Constant request for reactivation 3

[greghyman]

I sent this email to draftsight yesterday, as well as posting it on their forums; I have also requested assistance from multiple emails on their site during the course of this week, and have also asked numerous times on existing threads on their forums that ask the same questions; I have not heard one reply from their site, or them, at all.

So now I am broadening my search for an answer:

I am on day 3 4 of this issue.

Every time I launch DraftSight, I am prompted to re-activate it. Every Time.

I have filled in my email etc countless times, but have not received any email reply that allows me to complete my activation. To clarify - when I first started using it 6 months ago, I was able to activate it the very first time.

I have followed the flowchart on this website, emailed the "info@draftsight", used a different email address just as a test, and have posted several requests for help on existing threads here. I have not received one single reply.

Yesterday, I gave up and downloaded / installed it on my Linux box just so I could actually get some work done, but it does not run at all in Linux; an extensive search online shows that it simply will not work on 64-bit Linux without swapping in 32-bit libraries, and even then it will most likely be dodgy. I spent wasted 3 hours last night googling and tweaking and rebooting my linux laptop; I finally got it to launch without kicking up errors by using a deprecated video driver and a host of symlinks and bandaids to force it to use 32bit glx, but now there is almost nothing visible in the graphics window (including the crosshairs!) And, every time I launch it, it asks for me to activate it - and yet I have received NO activation emails. And the rest of the applications on my laptop are now complaining about the sad state of my OS!

So here I am; 70+ dwg files to work on, and no way to get draftsight to work at all.

Can anyone please offer me any assistance at all?

 

[dws25]

I also had this problem; and finally got it working. I never was able to activate it in the beginning; and now, it is past 6 months. I tried everything on the website; and, reinstalling DraftSight. It still did not work. I tried it on another Windows 8.1 computer; and, the activation worked on that computer. I finally found some information about deleting or renaming the SWActivation key in the Registry. I tried that; it reset the activation timeframe. However, it still would not activate. I then exported the SWActivation key from the working computer, and imported it to my computer. It works great now.

Since you were able to activate it the very first time, I suggest that you first try renaming the SWActivation key. Hope this helps.

David

 

[greghyman]

While I would like it to work, I also do not think that resorting to messing with the Windows system registry should be an activation step. And, obviously, this will not help the Linux install at all.
I appreciate your input, and do not mean to sound ungrateful, but this is at best a Band-aid to a more serious problem with the software itself.

 

[NSNO]

I might have a solution for this. I kept getting the reactivation pop up when I opened Draftsight, even after reactivating, until I reactivated and used file>exit to close Draftsight rather than just clicking the cross in the top right corner. Opening Draftsight after that seemed to be fine and the reactivation has worked - it could just be coincidence but worth trying

 

[greghyman]

NSNO: Great suggestion!
Unfortunately, it did not work.

I've been using LibreCad for the past few weeks, and it has been working just fine on both systems (Windows and Linux.)

We've taken to telling our customers as well as our suppliers that we will no longer accept files in dwg format; most people we work with are actually glad to hear it - they too have moved on to other systems and do not like being tied to the .dwg format.

 

[AntonioPerez]

Thanks NSNO, it worked for me.

 

[greghyman]

I just returned after spending 2 weeks out of country at a customer site.

Draftsight would not work for me at all; neither my windows nor my Linux versions - They both would go no further than the "Your trial period is over, you must activate..." window.

Fortunately, I was able to get *some* work done using LibreCad, but their tooling supplier had sent every single file in DWG format, with no answer to repeated requests for DXF.

I ultimately had to wait until the end of each day to return to the hotel, and do any DWG work in SolidWorks (which requires a VPN to my company to access the license server.) This still forced me to use the SW interface, which is not very user-friendly for files in DWG format, but it did at least allow me to export to DXF and use LibreCad.

It would have been nice of them to have told their users - especially the ones (like me) who asked if purchasing the paid version would correct the issue. But after the past 2 weeks, I have stopped entertaining that idea at all; I am convinced that any technical issues that need resolved with *any* version will be fielded by the same lack of interest / lack of customer support (or possibly, lack of ability.)

It is unfortunate that there is such poor support / service for a good product.

Is this the type of support DSS provides for all of their products, or simply the ones that are "included" with their other products?



