-
Dongle Expired – Help!
Before you start to laugh I am editing for my non profit church. We used donated equipment (or I personally pay out of my pocket). End of disclaimer.
OK, I am using Avid Xpress DV 1.0 (yes, One – Point – Zero). Why? It runs on a donated Pentium III, it runs on donated Windows NT and yes, it does what we need so it is effective for us.
Anyway, I got all the hardware/software installed and for about 4 months it ran fine. I hadn’t used it in a while (until about 3 weeks into 2007). In mid January Xpress DV ran for about 1-2 hours then put up a statement that the system clock and date were off (though they were NOT). Eventually a second statement claimed the dongle had expired and shut down. I restarted it and it ran again for… maybe 45 minutes and did the same thing.
The other day I reset the system clock back 10 years (to 1997) and again it ran for hours, but on about the third date the expired dongle/shutdown prompt came up again.
I have the full compliment with the Xpress DV we aquired. The original software, the manuals, and yes, the original, numbers matching, parrallel port DONGLE. As I said prior to 2007 it ran fine for 4 months. What can I do? While the financial investment is small the setup time and projects held captive represent a significant amount of time. I don’t want to (and can’t afford) to upgrade.
Thank you for any help. Note, I searched on Avid, but the information I found on expired dongles didn’t seem to directly apply to my situation.
Note (again): I have also posted at the Avid (corporate) Forums. Most recommended that I change the battery. While that is a good idea, the computers date NEVER changed and I doubt that is the issue. Would removing and reinstalling the dongle security driver help? Or, reinstalling the whole Avid software?
-
4 Replies
-
Well, before you uninstall and reinstall the dongle driver, try replacing the battery. It’s cheap and could very well solve your issue. The folks on the Avid forums are a very smart bunch and I’d try that first. If it doesn’t work reinstall the software. Back up all of your project files first. If that doesn’t work email warranty@avid.com and give them all the information in your dongle dumper file. They should be able to help you there.
Michael.
-
So if your system battery (CMOS battery) is weak, dying or dead, the system clock will most likely set back to the 80’s/90’s or whatever the default value is. If this happens apparently the dongle is disabled. You might need to contact Avid support to get a dongle updater.
This is from the Avid knowledgebase article on “The dongle connected to this system has expired.”When the CPU date on an Avid editing system is turned back beyond a certain point, 1996 and before, the Avid application will disable the dongle. You will then see the following error message when attempting to launch the Avid application: “The dongle connected to this system has expired. Please connect a valid dongle.” Changing the CPU date back to the present time will not fix this problem. The disabled dongle can only be cured by obtaining a dongle updater for the system. Newer dongles should not have this problem.
Erik
-
OK, I replaced the battery (even though it still read 3.10 volts and my BIOS clock never change throughout this difficulty). The date and time was still correct after replacing the battery (I did it fast).
I contacted Avid and they sent me a dongle updater. Even after I ran the updater I was still getting “system clock / date” correction messages.
VERY strange, I checked the “log” in the updater file and it indicated the date as 1-31-2007 even though the the system clock was 2-1-2007 before and after updating! I even stretched my imagination and considered that it might work on “Avid Time” (Tewksbury, Mass.) but that is only 3 hours off Calif. time and it was 4:00pm in the afternoon.
Frankly I think there is either something odd about this initial version of Xpress DV or maybe when it launches it reads dates on files and maybe one is beyond the curret date???
Anyway, I left the Avid up for 48+ hours and it didn’t declare the dongle expired nor close the program. Perhaps I’m the last soul on earth running Xpress DV 1.0 and the only one who will experience this.
Tom -
I contacted Avid and they sent me a Dongle Updater back in early February. However, it did not fix my dongle expired issue. A check of the updater showed one number missing from the updater in my serial number.
I re-contacted Avid through a “reply” to the email they sent me the Updater with. A month went by and no response. I then used their “Dongle Updater Form” and another month has passed and still no reply.
Can anyone enlighten me on how to get Avid to respond? If you haven’t read this whole thread, I am working for a Non-Profit group and using Avid DV Xpress Version 1 (yea, you read that right, ONE). It works for us in what we need it for, but I have projects held hostage now for three months. This software was purchased used with all the manuals, dongle etc.. It worked fine for 7 months, then at the start of the new year (2007), the problems began. Ironically the dongle reports back a 2051 expiration, but a missing number in the serial number. It will actually load Avid (all be it with the prompt “system clock not set properly” – even though it is), work for a time (10-45 minutes), and then shut down.
Thank you to anyone who can assist.
Tom Witt
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up