"There was an error attempting to perform the activation."

Hello! I've recently purchased the Studio version of DaVinci Resolve and was excited to get it up and running, but unfortunately, I've hit a snag in trying to activate the software. Every time I enter in the activation key, it tells me that "there was an error when attempting to perform the activation." I've contacted BMD Support about this and have opened a ticket with them, but their response time has been... a bit disappointing. For any Blackmagic Support folks, my ticket number is LPI-999-61972.

My OS is Windows 10, and I installed the most current version of DaVinci Resolve Studio 15. My PC is custom-built, so there's no official brand on it (if it helps, I'm running off an Intel i5-9600K.

Here's the link to the Logs that result after attempting to activate the software as well as my system NFO file: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_SY6y ... 2EakBvD7TG

Workarounds I've attempted:

Rebooted my computer
Disabled firewall for DaVinci Resolve
Launched as Administrator

If anyone has any idea on how to solve this issue, your help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

So if anyone else is encountering this problem, I was able to successfully activate by connecting to a VPN (Blackmagic suggested I try connecting to a different network, but that wasn't possible by conventional means since my computer is a wired connection with no Wi-Fi capabilities). If you're getting the same error, I would try connecting to a VPN to solve your problem.

Hope this helps someone!

theAndrewJeff, you are a life saver man! I called Blackmagic support multiple times and we couldn't figure it out. The closest thing to a solution they gave me was creating a new login or user on Windows and see if that worked. They also suggested turning my antivirus and firewall off, but it didn't work. They were very helpful, but I think they should keep tabs on this solution you offered because I am assuming we are not the only ones experiencing this issue. Thanks again for your solution, I am now using the latest version of DaVinci Resolve Studio and I can't thank you enough!

If anybody is encountering the same, here is a solution that worked for me. BM was very helpful too, but my VPN didn't help.
What worked, in the end, was tethering my smartphone for internet access. But that's only possible with WLAN or Bluetooth, of course.
It's a strange bug since I can activate and deactivate just fine on my other machine on the same network.

Hi all.

I had two Resolve Studio licenses on two MacMini. I have reset it to factory values ​​to clean them and now, when trying to enter the licenses again (Studio 16.2.7) it tells me the following "There was an error when attempting to perform the activation. Please contact Blackmagic Design support for assitance". The operating system is macOS Catalina 10.15.7.

I all ready tried with some many wifi's connections.

Help Please!!

I am having the same issue on Linux. I thought this was probably a Studio 17 issue but tried 16 and also has the same issue. This was not an issue before on Linux on neither version. To be clear, I've also tried the VPN and Hotspot suggestions by Black Magic support with no luck.

Furthermore, I even tried VPN in different countries, including Australia. My ISP doesn't block anything on me either but I entertained the idea. I'm running this on Ubuntu 20.04, which is where it has always worked. I'm NOT going to CentOS just because it says it's the supported version. Linux is Linux and this has worked fine. Something is definitely up with the activation process. According to this thread, people are having this issue on not only Linux but Windows and MacOS as well.

Any thoughts or suggestions are always appreciated

Let me add that the only way I was able to reset this was by going on my other computer and hitting `deactivate` within DaVinci. The auto-deactivation doesn't seem to work well. If you have no way of deactivating, the support team is going to have to clear out their DB of your licenses.

Please help i have tried all of the above with no luck extremely frustrating considering the money paid for this program.

any suggestions

I upgraded my Mac OS and I'm getting this message. I have no way of booting in the old OS and deactivating. Can support deactivate it?

"There was an error when attempting to perform the activation"

I've got the same issue. The Studio version, on Mac, unable to activate or deactivate license, displaying in red: "There was an error when attempting to perform the activation. Please contact Blackmagic Design Support for assistance."

The "support" seems to be a link to a user-based forum... Not much help.
Deadline stress.

Guys! I heard there was a problem with their servers this morning and that could be a cause...
I'm still trying to get in too.

Was working fine until this morning..

Any workaround on your side?

So far, I'm stuck out of Resolve today... Was working well this weekend.

