Finlay.worksBareBones Ticketing manual

Operate

Licence Problems

The eight licence enforcement states and what to do about each, the separate worker-limit block, how the offline grace period ends, and what clearing the licence removes.

RC2 approved for evaluation Status: release-candidate Audience: System Administrator Source: c4b4d41

Licence Problems

The installation holds one licence enforcement state at a time, out of eight. This page gives all eight, the separate condition that blocks product use without being a state, how the offline grace period ends, and what Clear local license removes.

Reading licence status needs SystemAdmin. Changing it needs a recent step-up. Everything on this page can be diagnosed without one: the status stays readable, and only the controls that change the licence are withheld until step-up is complete.

Four things that are checked separately

A licence problem is usually a confusion between these. Check them on Product License at /admin/product-license.

That screen shows three cards — Product use, Returned entitlement, and Installation — backed by four separate checks:

Check True when Still does not mean
A key is stored A key is saved on this installation The licensing authority accepted it
The entitlement is active The authority reports the key as currently active The authority returned nothing — an expired key returns complete details and still reports ReadOnly
The installation is activated Activation proof exists and is less than 30 days old Worker usage is within the limit. A genuinely registered installation reports as not activated once its proof passes 30 days
Product use is allowed All three above, and worker usage is within the returned limit Any user gains a role or access to a record

The two middle rows are where diagnosis usually goes wrong. An expired key is not a missing or rejected key, and a stale activation proof is not a lost registration.

A licence state never grants anyone a role, a department, a ticket, or an administrator permission. Access comes from the access model, not the licence.

The eight states

State What it means What to do
MissingKey No key is stored on this installation. Confirm which key your organization authorized, then enter it. Do not paste the key into notes, logs, or support messages.
Active The last trusted answer from the authority reported an active entitlement. Check activation proof, expiry, the returned worker limit, current worker usage, and the separate product-use summary. Activate once if activation is needed.
ReadOnly The last trusted answer reported the licence expired, or its expiry date has passed. Edition has nothing to do with it. Leave the installation and its records alone. Ask the licence owner to resolve the renewal, then verify once. Read-only is not active entitlement.
Inactive The authority did not report an active entitlement. Covers invalid, revoked, unknown, missing, and reused low-cost keys. Read the displayed reason and confirm you are using the intended key. Resolve entitlement with the licence owner, then verify once. Do not change the installation identity or look for a different fingerprint.
ActivationLimitReached The authority refused activation because the key's activation limit is used up. Have the licence owner review the existing activations and deactivate one only if procedure allows. Then activate this installation once. Do not clear or rotate identity to get around the limit.
RateLimited The authority asked this installation to slow down. Read the next-attempt time and wait for it. Do not resubmit the key, click repeatedly, script a retry, or run attempts in parallel.
WebsiteUnavailable A timeout, network, DNS, TLS, server, malformed-response, or similar transient failure stopped a trusted answer. Check network, DNS, TLS, and whether the authority is up, without exposing configuration. Respect the displayed backoff, then make one attempt.
ConfigurationError The authority rejected the request shape or required activation metadata, or an active response was missing required claims. Stop retrying. Ask the product or deployment owner to review the runtime and configuration. Retry only after a correction and after any backoff.

Worker limit exceeded is not a ninth state

Being over the worker limit is a separate condition. It is not one of the eight states above, and the state can read Active while it is happening. It does two things on its own:

  • It blocks product use.
  • It refuses a new or reactivated worker grant until the licensing authority returns a larger limit.

Do not retry the blocked grant. Two things resolve it, and both are decisions someone has to make:

  • An authorized administrator reduces active SystemAdmin or department access through the normal access administration workflow — but only if the organization actually intends that access change.
  • The licence owner obtains a key whose returned worker limit fits the intended usage.

Check Product use once after the correction. Do not invent a state name for this condition; the product does not have one.

Being over the limit also blocks the grace period described next.

Grace when the authority is unreachable

RateLimited and WebsiteUnavailable can keep already-authorized product use running for a limited period. This is a continuation of what was already proven, not new entitlement.

Grace applies only when all of these are true for the same installation:

  • a key is stored;
  • the last known entitlement was active and not expired;
  • current activation proof is present; and
  • worker usage is within the last returned worker limit.

Grace ends at whichever of these comes first:

  1. 72 hours after the first qualifying unavailable result.
  2. 30 days after the last activation or heartbeat proof.
  3. The known licence expiry date.
  4. A successful response from the authority.
  5. A hard denial, a key clear, a deactivation, or invalidated proof.

Worker usage rising above the last returned limit also ends it, and prevents it starting.

Neither the 72 hours nor the 30 days is a floor. Grace is capped by the licence expiry date and by the expiry of the activation proof as well, so it often ends sooner than either figure. Whichever limit arrives first ends it.

Further failures do not extend grace. The 72 hours run from the first qualifying failure, not the most recent one. Grace keeps the last verified edition, expiry, activation, and limits as they were. It does not create entitlement, activate another installation, grant more workers, or grant anyone access.

If a confirmed transient result arrives while worker usage is over the limit, the installation discards any stored grace deadline, keeps its backoff and its last known activation evidence for diagnosis, and leaves product use blocked.

Clear local license

Clear local license removes licence state from this installation. It is a deliberate action for when the licence owner has decided to remove the key. It is not a troubleshooting reset.

It clears:

  • the stored key;
  • the entitlement claims returned for that key;
  • activation proof;
  • any grace deadline and retry backoff; and
  • local product-use approval.

The state then reads MissingKey.

It keeps the installation identity — this deployment stays the same installation to the authority.

It does not release the activation held at the authority, restore Trial or Free Edition eligibility, reset the installation identity, or move you past a worker or activation limit. If an activation has to be released, deactivate through the approved procedure before clearing.

What to record

Record the state name, whether a key is stored, the edition and expiry, whether activation proof is present, whether product use is allowed, the displayed result code, and the next-attempt or grace-until time.

Never record any part of the key, the installation fingerprint, a request or response body, a credential, or payment data.