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[anthropod]

Hi all,

I'm new to MC9, installed it for the first time ever on 9/21.  Did my first rip a couple of days ago, and so far the program seems fairly good.  I've had a couple of problems syncing my iPod info, but nothing too major that I couldn't live with.  I was just getting around to looking at the more powerful features today.

My problem is that my trial period seems to have ended rather abruptly with no warning whatsoever.  I should be good until October 21, but when I try to start the program now, it only gives me a box stating that my trial period has expired, and that I can click buttons to learn more or to buy.

Any ideas on how to fix my problem?  I'm using (or WAS using!) the 9.1.256 build on Windows 2000 SP2.

Thinking about this some more, I recall having checked my system tray date/time function shortly before this happened.   I don't have a calendar on the wall of my room, so when I need to check what day a certain date is/was, I normally just bring up the date/time function from my system tray and click to whichever month I'm interested in.  When I've got my info, I put it back to the correct month and date, and go about my business.

Is it possible that just the act of checking dates via the system tray has somehow screwed up the timer on MC9?  I hope not!  Wouldn't the program have a timer that's more "hard" than that?  Anyway.... any help or insight on how to get my problem fixed would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

[KingSparta]

I think you will need to buy it to get it working again now.

It seems ther is an anti date tamper in MC so if a user attemps to change the date to gain more time on the trial it will terminate the trial period.

[rocketsauce]

Is it possible that just the act of checking dates via the system tray has somehow screwed up the timer on MC9?

Yes. The method you use for checking the date is actually changing the date in your system and has screwed up the 30 day trial.

Rob

[anthropod]

Are you sure? This doesn't seem like the right way to implement "date tamper" protection.  If a user adjusts the date, and the trial has already expired or is only a couple of days away from expiration, then the lockout (if that what this is) would be more appropriate.

I've checked my dates this way for several years, and I've had time-limited shareware trials and trials from big software companies on my computer before, and I've never experienced anything like this.

I've used MC9's "Interact", which goes through their servers.  Wouldn't they be able to tell from their server time that my trial should be valid for another two weeks?  Of course, now I can't connect through MC9, so maybe I'm screwed if what you say is true.

This seems awfully extreme, though, so I'm not entirely convinced this is not a bug or error of some kind.

Can someone from JRiver confirm this?

EDIT:  One other thing -- I didn't have MC9 running when I checked the date and returned to today's date, so why would MC9 see the current date as a modified date when it was the same date as the last time I ran MC9?  Is MC9 running processes that monitor what you do on your computer even when MC9 itself isn't running?

[JimH]

I'm from JRiver.

Fiddling with the system date can cause problems.  In your case, it was innocent, but MC is fussy about it.

The only thing I could recommend is trying it on another PC.  There's no way to open it again on that one.

[rocketsauce]

There's no way to open it again on that one.

Well...unless you buy it!

Rob

[anthropod]

Thanks for the confirmation.  I guess my trial is now over, since I don't have another computer that can run MC9.

I'll go back to my old software and read the forums and perhaps reformat my OS drive so I can run a trial when MC9.1 is stable and released, if I haven't already found another solution.

I have to say this is very annoying.  I understand JRiver has to protect its intellectual property, but couldn't it be done in a more user-friendly way?  MC9 may be "fussy" but that's only because it's programmed that way.

At the very least, this "date-tamper" feature should give you a warning before locking you out completely during your trial and pissing you off.  Something simple like "MC9 has detected a date change.  Please be careful not to modify the month or date if you access the date/time properties of your computer.  If another date change is detected, your trial period will be ended."  (I'm assuming that changing the TIME is okay.)

If incorporating this into MC9 is too much work, how about just adding a warning into the splash screen when you first run the installation?  If I had been aware of MC9's extreme date sensitivity, I wouldn't have screwed myself so stupidly.

I was beginning to like the software, but for 40 bucks, I want to be absolutely sure I'm happy with what I'm getting.  And stuff like this really doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about MC9.

Okay, I vented.

[JollyJim]

Why not buy a calendar for the wall. There's one available for a dollar here :-

your_local_shop

[KingSparta]

you can get them for free at some places

Sears sends me one "Craftsman" every year

i think i get about 4 free ones each year.

[kiwi]

plus, there are lots of free programs that sit in your task tray and give you a calendar.  (That are much easier and quicker than the date & time control.)

kiwi

[John Gateley]

Hi anthropod,

This is something I hadn't considered when I designed the date tampering mechanism. Thanks for pointing it out and I'll see if I can improve it.

j

[John Gateley]

I did some checking. Just looking at a different date does not change the system time. You must check OK or APPLY to actually change the time.

j

[cubedco]

on a lighter side,

i spent the $40 and haven't looked back.... winamp? does winamp exsist anymore?

9,000 mp3s -- 1 solution but you don't have to take my word for it.

:c

[KingSparta]

I did some checking. Just looking at a different date does not change the system time. You must check OK or APPLY to actually change the time.

j

I would think changing the time should not turn off the trial, only date should really.

what happens if a user checks his time and changes it because it is off 5 mins or so.

not sure what would happen but windows 98\winMe does not have auto time correction like windows XP does.

i spent the $40 and haven't looked back.... winamp? does winamp exsist anymore?

what is Winamp?

[anthropod]

Uhhh... not sure, but I may have to eat crow here.  I noticed several files with a date of 10/15 in one directory and, well... to make a long story short, I did some detective work and it seems my computer was recently infected with a trojan called Backdoor Antilam.  So somebody else messed with my system date outside of what I did, and may very well have messed up other things in my registry, although all my other programs are running fine.

I can't say for sure if it was only my system date that was compromised, so I can't really blame the MC9 programmers for this particular problem anymore.  Although, if it WAS only my system date, I still think that a temporary date change shouldn't completely trash the trial period.  Something more foolproof like a server connection to verify the date if MC9 detects a date change it labels as "suspicious" might be better.  Just my $0.02.

I'm going to reinstall Windows to make sure I have a clean system sometime in the next few days, and will do another trial at that point.

MC9 folks, sorry about my rant before.  I'm crawling back into my hole now...  

[JimH]

You get points for courage for telling the story.  Thanks.

[John Gateley]

Hi anthropod,

I suspect the registry corruption more than the date change.
Good luck re-installing, I'd suggest doing this soon. You probably have a backdoor to your system now allowing the virus writer free access

Thanks for sharing the details...

j