Question

Adobe CS3 InDesign license error

Asked by: Mister_Spock

Since installing Adobe CS3 in my company, we have been experiencing license errors in InDesign. The error message says catastrophic license failure and we believe it is related to FlexLM. Not all installs have this problem, only a few but it crops up once a month or more. We have tried uninstalling and reinstalling CS3 on several occasions but the issue keeps cropping up. We have experienced other, smaller issues as well but this is the main error. Adobe has been little to no help and I have heard of many other companies experiencing the same thing. Has anyone personally had success with diagnosing and\or fixing the problem?  

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Asked On
2008-01-31 at 07:39:47ID23126564
Topics

Adobe InDesign Publishing Software

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General Business & Productivity Software

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Miscellaneous Software

Participating Experts
1
Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: scrathcyboyPosted on 2008-01-31 at 13:14:29ID: 20791218

Many new adobe instals relate to a single root cause, that they never properly debugged before product release -- and being adobe, they are reticent to admit problem or post a fix.  Yours may not be caused by this, but you should try it on at least one system that is giving the problem.

1.  Remove ALL adobe software from the system -- the InDesign first, as it is the newest, but you also have to remove acrobat and any other relict adobe applications as well.  Reboot -- now set a restore point, and open regedit,  then F3 search the registry for "Adobe" without the quotes.  All paths to Adobe products can be deleted, as well as the major adobe software groups.  There are just a few entries in the windows system area, that relate to "legacy applications" leave those alone, but everything else that Adobe put in, ESPECIALLY the licensing stuff to do with the user profile -- a long numeric string as a major key in the registry, remove them too.  Any adobe certificates remove too.

Now set another restore point, after cleaning, reboot, then reinstall JUST InDesign.  It should have fixed it.  A lot of work?  You bet it is, all because Adobe cannot acknowledge and fix this serious flaw.  If the cleanse of the system does not fix the problem, you will probably have to redeploy InDesign from a SERVER install, and add the correct number of licenses for the product.  That way, In Design on the server will monitor the license issue and hopefully get it right.

 

by: Mister_SpockPosted on 2008-02-01 at 11:25:45ID: 20799788

We use per user licensing and not an actual server. Are you referring to allowing Adobe hand out a digital license whenever someone requests it?  When you say reinstall just InDesign, can the rest of the suite be reinstalled afterwards as well? Is it better to install InDesign, reboot and then reinstall the rest of the suite? I agree that this is internal code in the Adobe products that is causing this problem. This only seems to happen to certain people at certain times (we jokingly call it the time of the month).

 

by: scrathcyboyPosted on 2008-02-01 at 12:32:18ID: 20800390

I know and that implies licensing conflicts.  Are any two clients using the same license number?  Was one system cloned to the another?  You no doubt already know to keep each system on the network at the same time with a different license, duplicates coming onto the network will throw this exception error.

You should be able to uninstall /reinstall any part of the CS3 suite without affecting the other parts -- at least that is the way all CS suites are designed.  Possibly if another person is using another component of CS with a license the same as one on another system for InDesign, this is causing the problem.  REalize that Adobe has had a lot of problems with CS3 like you are describing, erratic, you might have to call or email them for an immediate fix -- only they know the root cause of it, and they will never go public about it.

 

by: Mister_SpockPosted on 2008-02-01 at 12:35:42ID: 31426771

Thank you for the info

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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