"Licence Key Invalid" - Except it's not.

[JohnCourt]

I can pretty ignorant regarding our software, but if you don't mind disclosing here, why can't you access your admin area where the plugins are in order to disable them? Thanks 🙂

[Randy Calvert]

28 minutes ago, JohnCourt said:

I can pretty ignorant regarding our software, but if you don't mind disclosing here, why can't you access your admin area where the plugins are in order to disable them? Thanks 🙂

It’s not that he technically can’t disable them. It’s that disabling them would remove functionality that is important to their site. 

So it’s more of seriously not wanting to versus not actually being able to. 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Randy Calvert

[JohnCourt]

3 minutes ago, Randy Calvert said:

It’s not that he technically can’t disable them. It’s that disabling them would remove functionality that is important to their site. 

So it’s more of seriously not wanting to versus not actually being able to. 

Well, that's typically the way it is, then he'd have to take his community off line for a half hour and perform maintenance? We all do it now and then. 🙂

But I get it, if it's an intermittent issue, it may not present itself quickly, hmmm.

[Tripp★]

Hi there, just wanted to give an update to this and respond to some things:

On 9/24/2022 at 3:45 PM, teraßyte said:

I assume you've already checked the code of all your modifications and found nothing related to the license key settings/code?

Maybe you can try adding some logging to check at intervals if the license key is still present. From there you can find out when it happens, see what was running around that time, and possibly add more logging based on that.

But yeah, it's gonna take some time.

Yeah, there was one application that was checking the Licence key. The new application author removed this routine when I brought it up with them (They aren't the original creators of that application, they took over it when the original person left). 

Low and behold: I've not had this issue since. So it was a rouge application; one that I won't name as the author has fixed it and I don't want to cast it in a bad light.

On 9/29/2022 at 4:38 PM, JohnCourt said:

I can pretty ignorant regarding our software, but if you don't mind disclosing here, why can't you access your admin area where the plugins are in order to disable them? Thanks 🙂

On 9/29/2022 at 5:06 PM, Randy Calvert said:

It’s not that he technically can’t disable them. It’s that disabling them would remove functionality that is important to their site. 

So it’s more of seriously not wanting to versus not actually being able to. 

^ Absolutely correct. Some of these applications are critical to our site and it's set up. Just disabling one of them isn't an option, unless I have a pretty damn good reason. Disabling all of them, is unthinkable...

Okay, I'm being overly dramatic here. But I'm talking from our user's perspective.

On 9/29/2022 at 5:11 PM, JohnCourt said:

Well, that's typically the way it is, then he'd have to take his community off line for a half hour and perform maintenance? We all do it now and then. 🙂

But I get it, if it's an intermittent issue, it may not present itself quickly, hmmm.

Yeah if it was something I could do over say a weekend, I would have highly considered it. 

The fact is, is the problem is was so intermittent that the applications would have to be disabled for potentially two months at a time. Picture that one by one over 40+ applications/plugins that we use to customise our site at two months per application or plugin, you're looking at six and a half years of one application or plugin after another being offline, just to go through them all. By then IPS will hopefully be releasing IPS Version 7 or something, and/or the application I'm not testing will have updated which fixes the problem.

I suppose this is one of the reasons that IPS say you should be careful about the amount of third-party applications/plugins you add to your site, especially with all the hook-in points that go with it which can often be many more times the amount of applications/plugins you have. It's more points of failure to account for and it forces people to be a little bit more creative when coming across issues like this. Which in my case I found it by: pulling all of the plugins/applications off my server and going through every single one of them, looking for specific things in Visual Studio Code for the IPS Licence call. 

I was able to find one - just one - application that even mentioned it and brought it up. Which I reported to the application author. This was old code left in by the previous author, apparently. It was also removed by the current author, and ever since - I've not had this issue. Not even once, where as before it happened every one or two months (and even then it was highly random). 

Anyway...

TLDR;

It was an application with a rouge bit of code calling on something it had no business calling on. 

[Gary]

Hi @Tripp★,

Thanks for following up and letting us know you managed to find the cause. If you encounter any other issues, please don't hesitate to let us know.

[JohnCourt]

6 hours ago, Tripp★ said:

It was an application with a rouge bit of code calling on something it had no business calling on. 

Whew! What an ordeal! Thanks for the follow up. I remember when I first got my community up and running I was installing all kinds of neat plugins, then I read somewhere it's best to stay minimum, so I stripped it all back, and I am down to about 8 plugins and it's manageable.

I can feel your pain from here, all the way over here! So happy it's working as expected. 🙂

[Marc]

On 2/26/2023 at 8:52 AM, Tripp★ said:

Yeah, there was one application that was checking the Licence key. The new application author removed this routine when I brought it up with them (They aren't the original creators of that application, they took over it when the original person left). 

Low and behold: I've not had this issue since. So it was a rouge application; one that I won't name as the author has fixed it and I don't want to cast it in a bad light.

I would say it's the opposite here. Another person may not be so understanding if they are unable to resolve an issue for months, then go back to the author with this. You'd actually be better to state its an issue in an old version of 'x' and that updating it resolves the issue. 🙂 Of course its your own choice, but you would actually be preventing this very same situation from occuring. As at present, there is no fix for another person

[Tripp★]

On 2/27/2023 at 10:01 AM, Marc Stridgen said:

I would say it's the opposite here. Another person may not be so understanding if they are unable to resolve an issue for months, then go back to the author with this. You'd actually be better to state its an issue in an old version of 'x' and that updating it resolves the issue. 🙂 Of course its your own choice, but you would actually be preventing this very same situation from occuring. As at present, there is no fix for another person

I'm not sure I understood this. No malicious intent was intended. 

[Marc]

On 3/2/2023 at 12:22 AM, Tripp★ said:

I'm not sure I understood this. No malicious intent was intended. 

No, what I mean is you are trying to protect the author by not saying which application it is. What Im saying is by doing so, you may actually do the opposite. If we know what it is, we can say "Check if you have x". They may even come across your topic and know to then update. Without the information, they will simply have the same issue, post a ticket, and eventually find it's the same application or plugin you had issue with.

[Tripp★]

14 hours ago, Marc Stridgen said:

No, what I mean is you are trying to protect the author by not saying which application it is. What Im saying is by doing so, you may actually do the opposite. If we know what it is, we can say "Check if you have x". They may even come across your topic and know to then update. Without the information, they will simply have the same issue, post a ticket, and eventually find it's the same application or plugin you had issue with.

Thank you Marc for clarifying what you meant. I appreciate your perspective on this matter. Just to clarify, I did message you privately back in August of last year about the issue and where it originated from. At that time, my intention was to discreetly inform the staff, and you included the Marketplace Moderator @Daniel F, who then contacted the developer on my behalf and got the issue resolved, or it had been resolved and I just needed to update.

As for making the information public, I felt it would be best to avoid targeting individuals or creating unnecessary drama. My reasoning was to ensure that everyone involved could focus on resolving the issue without any undue distractions.

However, I do understand your point that sharing the information publicly could help others who may encounter the same issue. So, I'm open to discussing whether or not it would be appropriate to make the information public in a responsible manner.

Thank you again for bringing up this important matter, and I hope this better clarifies my position.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Tripp★