Hey everyone,

I'm facing a weird issue with the Presonus app. I downloaded the software from the sis website, but every time I install it on my main machine (macOS), I get a pop-up window saying "License state error - Your trial has expired". I've never enabled the trial period and my machine is not even a year old.

I've tried several solutions without success. I can confirm that this is not an issue with the software itself, as I can use it correctly on a VM and from an external volume.

I'veTried :

• Uninstalled the app using AppCleaner
• Deleted all user files and licenses (main user and shared users)
• Deleted all files related to Presonus or named similarly using FAF
• Re-installed the software, but still get the pop-up window

It seems that somewhere on my boot partition, a file was created as if I had used the trial period before. At this point, my only solution appears to be wiping my main volume and starting from scratch (which I don't want). If someone could help me resolve this trial pop-up issue, I would greatly appreciate it.

It's worth mentioning that this is not a license problem, as I can use the software correctly with the key generated. The main problem is that this pop-up appears every time I create a new project file.

 

This kind of thing happens on the win platform as well when the host machine is freely connected to the internet. If your host machine is connected did you have the SO app blocked at your local firewall? Curious, does your VM have internet access? If not and SO is working fine on the VM most likely then the app "phoning home" might be your problem.

 

No matter what your problem is, you do not need to wipe your system drive.

The first thing you need to do is make sure you are actually searching system wide using FAF. I do not ever use App Cleaner, I use Dr.Buho cleaner. It's paid but you can find it shared.

If something like this is going to write junk files to block you from reinstalling, unless you have SIP disabled; it is going to drop a .plist file somewhere it has access to.

Try this command in Terminal. Modify the "Presonus" portion to other search strings, as needed.

find /Library ~/Library -name "presonus*.plist"

Or look in the usual places such as (for user library):
~/Library/Preferences/
~/Library/Preferences/com.presonus.studioone.plist

Systemwide:

/Library/Preferences/
/Library/Application Support/PreSonus/Studio One/

Your firewall settings have absolutely nothing to do with removing whatever is causing your problem. Clean up completely first. Then worry about your firewall and reinstalling Studio one.

After you get back to cleaned up completely, open Terminal and issue the command: sudo nano /etc/hosts. Add these entries:

0.0.0.0 presonus.com
0.0.0.0 registration.presonus.com
0.0.0.0 api.presonus.com
0.0.0.0 updates.presonus.com
0.0.0.0 api.presonus.com.cdn.cloudflare.com

 

Last edited: Mar 19, 2025 at 1:35 AM

Thank you for responding guys! to clarify, my machine is not directly connected to the internet; instead, I use Little Snitch to manage network connections for my applications. Specifically, I've blocked all incoming and outgoing traffic from the SO app. Additionally, I've disabled network connectivity on both my virtual machine and external volume to do the testing.

Regarding the Clone response, unfortunately, following your suggested steps did not resolve the problem, and the pop-up still appears. Although the command

didn't work for me, I was able to find the relevant files by searching for ".plist" files named "Presonus" or containing this word within their contents Systemwide using FAF.

I've also tried disabling SIP and authenticated-root, but the issue persists. As Clone mentioned there might be some system-wide file or configuration that's causing the problem, possibly installed by SO itself. What's interesting is that when I run my main user account from an external volume, the SO app does not display the pop-up, suggesting that the issue is indeed related to something on the system level rather than within my current user account.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to further troubleshoot this issue and identify the root cause of the problem.

 

I was not suggesting you disable SIP. What I was saying is that, if you did not have SIP disabled; there is no chance your installation of SO would be able to place any files in locations where you cannot access them or delete them. It would not have permissions to do so.

Nothing you have done has been done as systemwide Root. Systemwide searches just include the System library, and the User ~Library locations.

If you need to access the systemwide library, click Go menu, then hit the Option key and your system/library folder will become visible. (unless you have already forced the Finder to always show it).

This has nothing to do with your machine being online. Disconnect the external drive, shut down the VM. Close whatever application you are using for VM, like Parallels Desktop.

Boot the Mac cleanly into safe mode and delete everything related to Studio One installation. Reboot and reconnect your external drive.

 

Last edited: Mar 19, 2025 at 4:55 AM