Finlay.worksBareBones Ticketing manual

Licence States

For administrators. The licence screen is visible only to System Administrators. If the product told you it is blocked for licensing reasons, tell your administrator; there is nothing for you to do here.

The Product License screen shows one enforcement state. Read that state, the activation proof, worker use, and the product-use decision as four separate facts. A state of Active does not by itself allow product use.

Before you start

  • You need SystemAdmin. Step-up is required before Save key and verify, Verify stored key, Activate installation, Run heartbeat, Deactivate installation, and Clear local license.
  • Make one request at a time and wait for the displayed next-attempt time.

The eight enforcement states

State What it means What to do next
MissingKey No key is stored. Product use is blocked. Save the key issued for this installation, then Verify stored key.
Active The last trusted entitlement result was active. Check the two separate gates: activation proof must be under 30 days old, and worker count must be within the returned limit. If either fails, resolve that first.
ReadOnly Entitlement is expired or read-only. Changes are blocked; reads and exports still work. Renew or upgrade through the account owner, then Verify stored key. Use read, export, and recovery paths meanwhile.
Inactive There is no active entitlement. Covers invalid, revoked, not-found, and reuse-denied results. Resolve the account or key with the licence owner. Do not rotate the installation identity.
ActivationLimitReached The licensing authority refused this installation because the activation cap is full. Review the existing activations, deactivate an installation you no longer run, then retry once.
RateLimited Verification was throttled. Retry backoff is capped at 4 hours. Wait for the displayed next-attempt time. Do not retry in a loop. Grace may apply, but only while worker use is within the limit.
WebsiteUnavailable The licensing website could not be reached. Grace lasts at most 72 hours. Check network, DNS, TLS, and the configured site address. Grace ends earlier if activation proof or entitlement expires, or a hard result arrives.
ConfigurationError Activation metadata, request shape, endpoint, or version integration is wrong. Correct the configuration or version, then retry. Do not guess endpoint or activation values.

The four product-use block reasons

Product use is blocked for exactly one of these reasons. It is derived separately from the state above.

Block reason Cause Clears when
MissingKey No key stored. A key is saved and verified.
EntitlementNotActive State is ReadOnly, Inactive, or another non-active result. Entitlement is active again.
InstallationNotActivated No activation proof for this installation, or the proof is over 30 days old. Activate installation or Run heartbeat succeeds.
WorkerLimitExceeded Active workers exceed the limit the licensing authority returned. Worker count drops within the limit, or the limit is raised.

The numbers

Limit Value
Activation proof freshness 30 days at most, and less if the licence expires sooner
Unavailable grace 72 hours at most, and less if the licence expiry or the activation proof expiry falls inside that window, or a hard result arrives
Retry backoff cap 4 hours
Customer Portal SSO grant lifetime 8 hours maximum, non-sliding

How grace behaves

  • Grace is conditional. It starts only after a transient authority failure, on safe last-known evidence.
  • Grace never adds capacity.
  • If worker use is over the limit, grace cannot start and cannot resume. On a confirmed over-limit transient result, the runtime discards any stored grace deadline. It keeps retry backoff and last-known activation evidence, which is diagnostic information only.

Deactivating and clearing

Action What it does What it does not do
Deactivate installation Clears the local activation proof and blocks local product use, even if the remote call fails. Prove the remote activation slot was released. Only a completed result from the licensing authority proves that.
Clear local license Removes the cached key and state. Preserves the installation identity. Reset the installation identity, or clear any limit.

Deactivate installation is refused outright while a retry backoff is in force. That is the state a repeatedly failing installation is already in, so deactivation is unavailable at exactly the moment you are most likely to reach for it. Wait for the displayed next-attempt time, then deactivate.

Worker and activation limits apply to the configured key. Keys do not pool or borrow capacity.

If it does not work

  • On RateLimited or WebsiteUnavailable, stop and wait. Repeated attempts extend the backoff.
  • If installation identity, key ownership, or a remote deactivation result is uncertain, stop and resolve it with the licence owner before acting.
  • A licence never grants a person access to anything. See Roles and access matrix.