So I took a short break from making music (couple of weeks) and when I fire up my trusty production machine, and load a project, there is no audio. Complete silence. Going through my master buss, I start bypassing effects as I have seen this before. Turns out that Gold is the culprit. When I open up the plugin, it says "Plugin Not Authorized" in a white box.
Now this is a computer that has just been sitting, not connected to the internet so no updates. Nothing has changed. This arbitrarily happened last Thursday.
I opened a help desk ticket on the Acustica Website. I received an auto generated email from them This morning to the effect of high volume of queries (that's unsettling) and response time will be delayed 7 to 14 working days.
I tell you if I was running a business trying to produce and had deadlines to meet, I would be more than livid right now. As it is, this is a major inconvenience to me as we are trying to release, and I've got this one last simple change to do on one of the tracks. The rest is ready to go.
If anyone out there has had something similar happen, any advice for me to get up and running again would be appreciated.
Other than that, I wanted to share this experience with this community. I know there's a lot of love out there for Acustica products (myself included). This one here might have me re-thinking my workflow though. Definitely if it takes me 2 weeks or more to get back up and running. I was planning on getting another Aqua soon, but know I'm wondering if I really should.

 

Is the Authorized file in with the plugin ? >>> have you tried to re Authorize it with original file ? try contact Giancarlo >>> also i wana say ive never had this happen so far lol >>>but ive herd stories of this many times \m/

 

Download Aquarius from Acustica, it’s how to download all their plugins now. Download that log in thru your email address at first. Then reauthorize Gold thru Aquarius. If not go on the acustica audio forum, you will get answers there.

 

Never had any issues with any acquas on both Mac or Win. Aquarius is the answer, as stated below! Are you sure you were loading the legit version and not maybe the trial version?

 

Yes, I removed the trial version shortly after I bought it.
Aquarius isn't really what I want to do to fix this. This PC is never connected to the Internet. Most authorizations I do, I "sneaker-net" from Internet connected PC to the music pc. There's no Internet at all where the music pc is. Being able to offline authorize a plugin is a requirement before I will purchase it.
@Jaymz, no sure how I would re-authorize it. I thought placement of the *.aut file was all that was required. I can try removing and replacing with the original file, I suppose in case the file got corrupted somehow.

 

Googling didn't yield any usable results. Looked at the authorization section of Acustica's support website, but didn't see anything there.
Maybe I need to try the search on the Acustica forum site.

 

how can you feel any sympathy for companies who allow their PAID FOR products to behave like this...
that's inexcusable really... it's not broken.. it's not shoddy workmanship, it's just their lust and requirement for control
that is now out of control....


why would anyone feel bad about enhanced "try before buy", and why should anyone blame us for it !
shame on Acustica, if your scheme doesn't work.. then dump it for your customer's sake.

was thinking about buying some of their plugs, but I'll think some more..

delete this if it's not permitted .. but it is particularly revealing.. about the prick-iness that lurks within

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6790955

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 19, 2018

@Herr Durr, totally agree. I'll render my judgement when I determine the cause. On a PC that never gets updates, and no new software has been installed, just arbitrarily losing authorization like this is unacceptable. The delay is also not acceptable. Bottom line is I'm not getting what I've paid for. I didn't rent this plugin, I own it. But I'll not get angry yet.

 

Right now you have to authorize thru aquarius. They are working on offline for sometime this year but right now as this is pretty new only couple months old and being how it is now only a few weeks. Or go login to your account on website generate and upload the.ser file

 

go to their site, go to the offline-section, download the manual installer for gold, and reinstall on your main, open your daw and execute the plugin that'll generate a .ser file (you must open your daw in administrator-mode), then you could transport it via Usb or something to your internet computer upload it, and do the same thing over with the generated .aut and put it in your vst folder on your main.

i'm still waiting for offline installers for Pink2 i have no internet on my main.

 

@Splicementality, actually really good idea to try opening the DAW in administrator mode. Pretty sure it's set to do this automatically from the compatibility mode tab in the shortcut. Still can't hurt to check it before I try a reinstall.
If that doesn't get it, I'll do the reinstall thing. Gold may have been updated since I installed it, so I guess I'll try to see the bright side here.

 

@digitaldragon thats why i didnt suggest Aquarius is i know you are offline... i always keep my Authorize file in another folder and copy it to my plugins folder...i thought maybe if you still had the original you could try this ;) it will /or should work being on the same PC from original authorization \m/

 

@digitaldragon ... if this is not an option do this >>>go to AA and login...>>now go to where you login scroll down and click on Licenses >>> all your products will be listed and click download license... USB it over to your offline PC drop it in with your plugin \m/

 

At least you don't have to hunt down a box and ship it for $50. They must be a small operation? The forum should help.

Silk EQ, Trinity, RED, Ochre, Charly etc. are incredible.
I can't imagine how much smoother Gold and Pink2 are.

 

@Jaymz, yeah, I'm going to try reloading that *.aut file first if running Sonar in admin mode don't get it straight. I've already downloaded it in the event that I can't locate the original. Hell, if I see the I've got an older revision of it, I may just uninstall and reinstall the newer version. This just sucks right now because it's an interruption to my work. And I'm not getting a lot of studio time right now, so it's a huge inconvenience. It's like others have complained about with the stupid licensing schemes that these developers employ. You are essentially punishing your paying customers with exactly this type of issue. Likely there is nothing at all wrong with the inner working of the plugin, it's the licensing portion that is buggy in this case. I'll definitely post what the fix is once I get back into the mix room. The other question: Did this affect Nebula 3 as well?

I was really excited to look into Pink2. That multiband compressor is very intriguing to me.
Gold really sold me on running channel strips on each track. I love the weight it adds to the source. And the eq's are top notch.
I'd recommend a demo to you of either or both. Even given the difficulty I'm currently facing.

Things like this happening make me wish for a k'd version I could use.

 

Im not a big fan of their licensing either bro... its a ploy to keep away the crackers lol ... but even this type of licensing wont lend a chance if its on the to do list lol ... i simply jus love their products thats why i use them \m/ >>>on the other hand they know this too >>>they landed a gold mine and they know it with this tec ;)

 

Unfortunately, this is me too. If it was any other plug, I'd probably just say screw it and switch to another developer, but realistically there's no one else out there that's even close to them and what they offer.

 

Rumor mill says their plugins are not cracked because of the way the encryption vectors work; apparently the plugin files themselves contain some kind of obfuscated "key" or something... anyways, since this software encryption has not yet been figured out by crackers, it's not surprising that problems like this would happen as there's obviously a lot more going on (that is invisible to the user... except when it breaks) than your standard challenge-response DRM.

 

yes and personally i feel this makes their products Buggy as hell

 

hey bro i always run sonar as ADMIN... heres a tip tho >>> i wouldnt use the last version they released ...i feel it is full of bugs man... go back a few release versions i did....much smoother trust me ;) and while im on the subject of Sonar>>> ive been converting everything i do over to Reaper \m/ i still use and love sonar but Reaper is closing in on all the features that Sonar offers and more... its stable as Hell and ive personally fell inlove with it... if you want an almost bug free stable DAW using AA products get to know Reaper \m/ ive pretty much abandoned every DAW i own for REAPER hahaha... Protools,Cubase,and even Sonar not seeing much use from me anymore... wen Gibson cut cakewalk support i started moving over to Reaper \m/ ARA is coming soon and with all that reaper has to offer already plus everything coming in the near future it was a no brainer for me >>> i feel like i made a very stable smart move \m/