creative cloud software says my free trial has expired, but I have a paid subscription

Me too. I have a one year subscription, but I am now being told my trial is going to run out. If itdoes, I'm in big trouble with my business being able to deliver my current projects. I'm seeing this problem around the web a lot, and not getting any answers. Please let us know what to do.

Hi Maryal and Jude,

    Sorry for the inconvenience caused to you and Happy New Year!

    Follow the below steps:

1. Close all the Adobe Applications. Logout from creative.adobe.com and re-login.

2. Once you launch the software and when you get the error saying the the trial version has expired, you will have an option saying "License this software".

3. Select this option and enter your credentials and click next.

4. You must be able to activate the software then.

Regards,

Jairaj

That didn't work for me. I have an activation code that has letters and numbers in it, not individual serial numbers for each product, and the serial number window won't accept letters. I did recently get notifications to upgrade a number of products, which I did - could this be part of the problem?

I'm having the same problem; sounds like a silly licensing-related software bug induced by the 2012 to 2013 transition. This is the first year of Creative Cloud after all...

We are having the same or very similar problem though I don't think it's a 2012 to 2013 bug as this started around the 18th of December.

Our work uses Creative Cloud on two machines (one in the office [PC] and one at home [Mac]) but only one is in use at anyone time. Several weeks ago the Mac one is saying it is now on a trail version and has been counting down from 30 days ever since then yet it is fine on the PC. Have checked that subscription payments have gone through which they have. Also tried to re-enter the serial number but no luck.

Only 15 days left for us, we need some help Adobe!

I have the same issue. My Creative Cloud subscription is activated, but all available apps seem to be in tryout-mode. Every time I open Photoshop, InDesign or any other software I'm asked to activate my subscription. When I type in my Adobe ID I'm being asked for a serial number, which doesn't exist on a Creative Cloud subscription. This is ridiculously annoying! I can't use any of the programs now until this is solved.

Hi All,

  Sorry for the inconvenience caused. If the above steps mentioned did not resolve, then please follow the steps mentioned in the below document:

http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/activation-network-issues.html

Revert back if you have any issues.

Regards,

Jairaj

None of that worked for me here.

My clock is correct and in the correct timezone.

My firewall is not blocking Adobe

I can connect to the Adobe Licence Management Server

There were no Adobe.com entries in the Hosts file

The Root CA Certificates were valid

I'm down the 24 days, so I suppose this started on the 29th of December. I did recently use the Adobe prompt to upgrade a few programs around this time.

Same, tried/verified all those steps and it still is in trail mode.

Hi Everyone,

I had this same problem. I'm running the CS6 Creative Cloud Subscription on a Mac (OS X v 10.8.2)

And this just worked for me:

Go to:

- Finder

- Applications

- Adobe Application Manager

- core

- PDApp.app

It asked me to enter my log-in credentials.

Once I logged in, now all of my applications are working just fine and not in try-out mode any more.

Hope that helps and works for you too.

Sadly, didn't work for me. I did have to log in and it says all my downloaded apps are up to date though.

This worked for me on Mac OS X v 10.7.5, this is what I did:

Launched Adobe Application Manager

Allowed it to auto update

It then relaunched and asked me to log in with my Adobe ID

Then launched one of my applications, still got the subscription expired notice

Clicked to licence this software

Logged in with my Adobe ID again

Activation complete - all is well again.

Ah nice one Zootie and Ben. That did the trick.

So the full solution for me was to go to Applications > Adobe Application manager, run this and log-in when it asks you to. Then launch any Cloud App and click on 'Licence this Software' when it asks you to. Log in again with your Adobe ID, and you should get a thank you notice and your apps will stop giving the trial expiring notice.

The Adobe Application Manager solution worked for me today as well - I had tried the same exact thing on Jan 1st with no luck. Adobe must have fixed something on their end since then.

Thanks!

Is there a way to escalate this issue so it gets fixed?  I'm getting this every month now, and once, when opening a file with a client over my shoulder.

I'm still having this problem, as the above solution didn't work for me. I'm on a PC

I have this same problem.

JairajMike's steps did not solve it (the original 4 steps, as well as the links provided did not change anything for me).

The Adobe Application Manager solution doesn't work either for me. It was already up to date, as well as my apps.

This is what I get every time I open Photoshop, for example: http://i.imgur.com/HKYYN.png

Window 1: I click "License This Software"

Window 2: I click "Sign in"

It seems to work, I can use Photoshop, but then when I start it the next time it happens again.

I am on Windows 8.

Seems like I've solved it. I was using the Dutch version and I didn't buy a subscription for multiple langauges. So I just installed the English photoshop version and now it's registered!

I have the same problem but it happens intermittently.  I do the 'License This Software' thing and all seems well then a few days later I get the message again saying I am on a Trial version.  My Creative Cloud software is working now but I am expecting it to give me this error again in a day or two or three or ... !! ??

This occurred after an UPDATE, the same as everyone else and therefore is obviously an Adobe fault since so many of you are complaining of it.

My problem is exactly the same as Comment 19 above. It happens intermittently. I 'License the Software' which then says "Thank you for your Subscription" (which worried me the first time it happened because I'm already subscribed and I thought it had created a second subscription for me! Luckily it looks like it hasn't). Everything is fine for a few days and then I'm told I'm on a Trial version again.

And, as above, this happened after an update late last year. I'm being told I've only got 11 days left and I'm praying that the apps don't stop working for me then. Although I'm happy with the applications through Creative Cloud, I've already had issues with subscriptions early on, with two subscriptions being created after my apps stopped working after a month. I cannot afford for it to happen again!

Please fix this soon as none of the solutions here have worked so far. 11 days and counting for me...

I've just come across this article on the Adobe site: http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/trial-screen-displays-you-open.html

It seems they're working on a solution but, basically, you can either 1) uninstall and reinstall Photoshop CS6, or 2) relicense the software each time you launch or 3) keep using it as a trial, crossing your fingers that the issue is fixed before the trial runs out!!

As this isn't only happening in Photoshop, I really don't want to download all the apps and reinstall them all again! So, I'm crossing all my fingers and relicensing until Adobe sorts it out with reinstalling as the last option.

After contacting 'Adobe Care' via email and after many emails back and forth I was advised today that the 'issue' has been 'fixed'... I will wait and see :-|

I am getting the same result now with pretty much any of the CS apps that I open. The initial "Welcome to this Trial" screen. However, when I click on "License" it askes for the retail serial number. I have found that simply closing the window and confirming that I want to "Quit" makes the trial splash go away. The app will open and as far as I've been able to observe, everything functions as it should. So at this point the whole thing is really an incovience as I now have to close the trial pop up and then confirm that I want to quit anytime I open any Adobe product. For me this first started with the upgrade to Acrobat XI. I went through the forums and attempted to troubleshoot this problem there to no avail. Nothing like feeling as if you have pirated software you've legitimately paid for.

FYI, there are some Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions that utilize product keys. I found this to be the issue for me. I work for a non-profit and purchased my CC license through CDW. In order to retrieve my license keys I had to log in to the licensing.adobe.com website (using my CC username and password). There I navigated to "retrieve license keys" and selected the correct order number and viola...at the bottom were keys for the Adobe Team Ready software. Note that Acrobat requires it's own key. Thank you to Adobe Customer Service for walking me through this. I hope this helps others.

@kenyongerbrandt - Adobe Team Ready was a solution offered before the Adobe Team was available. It is a solution that uses serial numbers. Now both Team and Individual subscriptions to the Creative Cloud just use an Adobe ID, no serial numbers at all.

It was explained to me that there is a migration upcoming moving everyone from Team Ready to Team. At that time I will be notified via email of the changes and necessary steps. In the meantime I have licensed all my CC apps utilizing the serial numbers accessed through the adobe licensing site. I have spent a significant amount of time purusing these forums and it seems that a vast majority of posts are related to similar registration glitches. I am offering my solution as yet another possibility to the myriad already posted in various places. Might be helpful if Adobe could consolidate all these various fixes to these registration problems.

This post has been created for Photoshop http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/trial-screen-displays-you-open.html.

@Ken: As I mentioned, I've tried those "solutions" already (personally, I do not see uninstalling and reinstalling as a "solution" anyway).

So all I can do is "relicense the software each time you launch"? I'm confused... that seems to imply that this is acceptable behaviour.

It is not acceptable behavior and I did not mean to imply this. A fix is being worked on and it is very high priority.

But in the meantime I wanted to post the official workaround since I did not see it on this thread. There are many threads on this problem in both this forum and other forums.

This is quite frustrating.  I assume that there will be a credit on my bill for down time?

