll have to keep logging into the site to get the keys whenever the products deactivate themselves. I would prefer if the activation system just worked properly and using the software I purchased didn't involve so many hoops to jump through.

This is a work computer and my organization uses WatchGuard EDPR which is a pretty extensive malware product, so I wouldn't be surprised if it could be causing issues with Stardock software. I only have access to the basic malware scanning log for on my machine, though, so can't really tell definitively if it is the cause. There are no entries in the log that mention any file ending in .sig, anything with the keyword "Stardock" or "Multiplicity", or anything in the C:\ProgramData\Stardock\ path. 

FYI - for your own troubleshooting: there is also no real consistency in terms of when it happens, except for two things:

1) When it does happen, it is always after a reboot of the system. I did suspect that Windows Update might be the cause because there are some stretches where this workstation might be running for a couple of weeks straight before it has to be rebooted because of an update, but I've been through a few "Update >> Reboot" cycles more recently where it didn't cause the license to disappear, and the most recent case was a regular shut-down and the re-started the next day (ie, no updates were applied).

2) All Stardock products appear to lose their licenses at the same time (on this machine, I run Groupy, Start11, Fences, and Multiplicity), so whatever is causing the licenses to deactivate, it is doing it to all of the licenses, not just one product.

Also, I did follow the path that you provided to get my MP key, and it worked. Originally I checked my "Orders" page and the MP 4 key is not in there, so that might have something to do with the activation not working properly when I use my credentials.

I would propose at least the following two enhancements to the software to help mitigate this kind of issue:

1) If a product shows no valid license as being active, have it ping your activation server to check for a valid license before disabling itself or prompting the user to re-activate. As part of this, we should be able to save our Stardock credentials securely in the system so that this activation request can happen transparently in the background and not interrupt our workflow.

2) Update your licensing database and your activation server such that it doesn't get confused when someone uses their Stardock account to re-activate their license. The system should be smart enough to see that if there are two valid licenses for different service levels for the same product on a person's account (ie, Multiplicity Basic via an OD subscription and Multiplicity Pro via a direct purchase or upgrade) that it should know to return the license for the more full-featured service level when queried by the software. 

While I can understand the issues you describe in your examples with volume licenses, varying service levels, and multiple users, these all seem to me to be solved problems. I have four other applications on my workstation that are volume-licensed by my employer and are online-activated, with two of them having differing service levels for different users in my company: MS Office, Visual Studio, Adobe Acrobat, and TechSmith SnagIT. In all four cases, my IT admin assigned me the license I need for these products once, and I just logged in with my company e-mail to activate them. I cannot recall the last time that I had to re-activate any of these products outside of a full re-installation (usually a hardware upgrade).

I also use products that are licensed using a key (VMware Workstation and ZOC Terminal) and I have had neither application just randomly forget its license key. This is an issue that appears to be unique to Stardock software.

My suggestion was just meant as a starting point or stop-gap and is admittedly based on my own use-case. I'm sure there are plenty of things that require consideration that I haven't thought of. My bigger point is that something needs to be done to improve your license enforcement system. License enforcement, while important, provides no value to the end user, so when it breaks, it is particularly irritating.

I'm not disputing the idea that it could be our anti-malware software or some other external utility causing this by deleting the registration files. What I'm disputing is the notion that this should be considered "normal" and that it is somehow infeasible to update the license management system in the software to mitigate against it. 

Except that it hasn't. This is not happening for any other apps on my system, some of which I have been using for more than a decade without seeing this issue. VMware and Zoc both store license information on my local machine, and neither have ever "lost" their license. I've also used other similarly licensed software on my machine in the past without this kind of issue occurring. Over the years we've used several anti-malware systems and I've used some clean-up utilities (usually just the one that comes with Windows), and cannot recall ever having run into an issue where an application has just mysteriously lost its registration info. 

As far as I'm concerned, this problem is with Stardock apps. They are the only apps that exhibit this problem. 

Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say "nope" to the idea that I should uninstall my corporate anti-malware software so that I can continue to use my fancy Start menu app without getting prompted to renew its license. 

This is degenerating a bit into a debate, which wasn't really my intention. Whether Stardock has the technical capability or the inclination to implement these changes is really just something you and your development team need to discuss. This is a feedback forum and, outside of my initial issue (which you've helped with and is working now, so I thank you), I was merely offering feedback on a related aspect of the software in which I see some room for improvement. 

What I am saying is really three things, all of which are merely product improvement suggestions.

1. The mechanism for saving and storing the license on local machines appears to be fragile in that the license gets lost due to some system condition or external process in the system. There are more robust ways to save license keys utilized by other software products such that they do not lose their registration. The software should be updated in the future to use a more modern/robust license storage mechanism.
2. The process for finding and re-installing a lost license key is needlessly cumbersome when it is something that has to be done repeatedly. It is also something that could be a bigger potential issue for users who are not administrators and who do not have easy access to the Stardock account tied to their license (such as end users at larger corporate clients). The software should be updated in the future so that, in the (hopefully more rare) instance that a user needs to re-install a key, it can be done easily and, ideally, happens transparently without the need for user intervention.
3. Your license/activation database appears to be limited in its ability for a user or administrator to accurately assign a license to a user and/or to a machine, requiring a user to search for the appropriate license manually. Perhaps your licensing database itself should be updated to more accurately track and reflect the license/user/machine assignment that an admin intends to use in order to accommodate the "unknowables" this limitation causes, limiting your ability to do #2 effectively.

With the release of Multiplicty 4.05, we are closing this thread.

As always, thank you for your time, feedback, and support.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager