Looking for a little advice and hopefully some reassurance.....
First I want to say that scrapebox is an awesome tool, and until the past few days I have been completely satisfied with it. However, I've run into problems with it recently. Here's the situation.
I run scrapebox from a Windows VPS at BermanHosting and have been doing so since I first purchased scrapebox in June or July. In early November I went to start up the software and my license wouldn't validate. No problem, I filled out the activation request and I was up and running again in less than a day.
Then a few days ago I went to start scrapebox up again and the same thing happened. Only this time it wouldn't activate. So I contacted scrapebox support and was told that my license had been terminated because it was being shared by 30 people. I never gave anyone other than myself access to the software. After further discussions with scrapebox support I was able to find out that each of the other IPs accessing the license where also hosted by BermanHosting. Support suggested that my VPS and other files may have been cloned.
Naturally, I wasn't very happy about that. After contacting BermanHosting they told me that this was a known issue with the scrapebox licensing server because they validate the license based on hardware id's. On a Windows VPS that means that many accounts are running on the same hardware ids and it would appear as if a number of different people were using the software. They said they could setup my VPS with VMware and that would give my VPS it's own hardware id so that this problem wouldn't occur in the future.
I've passed this information along to Scrapebox earlier this afternoon and am awaiting a reply. In the meantime I'm hoping someone can let me know if they have ever experienced this situation, and if so how they got it resolved. I realize I can repurchase a license for less than $100, but seeing as this was through no fault of my own I'm hoping to avoid having to repurchase scrapebox and simply get my license reactivated once the VPS situation is sorted out (hopefully in the morning).
Any help or advice is appreciated.
Thanks
Scrapebox doesn't necessarily use a "hardware ID" its more of a "windows id" it has a name, but I forgot it off the top of my head. Anyway, Sbox has a program that will change your windows ID. Providers will take 1 windows setup and clone it on many VPS, which makes sense, to some degree, but then they all have the same ID. So you just have to run the sbprep program that support can give you. That will force a change in the windows ID, then activate it and you will be the only one on the planet with that windows ID.
Then you shouldn't have any more issues, you wouldnt need a vmware setup, but if they want to give it to you and you want to go that route, then thats fine too.
Friend formatted my PC and I can not reactivate the program, accuses this message:
" we have not been able to submit your activation request "
I've sent 3 emails to support but I still have not returned, can I help?
Copying an email from support, here it is:
Please update your license to the latest version. In order to provide a better user experience, we have upgraded our licensing servers. If your version of scrapebox is too old, then it will try to connect to the old licensing servers which no longer exist.
Please download the latest version, then overwrite your current scrapebox files with the new version or simply unzip it into a new folder and run it from there.
You can download scrapebox from here:
http://www.scrapebox.com/payment-received
anyone here, dont know what happend with my windows but almost i cant install everything at my windows (always deleted) and thats why i need to reinstall my windows, should i ask a new key for my scrapebox once i would run it again? I still using same windows and same computer
Copying another email from support, here it is:
To transfer to another PC or update your license after a re-install, you just need to download ScrapeBox to the PC you wish to activate it on, run it and enter your original purchase details and submit them. I'll deactivate your old details, and update your license with the new info.
Further instructions on how to do this can be found here:
http://www.scrapebox.com/scrapebox-license-transfer
Instructions on how to look up your PayPal Transaction ID can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8PWovAQaiU
The latest ScrapeBox build can be downloaded here:
http://www.scrapebox.com/payment-received
(I went thru and asked support for some of the common questions I see so I could just copy and paste them vs typing them a hundred times, lol)