Unable to activate True Image 2020 after replacing hard drive
To All,
This post belongs on the True Image forum but I am currently "locked out" of that forum so I am posting on the Acronis Backup forum. I have never had this sort of problem with Acronis Backup which I also own.
Note that I also have a case number with Acronis support on this and I have submitted all of the diagnostic log files to them.
After replacing failing HD with new a SSD and reinstalling Windows 10, I cannot activate True Image 2020. After entering my license key, I get the following error message:
"An error occurred while signing in. Please try again later."
I tried to activate several times over the last 2 days including turning off my firewall and running as Administrator and I always get the same error message.
I can log on to my Acronis account in a web browser without any problems.
A Google search shows that other people have reported this problem with other versions of True Image, but the only solution that I was able to find involved a registry hack, which I am a little leery of.
Does anyone on this forum have a solution?
Thank,
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your reply.
I just finished chatting with two amazingly incompetent offshore tier 1 support people at Acronis. Before I retired, I had to work with offshore teams so I understand this. Sometimes I can get good support from Acronis and sometimes I cannot. The guy that I worked with yesterday was good. Today, I got 2 bad ones and wasted over an hour of my time.
Maybe Acronis needs to be informed about low quality support people?
I have already tried the obvious suggestions and gone through all of the diagnostics that Acronis tier 1 support suggested as I already found web links on how to do them. I cannot sign in with the ATI GUI. I can sign in on the Acronis website,as this post and this reply confirms. So the problem is with ATI communicating with the Acronis server.
I totally get it on the "Last straw! Do a full clean install of ATI 2020". I am trying to avoid this.
I came across the following post filled with people having the same problem with ATI 2016:
Signing in error; cannot sign into my account from ATI-2016
Regards,
Steve, thanks for the link to the 2016 forum topic - reading through that topic shows that this is almost certain to be an issue at the Acronis server end of the connection, as it was back then.
Please send a PM to Renata Gubaydullina | Product manager, Acronis True Image and refer her to your forum topic, asking that she review this and your support case with a view to escalating this internally at Acronis.
Hi Steve,
Thank you for your recommendation that I contact Renata. I just sent her a polite PM. Yup, from both the ATI 2016 thread and all of my communication diagnostics, this is almost certain to be an issue at the Acronis server end of the connection.
From the last Acronis tier 1 support person that I talked to, it would be up to 2 more days before I heard back from Acronis which would put this problem at 4 days which is an unacceptable response and resolution time in this day and age.
Regards,
Hi Steve,
Pasted from the ATI 2020 Users Guide PDF:
Activating Acronis True Image 2020
You can activate Acronis True Image 2020 either on your computer or from another computer, if your computer is not connected to the Internet.
Activation on a computer connected to the Internet
If your computer is connected to the Internet, the product will be activated automatically.
If the computer where you install Acronis True Image 2020 does not have Internet connection or if the program cannot connect to Acronis Activation Server, click Account on the sidebar, and then select one of the following actions:
Try again - select this option to try to connect to the Acronis Activation Server again.
Activate offline - you can activate the program manually from another computer that is connected to the Internet (see below).
Activation from another computer...
I don't see any sidebar when I start up ATI 2020. I don't see in the Windows 10 start menu, which is off to the side if that is what Acronis meant but I think they mean the standard left sidebar in ATI.
Regards,
I supect you have to click on "trial" then once the Acronis GUI opens select Account on the left side. Another instance of poor drafting in the user guide.
Ian
Hello Steve,
please check out the article https://kb.acronis.com/node/63358, which might apply to your case
Hi Ekaterina, given that the KB shows a known issue with a root certificate required by Acronis, is it not possbile for the Acronis servers to issue an updated certificate rather than having to get users to go through these hoops to export, delete and then reimport the same certificate?
Hi Ekaterina,
Thank you for your reply. I already tried the "Go Daddy" solution and it did not work. I just heard from the next level of Acronis support an they said:
"I have forwarded this ticket to our development team and they will need at least 3-4 weeks to investigate the root cause because the issue is not a common one."
I told them "First 3-4 weeks is an unacceptable time frame to not have backups running on my computer... This ticket is not about the development team needing at least 3-4 weeks to investigate the root cause. This ticket is about getting a customer up and running..."
What is the problem with Acronis support understanding this. Talk about bad customer service...
Regards,
IanL-S wrote:I supect you have to click on "trial" then once the Acronis GUI opens select Account on the left side. Another instance of poor drafting in the user guide.
Ian
Ian,
Thanks for your reply. That did not work either. I go into another infinite sign-in loop. but this time, I do not get a server error message.
To All,
First thank you for everyone on this forum who helped me, including Renata who was not on this thread.
I ended up on uninstalling ATI 2020 and reinstalling ATI 2019. Everything is now working fine in ATI 2019 and my first scheduled backup will run in about 10 minutes. The uninstall of ATI 2020 went well as I was concerned about this due to some Acronis KB articles on problems with the uninstall.
I ending up on working with an excellent Acronis support person after working with a few that were real duds. I would like to pass my lessons learned:
- ATI 2020 has some bugs that prevent authentication. This is to be expected with a new release so I do not have complaints here.
- Being told by support that it will take 3-4 weeks to fix the problem and I will have to wait is not the answer. I do have complaints here.
- Downgrading to ATI 2019 so that I can get my backups running ASAP is the answer if that option is available AND I did mention that to support.
Acronis needs to work on better training their customer support team. My ticket with support was not about the development team needing at least 3-4 weeks to investigate the root cause as stated to me by support. My ticket was about getting a customer up and running so that they can do their backups. I will hold off on installing ATI 2020 for now.
Thank you once again for everyone's help.
Regards,
Steve, thanks for the update / feedback. Glad your backups are working albeit on 2019 but that is better than the alternative here!
Steve Smith wrote:Steve, thanks for the update / feedback. Glad your backups are working albeit on 2019 but that is better than the alternative here!
Steve,
You are welcome. Yes, going back to ATI 2019 was better than waiting 3-4 weeks for ATI 2020 to be fixed.
What gets me about this whole thing is how Acronis tech support responded. While I get it on support's role in collecting bug reports and passing that on to the engineers to fix, especially soon after a new release, the bottom line should be getting the customer up and running to do their backups and not telling them that they have to wait 3-4 weeks. It took me 4 support people until I found the one who understood this.
This is definitely a lesson for Acronis tech support to learn from which is what I told Renata.
Regards,
Steve Smith wrote:Hi Ekaterina, given that the KB shows a known issue with a root certificate required by Acronis, is it not possbile for the Acronis servers to issue an updated certificate rather than having to get users to go through these hoops to export, delete and then reimport the same certificate?
Sure, this is only a temporary workaround until the fix is available (preliminary ETA - the next Update 1)
I had a similar problem. Had to do an emergency clean install of Windows 10, could not activate Acronis 2020.
Solution was to uninstall 2020, and I did have copy of 2019 install files stored.
Used those to install, activated fine, then it offered me the update to 2020
Rather messy though
Bec
Hi Bec,
So after you installed ATI 2019, at startup, were you able to upgrade to ATI 2020 successfully?
On ATI 2019, I turned off to check for upgrades at startup because, I think that I should give Acronis some more time to works out the bugs in ATI 2020 before I install it.
Yes upgrade was offered and installed on the next 'start up'
So far seems to be working ok, the only thing I don't like is the icon on bottom right used to show a red mark if there were sync errors. (I use it for both back up and syncronizing folders), now it shows a list of which back ups have completed only, no warning about sync unless you open the program
Steve wrote:"I have forwarded this ticket to our development team and they will need at least 3-4 weeks to investigate the root cause because the issue is not a common one."
I hope they at least apologized for having to tell you this. Anybody at any level of customer support should know this is an unacceptable response ... even if it is the only response available.
Patrick O'Keefe wrote:Steve wrote:"I have forwarded this ticket to our development team and they will need at least 3-4 weeks to investigate the root cause because the issue is not a common one."
I hope they at least apologized for having to tell you this. Anybody at any level of customer support should know this is an unacceptable response ... even if it is the only response available.
Yes, I did get an apology from the higher level of customer support. From what they said, and from what Renata said in a PM, this lesson will be passed on to the appropriate person in customer support. Yup, customer support should know that getting a customer up and running is at the top of their list.
BTW, how do you get your system info in your signature? I filled that information in my profile but it is not appearing in my signature.
Steve wrote:BTW, how do you get your system info in your signature? I filled that information in my profile but it is not appearing in my signature.
I just clicked on "My account", then clicked "Edit profile" ... I think.
Yes, that is basically it. You have to put the information in the "signature" box not the "system details box" for it to be displayed in posts. Took me a while to work that out.
Ian
You are limited to 700 characters for content in your Signature box.
IanL-S wrote:Yes, that is basically it. You have to put the information in the "signature" box not the "system details box" for it to be displayed in posts. Took me a while to work that out.
Ian
Okay, I got it, thanks!