Step 1: General Instructions

Step 2: Common dongle problems

2.1 Can't Find the Dongle 

This message is given whenever our applications simply cannot find a dongle - whether it be a standalone or network device.  Generally when this message occurs you need to check a number of things:

• Check you have installed the drivers correctly.  Try installing the drivers manually (see the page on your device to find out what drivers you need and how to get them).
  
• Make sure the device is plugged in, and if it's plugged in through a usb hub or attached to the back of another dongle or printer (in the case of a parallel device) then try plugging it directly into the computer and seeing if this helps.
  
• If it's a USB device then check that the light is lit - if it's not lit then this may mean that the device drivers were not installed correctly.  Try reinstalling the drivers and see if that helps.
  
• If it's a Network device, then you will need to check a few more things:
• Check that the License Manager software is running on the server,
• Make sure that the client and server machines can see each other on the network,
  
• and lastly, ensure you don't have any firewalls on either the client OR server machines that might be preventing communication from taking place.  Keep in mind that Windows XP now has one built in (comes with any machine that has Service Pack 2).  You will need to configure your firewall appropriately to let the network dongle work correctly - NetHasp devices use TCP/UDP port 475, while NetSentinel devices require the TCP/UDP ports 2050 and 2051.
  

2.2 No Licenses Available

This message is given when a Formation dongle has been found, but no licenses for the application you are running are actually on that dongle.  This would generally infer that you're running the wrong version of our software (ie. Maxsurf Plus when you have licenses for Maxsurf Pro), or that you've never purchased the application at all.  If you're sure that you should have licenses for the given application then it may indicate that a device has been programmed incorrectly.  Please contact support if you believe this is the case as we can re-program the dongle for you remotely.

2.3 All Licenses Used

This message is given when a Formation dongle has been found, licenses for the application you have requested are present, but they are all currently being used.  This generally indicates that you do not have any spare licenses at present, but they are available, so just retry at a later time.  If you receive this message and you're sure that no licenses should be used at the time, then it may be that the licenses were not released properly so they're still marked as being in use.
The simplest workaround for this case is to restart the license manager.

2.4 USB devices 

USB Copy Protection Devices should not be plugged in prior to installing your software. Some Windows Operating Systems will allocate a driver to the device by default. That faulty driver will not be updated after installing the USB Copy Protection Device driver and cause the driver not to function.

If you have inserted the USB device prior to installing the software, remove the Device driver using the device manager in the System Properties of the Configuration or Control Panel screen.

Now simple delete the USB device with the exclamation mark by selecting it and hit delete.

The next step is installing the USB dongle driver. This can be done 2 ways:

1. Install the driver for the appropriate USB device. Click here to select.
   
2. Re-install the software with the USB device unplugged. Please note that you do not need to re-install every application, you can install only one application and this will install the correct CPD driver.

Note: there is no support for USB copy protection devices under Windows NT.

Step 3: Device specific troubleshooting

First check the general instructions in the next section, then go to the section below which corresponds to your device.

Standalone Devices: 

Network Devices:

Old/Obsolete Devices: