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Question
Tuesday, September 23, 2014 4:02 PM | 6 votes
I have a msdn subscription but approximately once a month when I launch visual studio 2013 I get the dialog box saying 'your licence has gone stale and must be updated. Check for an updated license to continue using this product.
I click the hyperlink and off I go. This is all very well if you happen to be online, but if your using your laptop without the internet your are stuffed.
what's the story please?
All replies (9)
Tuesday, March 10, 2015 5:53 PM | 12 votes
Your reply does not help at all. It's as if you've been trained to emit this pre-canned script every time someone asks about licensing. I don't code every day anymore... it happens when you hit management, but when I do have the time it's likely to be on an airplane which may or may not have wifi and this license renewal thing hits. Please make it stop. Make it stop, find the people who coded it and think everyone is online all the time and make them stop. Also, please stop issuing canned responses to real problems.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015 6:24 PM | 4 votes
Having spent a few minutes on this now, here is a better answer:
click the help menu->register product
once there, I believe you click on apply license(it won't show this option to me now). Insert the key from your MSDN subscription... and done(I hope... we'll see in a few days).
Why is this a fiasco? No idea. Why isn't this the answer from the MS employee above? Also, no idea.
Thursday, January 7, 2016 5:31 PM | 4 votes
Why am I getting this? Why do I have to re-enter my license key once a month? This is bogus, I have better things to do then spend time researching this and then bowing to the MS gods and re-entering my already verified information.
Thursday, July 21, 2016 7:55 AM | 4 votes
I've had this same problem, and it appeared to be due to the fact that my Microsoft Online password had changed. VS was trying to get my credentials and product keys using the old password and failed.
To fix it I just needed to update my profile info in VS with the new password.
Hope this solves the problem for others.
Friday, August 5, 2016 5:42 PM | 1 vote
I receive the same dialog box on entry into VS 2015 "Your license has gone stale and must be updated. Please make sure the Internet is connect, then check for an updated license to continue using this product."
However, the "Check for an updated license" link is completely inactive. I click and don't get a browser anyway. Although, clicking on "Manage Visual Studio profile" brings me to my profile page. What is the updated license site/URL so I can get there without the link?
Wednesday, September 14, 2016 11:39 AM | 1 vote
"Check for an updated license" requires double click. Not intuitive at all....
Wednesday, October 25, 2017 5:25 AM | 2 votes
I had the same problem, frustratingly, regardless of any of the suggestions online here or elsewhere. Finally I noticed I had two VS accounts (that wasn't the problem) but the one that was STUCK in my VS2015 installation was the one that was logged in with the correct credentials, but did not have anything listed under Visual Studio Team Services Accounts. I believe you get that if you go to app.vsaex.visualstudio.com at /me (I can't include links). If there's nothing listed under where it says that heading, press the Create Account button and just put anything in there. Anything.
I created one with my normal userid and it created an area for projects named userid.visualstudio.com for me.
I'm not using this area, I'm not using Team Services for storing projects or anything, but VS seems to use this to do some form of license check to allow your VS to continue. And by the way, this is with the Community version of VS2015.
I use VS2017 for everything now, but this one important machine has Windows Server 2012 installed, rather than the R2 version, and VS2017 won't even install on that. And there's no easy upgrade to R2. Thanks MS.
So I need VS2015 for some very important work there and apparently I also need, not only a visualstudio.com account, but a team account defined under the VS account. And it needs online access for the license check.
So apparently we've been blocked by DRM checks in the Community edition. Nice.
Monday, December 18, 2017 7:08 PM
In case it wasn't clear in my DRM rant above, the first paragraph suggests a possible solution for others to try. It worked for me. The VS DRM check seems to need a team account on the visualstudio.com site, even if you aren't using one, or don't have a team. Without it, it fails the "license" check (for this community edition).
Here again is the suggested answer (for some of the problem cases):
"Finally I noticed I had two VS accounts (that wasn't the problem) but the one that was STUCK in my VS2015 installation was the one that was logged in with the correct credentials, but did not have anything listed under Visual Studio Team Services Accounts. I believe you get that if you go to app.vsaex.visualstudio.com at /me (I can't include links). If there's nothing listed under where it says that heading, press the Create Account button and just put anything in there. Anything."
Friday, August 2, 2019 12:33 PM
There is a "simple" solution. Uninstall - ReInstall. Not the pleasant way to go here. Probably burning the build to a disk will simplify that aspect.
It is rather unfortunate here that no one actually answers with the correct answer regarding the exact licensing for the product. The explanation for a license going stale would be ideal if it were posted here which turned up as a rabbit hole for me. The DevEssentials license and the MSDN license are under the same name which causes an issue similar to the one above (Paul Appurist - I gave him the one-up point).
Meanwhile, there is information that states some of the issues and how to resolve them here assuming you are having a similar problem (license that is on both the MSDN and on the Dev Essentials being the same email address):
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/how-to-unlock-visual-studio?view=vs-2019
You can evaluate Visual Studio for free up to 30 days. Signing into the IDE extends the trial period to 90 days. To continue using Visual Studio, unlock the IDE by either:
- using an online subscription
- entering a product key
Unfortunately, it does not address the issue when it occurs on a Community Edition. So what happens here is that the MSDN license kicks off the 30 day countdown and then states the license is stale being the expectation is that you will upgrade your Community Edition with a key.
MORE INFORMATION:
Specific to my case, when I logged into a Community Edition (the workplace does not have a license and, although I do, I am legally - govt regulation and contract -"legal" - unable to take advantage of my Enterprise Licensing. Because I have the license, MS assumes my Community Edition will be licensed... All very confusing. I don't think MS deliberately set out to make it difficult in a situation where their customer can't use the product they are licensed for (and even more confusing because Community Edition is free)
The license went stale because I have the two choices above - enter a product key (which should not be required for Community) or connect the machine to the internet (which is also a legal violation in this case).
To be frank, it appears the only way around this one is to uninstall Community Edition, then reinstall. A time-consuming solution, IMHO, but in my situation, necessary. Probably a better solution would have been for me to create a new email address and then register the Community Edition that way. I think I still have to be able to connect to the internet though - not sure - no licensing information exists on this page. As stated - too confusing. Maybe MS can come up with a better plan. Uninstall-Reinstall is not horrible.
R, J