No hardware change. Tech support says there was something with the servers this morning.
Asked me to write here. I wrote an email already...

There should be other ways to open the software or avoid this with a valid serial.

Can you help?

Yes, they can.

Still impossible to activate Studio License here in France as well. Issue started by Sunday and still going on. Really painful indeed. Hope they fix their servers soon now.

This morning the activation is still not working. Guys, this is bad, we need this to work. We have to be able to collaborate and we're locked out of it. Fix the activation now.

Try a VPN to the US. There are free ones for demo periods.

Im having the same problem on 17 studio beta and 16 studio. Cant activate. Getting the error message. Ive called 4 times, two email correspondences which pointed me here.

[Peter Chamberlain]

Do you have a firewall enabled?
Which country are r un? Do u have access to a USA based vpn service?

Got my activation key today but experience the same issue (Windows 10). Deactivating the firewall doesnt work. "US based VPN? I`m not firm in this stuff - i just want to work with the software i bought.

Greetings from Germany

Same issue here, in Romania. I made a separate post before finding this one, sorry about that.
I disabled my firewall and got the same result. I don't have wi-fi on my desktop or alternate networks, so I can't try at the moment.
Is it some kind of port-forwarding issue or something? I'll keep at it, hopefully there's a way to easily fix this.

I have the same issue today. No Hardware, OS (Win10), Router Setting or Resolve Version changed since yesterday.
I tried the suggested VPN attempt to a US server - and many more - here from germany. But none of it worked.
Strangely on my Laptop, which is connected to the same network resolve works fine. I tried to deactivate the license there and it has the same error message.

How did the others solve the problem?

Same here. I just bought the Studio Version. I live in France.

- Tried a VPN in US (NYC-LA), in UK... doesn't work

- Tried without Firewall... doesn't work

- Tried without Antivirus... doesn't work

- Tried as an administrator... doesn't work

No error code, no server status, no explicit error message to help to investigate... No best practices at all.
As a software engineer I'm like

Any ideas guys ? Or you just have ended by craking the software you've bought ?

This is the exact issue I am having! Also similarly, Davici Resolve Studio is working on my Laptop (which, unfortunatly does not have a good graphics card), but fails to work on my work computer, Windows 10. Good to know the VPN method does not work, I was about to try that (as I live in Canada).

I have the same issue today. No Hardware, OS (Win10), Router Setting or Resolve Version changed since yesterday.
I tried the suggested VPN attempt to a US server - and many more - here from germany. But none of it worked.
Strangely on my Laptop, which is connected to the same network resolve works fine. I tried to deactivate the license there and it has the same error message.

How did the others solve the problem?

I am feeling very frustrated, I was so excited to switch over to DaVinci Resolve Studio (I've been using Premiere Pro for my job), but the lack of support is making me rethink my decision.

Here is an Update.

the activation worked. I didn't change anything to try it. I had a vpn to a server in L.A. - which I tried 20 times the last hours before as well - along with other servers. But this time it worked.
May it be to the vpn - I can't tell.
I'm happy it worked finally, but wonder why it happened anyways?

In my case, it finally worked after just attempting to activate it for a few hours. Didn't change any setting, didn't deactivate any firewall, it's most likely a problem on the server end, maybe being flooded by people not being able to activate, which results in people flooding because they're not able to activate. It's like an ouroboros of failed activation.

Activated DaVinci Studio 17 with the help of a couple of my IT colleagues!

I was trying to run the program on my work computer, but didn't realize I wasn't the admin on the computer. Once I had admin status the program worked perfectly! This solution probably doesn't work for people who are experiencing problems on their own personal equipment (e.g. laptops); but maybe this will help someone experiencing this problem on a work computer.

Also, the DaVinci Resolve support team emailed me at the end of the day (great customer service, thank you, support team!) and although the problem had been fixed by then I really appreciated it!

I was just able to get it to activate by clicking the activation button again after each failure. After about 6 tries, the activation worked.

