Thu Jun 05, 2025 11:00 am
I had this happen to me a few times before. In my case it all started after I installed a clean installation of the OS on the same "main" machine onto a partition of the internal SSD. I kept the old partition with a legacy macOS and previous version of stable running Resolve and this way could start with a fresh installation for the new release of DaVinci Resolve on the same hardware.
Then I have the two iMacs, where only one of these has a split system Volume, so I can also reboot in an older version of the OS for some legacy VST in 32 bit (this is not related to DaVinci, but sometimes a necessary step for me). The problem began after splitting this volume for having a dual OS. I guess at BlackMagic they don't store a machine-hardware-ID, but store some kind of activation-number-key-file somewhere that apparently generated 3 activations on my 2 machines. Once in a while I rebooted in the other OS on the primary iMac, then the secondary iMac asked for reentry of the activation key thereafter.
So I assume here, that some of these reentry requests for activation are caused by us occasionally running a machine from a system back-up. Or maybe a family member has your old hardware that is still linked to the DaVinci but isn't used frequently?
I also do have an old laptop that will not be able to run the modern DaVinci versions, so this still has Resolve 17.4.6 installed but is not using my license as far as I can tell.
The odd thing is, the number of activations seems te have been reset in between events. It told me 0 activations were left and a few weeks later said 2 activations are left.
There should indeed be a way for users like me, similar to managing an Adobe ID or Apple ID to see what machines are linked to the license. Also important if hardware would be stolen or otherwise lost, one needs a way to be able to deactivate the ID from the lost hardware.