License Deactivated?

[tiefling]

I purchased a license for Minimserver a while back and after starting up my server this morning it didn't start properly. I loaded it up and there was an error:

"Minimserver [67babfd1] Not licensed for this device; resetting to Starter Edition"

I used systemctl to restart the server and when it restarted the error has gone, but so has all my server configuration and it's now running in Started mode, which is useless to me. It seems to have run an update, which I did not ask it to do, which it offered me on the admin screen on my last startup which has now invalidated my license.

My license page is now showing:

Your MinimServer license type is Starter, with no expiry date.
Your trial license expired on 24 October 2024 15:44:12 BST

You are using MinimServer Starter Edition. This version of MinimServer is designed to be easy to use with limited configuration options. It does not require a license and does not expire.

I deliberately didn't extend the license at the end of the first year as I didn't need MinimStreamer or any of the newer features; now it seems to have force updated itself.

I went to "Activate full license" and reentered my license key and email address but now get "a468e8df] License expiry date conflicts with installed package minimserver-update-274" (Because it's updated itself).

---------------------------------

UPDATE: I restored a backup from a few days ago and restarted the server - I now get this:

[MinimServer update 274 is available
To install this update and relaunch MinimServer, click Install: Install

MinimServer 2.2 update 263, Copyright © 2012-2025 Simon Nash. All rights reserved.

Your license type is Starter. For more information, select the License tab.


Media server status for MinimServer - Platinum: Error

[077a182b] The full license for this device has been deactivated; resetting to Starter Edition

Your last rescan was at 22:53:06 on 16 Jun 2026 Rescan

You have selected the following content directories:

/files/Music

/files/Multichannel Music

To change this, select the Properties tab and update the contentDir property.

For more information about using MinimServer, see the Quick start page.[/quote]]

[simoncn]

You can reinstall your previous update level from the MinimServer configuration web page. From looking at the MinimServer license logs, this appears to be update 263. After doing this, you can reactivate your full license and your previous configuration settings will be restored automatically.

To reinstall update 263, do the following:

1) Open the MinimServer configuration web page
2) In the 'Package name' field, enter this: minimserver-update-263
3) Click the Install button
4) In the confirmation prompt, click OK

I will look at the license logs to find out why your license was deactivated and I will post back here when I have more information.

[tiefling]

I went to "Activate full license" and reentered my license key and email address for the second time after force downgrading and it's now working.

I had added a plug-in WiFi dongle recently to try getting shairport-sync working on my server - I wonder if that caused MinimServer to get confused.

There seems to be a few issues here though:
1. Is there a bug where adding network devices to a Linux box are confusing how the app identifies itself?
2. The app offers updates on restart when in Starter mode - This can cause a nasty side effect if you have a transient issue with the license, where the update then locks you out. It feels like this should be more explicit - Ideally blocked entirely with a "You are in Starter mode, but you have previously registered an invalid license; remove the license to enable updates."

Happy to help with any debugging / testing.

[tiefling]

This is nice!

To reinstall update 263, do the following:

1) Open the MinimServer configuration web page
2) In the 'Package name' field, enter this: minimserver-update-263
3) Click the Install button
4) In the confirmation prompt, click OK

[simoncn]

Your license was deactivated because about 60 seconds previously your license was accessed from a device with another MAC address and this other MAC address was stored in the license record. When your license was then accessed using a different MAC address, MinimServer could not verify that the license record was associated with the device that you were using.

Have you copied any configuration data from one MinimServer installation to another installation? If so, this can cause the problem you have seen. Every installation must have its own independent configuration directory.

[simoncn]

It sounds like the problem was associated with the WiFi dongle. On Linux, MinimServer doesn't have a reliable way to identify the device being used and it uses a combination of data including MAC addresses.

The ability to downgrade to an earlier update level was added in update 274 to enable users to recover from this situation if it occurs. It requires a few manual steps but it is much better than the previous situation where the user was locked out from their full license with no reasonable workaround.