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Forum: VirtualDJ Technical Support

Tema: Feature request: Localised licence settings on Mac

Este tópico es antiguo y puede contener información incorrecta para la nueva versión.

As I understand the licence terms, you are allowed two copies of VDJ to be logged in at the same time so long as they are both for use by the same person and not used concurrently. So far, so good.

I have a desktop machine in my studio that I use for live and live-to-disk broadcasts, and a laptop that I take with me when I'm DJing at dance events. My music is primarily on an external drive which I swap from system to system as required. These are both Macs running the same OS and with Cloud Drive Sync enabled, so this works really well when switching between the two systems as all my settings and database are automatically kept in sync.

But...

As far as I can see, the licence key generated by login is stored in the ~/Documents/VirtualDJ folder somewhere, so this gets synced between the two machines as well... and it doesn't work (obviously). When I swap from one computer to the other it looks at the licence, thinks "that's not mine" and asks me to log in again.

Which wouldn't be an issue except that (in non-pandemic season) many of my remote events are really remote and have no access to WiFi or mobile phone signal (we don't all live in cities with great coverage). So when it asks me to log in again, that can't happen. After multiple attempts at one location I had to unplug my laptop, head out of the building, up to higher ground, and use my phone to get enough signal to log in before heading back into the venue to start the show.

This is annoying.

All it needs is for the licence key to be held in ~/Library/Application Support/VirtualDJ instead (note: ONLY the licence key, or all the glorious other syncing features will be broken) and all will be good.

Any chance for an update? Or if this is possible already, how?

Cheers
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 7:57 am
Can't you exclude the file from sync?
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 8:25 am
groovindj wrote :
Can't you exclude the file from sync?


Not natively in iCloud Sync. It's one of the weak points in the system that it's kind of an all-or-nothing approach. There is a hack you can use to prevent a single file from syncing, but that involves adding ".nosync" to the end of the filename, and unfortunately VDJ doesn't see "license.dat.nosync" as the same file as "license.dat" so simply re-creates it. I'll do a test later to see if I can use a SymLink to force it to use a copy in a non-sync'd folder, but if VDJ simply creates a new licence file if the existing one is wonky or missing then it'll just overwrite the SymLink and I'll be back to where I started.
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 8:38 am
Okay, so a soft SymLink does seem to work. I'll test it lots before I'm confident enough to head out into the land of no WiFi, but at the moment it looks promising.

If anyone wants to try it, open Terminal and do the following:

mkdir ~/VirtualDJ
mv ~/Documents/VirtualDJ/license.dat ~/VirtualDJ/license.dat
ln -s ~/VirtualDJ/license.dat ~/Documents/VirtualDJ/license.dat

As always, this is at your own risk. If you're not confident in Terminal then step away. If you break it, it's not my fault.

Anyway it looks like this would be a really easy add-in to the end of the installation package scripts that could be done by default on a Mac. So if any devs are watching... just a thought.
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 9:03 am
What I do as a matter of routine is to keep a copy of my license file in another directory. If VDJ deletes the original (or the original has been swapped) then it's a simple matter of putting the safety copy back.

I know very little about Macs but on PC this procedure could be scripted, so rather than run the program file directly, you run a script that puts the license in the folder then runs the program. Alternatively you could probably set up a script/routine to do that when the computer starts up.
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 9:44 am
groovindj wrote :
What I do as a matter of routine is to keep a copy of my license file in another directory. If VDJ deletes the original (or the original has been swapped) then it's a simple matter of putting the safety copy back.

I know very little about Macs but on PC this procedure could be scripted, so rather than run the program file directly, you run a script that puts the license in the folder then runs the program. Alternatively you could probably set up a script/routine to do that when the computer starts up.


That's good to know. I kind of assumed that copying / moving the licence file would break the crypto, but apparently it survives okay. I'll bear that in mind if the SymLink thing proves to be problematic.
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 10:13 am
This is not an issue in Windows. There is another copy kept in a hidden location so if you overwrite the one in the VDJ folder it's still recognises the correct license.

Must be a mac specific issue.
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 12:47 pm
That must be a fairly new feature then. I wasn't aware of any "secret backup" location. :-)

So you reckon if I disconnect from the internet, delete my license file then run VDJ, it will start up perfectly happily using the "secret" file?
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 1:03 pm
AdionPRO InfinityCTOMember since 2006
Yes, for a few years now, not really secret, just the local appdata folder. It was indeed also added there to prevent issues with automatic cloud syncing.
So yes we'll add the same for mac
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 1:23 pm
I tried and it works! Every day we learn something new.
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 1:46 pm
As I stated it's a hidden location, not secret. You have to unhide the folder in Windows to see it.

It's a really good feature as I used to sync drives all the time and exclude the license file but now it just works.
 

Mensajes Fri 31 Jul 20 @ 4:11 pm


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