License Issues

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Ptah’s Pro tier uses an online license with a generous offline grace period.

How licensing works

Activation validates your key with the license server and stores a signed receipt locally.
Every 24 hours the app revalidates in the background.
If validation fails (network outage, server down), the app keeps running on the cached receipt for up to 7 days.
After 7 days with no successful revalidation, Pro features are disabled until the next successful check-in.

Common problems

Symptom: “Invalid license key” on activation. Likely cause: Typo, leading/trailing whitespace, or the key has been revoked. Fix: Copy the key directly from your purchase email. If the problem persists, check the Customer Portal — a key may have been deactivated to move seats.

Symptom: “This key is already activated on another machine.” Likely cause: You’re over the seat limit for your plan. Fix: Sign in to the Customer Portal and deactivate an older machine, or upgrade to a plan with more seats.

Symptom: Pro features grayed out after a week of air-gapped use. Likely cause: The 7-day offline grace period has expired. Fix: Connect to the internet once. Validation happens automatically within a minute and Pro features re-enable immediately. No reactivation is needed.

Symptom: License check fails every 24h behind a corporate proxy. Likely cause: Proxy blocks https://license.ptah.live or strips the TLS chain. Fix: Whitelist license.ptah.live and ensure the proxy passes Ptah’s client certificate. If TLS interception is mandatory, add the proxy’s root CA to the system trust store.

Symptom: Repeated “license revalidation required” prompts. Likely cause: System clock is off by more than a few hours. Fix: Enable automatic time sync on your OS. License receipts are signed with timestamps and drift breaks verification.

Transferring between machines

On the old machine: Settings → License → Deactivate.
On the new machine: enter the same key in Settings → License → Activate.

If you no longer have access to the old machine, deactivate it from the Customer Portal instead.