I have the same problem in Holland. I reinstalled Debian, because the system crashed the GPU was not properly installed and did not uninstall Davinci before, didnt know about that. Now I can not activate it. And I also cannot deactivate the old version.
So I could activate it yesterday, but not today.
Did not need a VPN or tethering .

If you know more, tell me,

thanks Arthur

Let me add that the only way I was able to reset this was by going on my other computer and hitting `deactivate` within DaVinci. The auto-deactivation doesn't seem to work well. If you have no way of deactivating, the support team is going to have to clear out their DB of your licenses.

I seem to be having the problem that I erased my former installation with a fresh install of DEbian

I had the problem yesterday when updating to17.1.1, got the error several times.
Tunneling to the US helped. I suppose Australia would have been fine too

I'm back on this thread. Reinstalling 17.1.1 and having the activation issue again. I'm in the US. This is terrible that I have to go through this every time. On Windows or MacOS, this doesn't seem to be an issue. It looks like when you attempt to activate on Windows or Mac, it contacts Blackmagic DB servers to deactivate the oldest installation. However, on Linux, it doesn't seem to do that part properly as it always fails.

What I have done in the past is go to MacOS and select "Deactivate" without any issues so that I can then install on Linux. This time I can't do that because I no longer have access to the system. I have to rely on the automatic deactivate, which doesn't seem to work on Linux. So I am stuck. What a joke this is

In my case, I'm having the activation issues and I'm sort of not on a new system. I upgraded my motherboard, processor, and RAM but I'm using my same SSD that I had Resolve stored on before. I tried contacting support and nothing worked. This isn't a firewall issue because I don't have one and I tried a VPN and launching it as root. Nothing fixed anything. It's an issue on BMD's end.

Updated to Mac OS 11.3 on my work iMac. Now locked out of Resolve 17......have projects that need to get done. What's going on here BlackMagic?

Edit. Thank god I have an IP Vanish subscription. Connected to IPVanish to change my IP......suddenly resolve activates. Thanks to the users above for the tip.

I'm back on this thread. Reinstalling 17.1.1 and having the activation issue again. I'm in the US. This is terrible that I have to go through this every time. On Windows or MacOS, this doesn't seem to be an issue. It looks like when you attempt to activate on Windows or Mac, it contacts Blackmagic DB servers to deactivate the oldest installation. However, on Linux, it doesn't seem to do that part properly as it always fails.

What I have done in the past is go to MacOS and select "Deactivate" without any issues so that I can then install on Linux. This time I can't do that because I no longer have access to the system. I have to rely on the automatic deactivate, which doesn't seem to work on Linux. So I am stuck. What a joke this is

Same issue here, I am on linux and it is all a mess, I activate then the next day it tells me to activate again and I can't. I have to go on windows, activate, then disable licences, then reboot on linux and activate. I don't understand why BM license system is so messy.

Struggling to activate my copy of Studio for a few hours already after it stopped working without any obvious reason. Tried with no luck:

• Another serial number
• Rebooting my router
• Connecting via phone tethering
• Connecting via VPN to every country on the list
• Pressing button many, many times

I have no idea what to do next. What a terrible mess.

Based in St. Petersburg, Russia if it matters.

Struggling to activate my copy of Studio for a few hours already after it stopped working without any obvious reason. Tried with no luck:

• Another serial number
• Rebooting my router
• Connecting via phone tethering
• Connecting via VPN to every country on the list
• Pressing button many, many times

I have no idea what to do next. What a terrible mess.

Based in St. Petersburg, Russia if it matters.

I had this problem today as well. It seems their activation server is having trouble I tried about 45 times and then suddenly it worked.

Struggling with this sh*t since March 2021. I'm not able to activate on Linux. I'm not able to activate on Windows 10 either. I have a copy activated and running on my linux laptop, however the copy on my desktop fails to activate consistently. I tried VPN to US and Australia - with no luck.

BMD! Please fix your activation service! We should have a clear visibility of the activations and should be able to manage them. If activation fails, we should understand where the problem is from the logs.

Seconded. Had the problem again yesterday. Today it worked.

I also have this problem. I just kept retrying until it worked. No re-installs, no reboots, no vpns. Didn't keep count but must have been around 10 retries.

