Please help with edge case

Hello

First off I’m a huge fan of NX Witness and I think you offer the best on the market. I use your software solutions in every project large or small (DW Spectrum). I have many servers out there happily running for years without a hitch, except for one system with an ongoing license issues I can’t seem to resolve.

This system is an AMD desktop build, Ubuntu (not virtualized) server version 4.2.0.32842. In short the machines hardware ID kept changing (alternating between two IDs), its happened once after Ubuntu distro upgrade, then from a Spectrum version 3.9 -> 4.0 upgrade. Proceeding these incidences are three more times randomly.

I expressed my concern with DW tech support as these last few times nothing had changed with the system hardware or software, and that I was worried it would happen again. My customer isn’t very happy with me as their system stops recording when license issues have happened. DW tech support said license issues are only dealt with DW license department and tech support can’t help.

Each time DW tech support simply told me to fill out license reactivation request on their site, but didn’t dig into what might be causing the problem.

The final time I called DW tech support, this tech actually looked into the hardware log and noticed issue with a network adapter showing incorrect MAC address. I believe this tech was able to pin point the root of the problem, which was a piece of software I used called Zerotier (zerotier.com). It’s a type of VPN service I use to tunnel into my customers systems for maintenance. Problem is it creates a virtual network adapter which I guess DW spectrum is using in its generation of a hardware ID. I’ve since removed the software, but DW has told me I can no longer reactivate any license keys as their policy states only 3 reactivations. I’ve spoke to Hector who is the head of licenses at DW, he spoke to his manager and they won’t authorize reactivation.

I’ve tried my best trying to communicate my issue with DW, spoke to various departments but they won’t reinstate these licenses. I requested maybe they just deactivate these keys permanently and re-issues new ones, maybe the reactivation policy limit on the cloud is deactivating them over time? 

I went digging though support articles on the NX and DW sites and followed these two articles on how to change HW ID.

Using the screen shots and backup HW ID logs I collected throughout the ongoing issues, I managed to change the ID to match the keys following this guide:

https://support.digital-watchdog.com/kb/article/12-dw-spectrum-ipvms-and-virtual-machines/

https://support.networkoptix.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037429854-How-to-run-Nx-Witness-in-a-Virtual-Machine

This seemed to work but several keys were saying server not found. This has eating up so much time that I just purchased the several licenses to be done with.

This was June 3rd and I thought I finally fixed the issue, but today I get a call from my customer stating there’s a license issue and the keys are “server not found again”. I’ve been keeping back up files and hardware logs, I tired looking through things and noticed that the system kept flipping back and forth between two different hardware IDs. I’ve passed this info onto Hector at DW, but says he can’t help unfortunately due to their reactivation policy. DW tech support says it's a licensing issue and they can’t help me.

I’m not sure how to proceed further for my customer, it’s the same Ubuntu system no hardware changes at any point. I run a small business and can’t afford to just buy 30 license keys again, even thought this is the same machine and site the whole time! I have email treads, hardware ID and backup files, camera footage to prove it. They are nice people at DW, but I think ultimately there’s a huge blind spot in their support with license issues and edge cases.

I’ve lost way too much time in this already, this has been persisting for far too long (since 2020). I’ll probably end up installing blue iris or something for them here because I’m not in the position to purchase new keys.

I will continue to use your software in the future, it’s simply the best, but I would like the opportunity to purchase directly from NX witness instead of DW. I very rarely ever need any kind of technical support, I just value integrity in what I paid for

"Lifetime upgrades included / no annual agreements" - DW

Sorry if this isn’t the place to post this, but I couldn’t find any email addresses on the site.

I'm grateful for any help you can offer,  

Thanks for reading!

TL;DR

Please make an optional physical USB license key!

Kyle