They'll take my HASP from my cold dead hands

[gcode]

This is why I keep refusing to trade in my HASP on a software license
Mastercam's licensing server has been down since Wednesday

Mastercam Licensing Server Outage – Updated 10/19/2023 2:20 PM EST
October 18, 2023 at 2:14 pm
1 like
We are currently experiencing a technical issue with our Mastercam Licensing server and do not have an estimate on when this issue will be addressed. The host of our licensing services experienced a hardware failure in their data center. They are continuing to work on replacing the hardware and getting the systems back online.

This issue impacts new Mastercam software license activation/deactivation attempts.  All Mastercam licenses activated before this outage will continue to work. Do not deactivate any current licenses until the services are restored.

We will continue to update this message as we have additional information to share.

Thank you for your understanding.

Updated 10/19/2023 2:20 PM EST

[Jeff]

Doesn't that only affect people who need to acquire a license for a new purchase or HLE download?
Or does that affect network licenses as well?

[gcode]

Doesn't that only affect people who need to acquire a license for a new purchase or HLE download?
Or does that affect network licenses as well?

I believe you can deactivate a license at work, then reactivate at home.
If your license was deactivated when the server went down, you have no license.
A lot of shops use them for remote programmers as they are not dependent on a stable VPN connection.

[Jeff]

I believe you can deactivate a license at work, then reactivate at home.
If your license was deactivated when the server went down, you have no license.
A lot of shops use them for remote programmers as they are not dependent on a stable VPN connection.

Ahh, I didn't think about that.

[Here's Johnny!]

I still have my Purple Hasp....I glued the cover back on about a year ago!!!

[gcode]

still down.. going on 48 hours now
I'm glad I don't answer the phone at headquarters

[JParis]

Now, I can say this is about 13 year old stuff...

At one point there was a discussion about how they could disable HASP's when moving over to full software licensing....

Now, I am completely out of the know now and have been for nearly a dozen years. That thinking could have possibly changed......

[gcode]

Post yesterday evening on Mastercam.com

As we continue to resolve the technical issue related to Mastercam Licensing through our vendor, Mastercam has developed a solution to get impacted customers back online utilizing a temporary license that will expire November 15th 2023. Please follow the below instructions to activate your temporary license if you are experiencing issues: 

They've been pushing the software license for years.
It's brought up every year at renewal time for both my personal sim and my employer's nethasp.
I always decline for my personal sim.
This year I read up on the software license and brought it up with our IT guy.
His reply was " If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Boy, was he ever right.

I can see why they'd want to retire the HASP.
It's 20 year old technology and the user's hardware can't be updated without being replaced.
With the software license there is no hardware to purchase, manage, distribute or lose
and updates can be downloaded during routine updates.
I have no idea if the newer technology in the software license is harder to crack.

I find it hard to believe they didn't have a backup license server in place.
I'll bet they do after this.

[gcode]

Hindsight is 20/20, but it seems incredible that there was no backup system in place
for such a vital service.
I'll bet there will be one going forward.

[gcode]

still down and no word from HQ
the last update was Friday afternoon.
I wonder how many users were affected by this?

[CNCAppsJames]

...
They've been pushing the software license for years.
...

Personally, as a road warrior I find the software licenses more convenient. Less stuff hanging off my laptop, less stuff to worry about losing, etc... That said, there is a certain degree opf confidence having a HASP instills. Unplug it. Change workstations. Go. I haven't had more than 1 workstation that I migrated between in probably 20 years. I DO know dozens of programmers that do though. I haven't heard if any of them have succumbed to this problem.

[gcode]

Personally, as a road warrior I find the software licenses more convenient.

and if you left your license on your laptop, this loss of service would not have affected you
if you routinely moved it back and forth between desktop and laptop, one of your 2 machines would be unusable right now. or both would be, depending on the timing of the server failure

[gcode]

as far as I know this problem is still ongoing.
There has not been a formal status update since late Friday afternoon,
which I find really hard to believe.
Maybe the hardware failure was the superduper Codmeter code generator/maintainer
and they are hard readily available.

[neurosis]

Can they give a temp code until the problem gets solved or are people stuck without the software at this point?

[JParis]

Can they give a temp code until the problem gets solved or are people stuck without the software at this point?

They have done temp codes that expire 11/15....hopefully it's fixed prior to that..

My guess is the Codemeter server either got hacked or compromised and encrypted