Got it from support today:

Hi Anton,

Thanks for contacting the Blackmagic Support team.

We have received several reports from customers reporting similar behaviours when attempting to activate their instances of DaVinci Resolve.
As such, this has now been passed on to our development team and is currently under investigation.
Going forwards, I would recommend periodically attempting to re-activate your DaVinci Resolve activation code on your system to see how the behaviour is affected.
If this behaviour continues to occur for an extended period of time, please feel free to get in touch and we would be happy to investigate this with you.
I hope you find this information useful, please let me know if you have any questions.

Will keep everyone posted of the progress here.

So, today i got my newly bought Activation Key and i am struggling to get Davinci Resolve Studio activated, because of the before mentioned error.
Tried different VPNs, phone tethering, admin rights and disabling the windows firewall.
Didn't work out so far. Really disapointed

So, whats up?! Have i bought a bad key? Is this normal and i should keep trying (have tried about 20 times in the last 2 hours)?

Any help with this one? i tried using a vpn to the usa in 3 different parts, new york, la and new jersey. turning off my firewall and virus software didnt help ether, I just spent alot of money on this and i just want to edit some videos

Hi,

I'm using a paid version of Resolve Studio 17 and I started having this issue today after successfully switching activation between both of my MacPro 6.1 computers for like 2-3 times. Then, the last deactivation attempt came with an error and after the second try, it took a while with the spinning wheel and deactivated. After that, I couldn't activate it on either computer anymore. I even tried it on Resolve 16 and had no luck. So, it's been like a couple of hours until I decided to contact support.
They admit it's a problem from their side and say it might work again within 24 hrs. This of course isn't something god for us who have work to do, like me who was to render a final version of a video for a client today still. Been on this project for over a week and was about completing it today and this happened. Really frustrating.

Soo... a few hours later (without any VPN or other stuff), it just (black-)magically worked. Probably after the 50th try.
Seems to work kinda wonky. Hopefully it remembers my activation.

Got it from support today:

Hi Anton,

Thanks for contacting the Blackmagic Support team.

We have received several reports from customers reporting similar behaviours when attempting to activate their instances of DaVinci Resolve.
As such, this has now been passed on to our development team and is currently under investigation.
Going forwards, I would recommend periodically attempting to re-activate your DaVinci Resolve activation code on your system to see how the behaviour is affected.
If this behaviour continues to occur for an extended period of time, please feel free to get in touch and we would be happy to investigate this with you.
I hope you find this information useful, please let me know if you have any questions.

Will keep everyone posted of the progress here.

Today, support got back to me:

Hi Anton,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I have now cleared all existing activations from your activation code.
Going forwards, you should now be able to activate the systems that you wish to using the same activation key.

I was able to activate immediately. Apparently clearing was a manual action.

After trying everything possible, and after asking for assistance, the only thing that worked for me (imac 27 of 2020, behind a firewall) was to connect an iphone via usb (not wi-fi or bluetooth) and do the teethering from there (via USB).

A strange problem indeed, but this is the only solution that worked for me.

I hope it will be useful to you.

Good day and good work to all.

Nicola Zeloni

Tethering via my iPhone worked for me too, when one time everything else failed.

It happened to me just now.

I tried tethering too but didn't work.

Any other workaround?

Just contact support then.

I experienced this problem recently too. My problem turned out to be on my own computer and nothing to do with the license key or license server or network connection. Resolve was just not able to write the license data to disk due to a filesystem error (in my case I had made the Resolve dir read-only after installation.)

I hope that Resolve will show a more specific error in the future. It is important to know whether the license key is invalid, whether the license server is malfunctioning, or whether the problem is on the local computer.

Meanwhile I would also suggest checking for conditions that might prevent resolve from writing the license data e.g. the Resolve directory being on a disk that is full.

I write this note because when I had the problem I googled it and found this thread. The talk of VPNs and so on convinced me that it was probably a license server issue beyond my control. So I waited several days for support to confirm that my license was okay before looking more closely at my own computer.