@ Ken:

I presume that the core of the solution from the link you provided is to revert the latest Photoshop Update (my Photoshop is 13.1.1. and the update that is stated in the solution is 13.0.1.1.). If I had a boxed product that might work but what am I going to do as Creative Cloud subscriber? If I deinstall Photoshop and reinstall it from the Application Manager it will surely be installed in the latest version again, doesn't it?

Concerning the Workarounds described on the linked page: I would be happy if I would be able to license Photoshop after startup as a temporary solution but it asks for serial number and as CC subscriber I don't have one.

I appreciate that Adobe is aware of the problem but what is a CC subscriber going to do to solve the problem? I've got 16 days of trial left until the heart of my business is going to stop!

If you use Photoshop at all, you may need to install the latest update to resolve this issue. See this blog post for more information:

http://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2013/01/photoshop-13-0-413-1-2-updat es-now-available.html

If you do not have Photoshop, then try the solution that others have mentioned previously:

1. Open the Adobe Application Manager (AAM).
2. If applicable, let AAM complete any automatic updates and restart itself.
3. Sign in with your Adobe ID. (Optionally, you can close AAM at this point.)
4. Open a CS6 application (e.g. InDesign CS6).
5. If prompted (e.g. you get the trial screen), click "License This Software" and sign in with your Adobe ID.

I was on location with no internet when this came up - all my cloud sourced software was disabled and I was unable to perform my job

thanks a lot

When I click "License this software", I have to enter a serial number, which I do not have for Creative Cloud applications. I use mac OS Mountain Lion. In Windows 8, which my mac also can run, it works fine, just after login with my Adobe ID.

Palle Tornqvist, Denmark

I'm having the same problem. Subscribed to Creative Cloud. All the apps showing as 'Try' rather than the 'Download' buttons that apepar on a colleagues machine (who subscribed a few months ago). When I load the trial of Indesign, if I select 'licence software' - no space to put Adobe ID, only serial number which I don't have with the Creative Cloud membership.

Tried everything that has been suggested. Updated everything in Adobe App' Manager. Gone back to open Indesign - still just has boxes for serial number.

Please sort this out Adobe. I've wasted half a day trying to install on my machine and still have the rest of the studio to do.

My problem with Adobe's recognition of my Adobe ID was solved by the chat support. The file "host" was changed, so that Adobe products no longer was blocked. Try the chat.

With Kindly Regards

Palle Tørnqvist

Den 08/04/2013 kl. 14.10 skrev TimmyC123456 <forums_noreply@adobe.com>:

 

Re: creative cloud software says my free trial has expired, but I have a paid subscription

created by TimmyC123456 in Adobe Creative Cloud - View the full discussion

I'm having the same problem. Subscribed to Creative Cloud. All the apps showing as 'Try' rather than the 'Download' buttons that apepar on a colleagues machine (who subscribed a few months ago). When I load the trial of Indesign, if I select 'licence software' - no space to put Adobe ID, only serial number which I don't have with the Creative Cloud membership.

 

 

Tried everything that has been suggested. Updated everything in Adobe App' Manager. Gone back to open Indesign - still just has boxes for serial number.

 

 

Please sort this out Adobe. I've wasted half a day trying to install on my machine and still have the rest of the studio to do.

 

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Another student who subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud when I did had the same issue today.

If anyone else is looking for an update on this, I think it may be because you have at some stage downloaded a pirated version of an Adobe product, and to circumvent the Adobe security features - you have changed your Hosts file to block outgoing Adobe connections.

On Mac, open Terminal (Utitlities > Terminal), and type:

sudo nano /private/etc/hosts

You will need to then type in your administration password.

Then make sure that any lines that look like:

127.0.0.1       *.adobe.com

etc, are removed.

Generally, your Hosts file should have no additional entries after the commented section - but check before you remove any lines.

I don't know the exact lines for Adobe that you will need to remove - but I think they should be pretty self explanatory.

Press CONTROL + O and it will ask to Save as Filename, hit Enter to save.

Next, you will need to flush your DNS cache.

Type into Terminal:

dscacheutil -flushcache

Exit Terminal, restart AAM and you should be sorted.

GB.

I can state absolutely that I have not downloaded pirated Adobe software here. So it might be a cause, but it can't be the only cause.

Understood - apologies, I didn't mean to imply anything. I almost just copied pasted that response from what I told my student (I tutor at a University) - who had undoubtadly been using a pirated version