Update:

I spoke with our SolidWorks VAR, they arrived at the same conclusion as Dassault: "Oh, that's the version that came with SolidWorks. We don't offer any support for the free version."

To me, that is the final answer - I have heard from DraftSight's sales department ("Will the paid version work for us?" "Sorry we don't answer questions from 'free' users."), DraftSight's Project Manager (Mark Lyons: "We do not offer support for the free version" ), and now our VAR ("You can try Safe Mode and Regedit" "OK, what about the Linux version that is having the same issue?" "Well, we really aren't supposed to offer support for the free version.") Nobody at any level at DraftSight will address an issue with their activation process, nor will they entertain an offer to purchase the software in order to receive support.

The problem is not with the free version of DraftSight, the problem is with their activation process. And since they have no desire to listen to one word from potential paid customers in order to find an issue with their activation system (which should be a relatively simple issue to find in an email subsystem, if they ever decided to actually look at it), I cannot fathom what their response would be if there ever was an actual issue with the software itself that would require them to show an interest in investigating a problem with the software (which would actually require them to find a functionality issue with their code.)

I've taken the only logical step.

I've uninstalled it.

It works better when I am not tempted to use it; the resultant frustration from dealing with a company that clearly does not care about their customers (or to gather data to correct an issue that has nothing whatsoever to do with the functionality of the actual product), simply makes me question the benefit of even trying to get it to work or consider buying the full (read: "supported") version.

LibreCad works just fine, and as an open-sourced piece of software (that installs and works first time on Linux as well as Windows) any issues are dealt with swiftly by the people who actually maintain the code. What a concept!



Sorry if this sounds like a rant - But when a company pays for a good number of SW seats, and is given DraftSight as a tool to work with DWG files, then I guess I just expect that tool to work. Being stranded with a non-working piece of software after spending literally months trying to get what appears to be a simple problem resolved is frustrating on a level that I refuse to continue.

 

[Turyshau]

Hello greghyman , I had the same problem with ScientificLinux 7 (RHEL\CENTOS clone) and DS2015 free release.
My solution was the temporary turned off firewall
steps with working firewall:
1. Start draftsight
2. Fill the fields and submit
3. Nothing happens, no e-mails, DS - not activated and asks activation again and again
4. Fail
steps with turned off firewall:
1. Turn off firewall, in my case
# systemctl stop firewalld.service
2. start DS as normal user
3. Fill the fields, submit
4. Email with link has been recieved!!
5. Procced the link, get another email with congratulations.
6. Exit DS
7. Turn Firewall on back
8. Start DS again: no bugging activation requests.

Hope it will help.
wbr, Mikalai Turyshau

 

[coady]

To Greghyman, and anyone else listening...Turyshau's solution is the absolute correct answer to the Draftsight activation problem. After months of frustration, I turned off the firewall, started Draftsight, filled out the form, and received an activation email within one minute. Thanks!

 

[greghyman]

I appreciate the steps Turyshau. Hopefully that will help some people who have been struggling.
Unfortunately, I dropped draftsight entirely, and then reinstalled Linux entirely - so many "tweaks" were necessary just to get this one piece of software to work, that it left most of the rest of my machine crippled.
Their installer never attempted to resolve (or document) any dependencies but rather left it up to the user to spend hours reading through the logs to find out which libraries it needs (and yes, the 64-bit version still depends on a host of 32-bit libraries!) The sad state of the install package, plus the utter lack of help from anyone from the VAR, to DSS, to the draftsight product manager (Mark Lyons) who all chanted the same mantra - "We do not listen to any problems or suggestions from users with the free version. At all."... using it on my Linux machine simply no longer interests me.
On the Windows side, our IT department has whitelisted every possible site that resembles dss, draftsight, 3ds, 3dvision, etc. And at the end of the day, *some* people get the email (the same ones who could get it a year ago), and some never do and never have.
The fact that some users get the email leads me to believe there is nothing wrong at our end... firewall, whitelist, spam filters, etc. That plus the volume of hateful messages on 3ds tells me there is a serious problem at the draftsight end of things.
But they do not care.

Again, thank you for the steps to toggle the Linux firewall - that is more of a solution than anyone has given yet!