PSP4 claims my copy is PIRATED and will be DEACTIVATED!

[LarrySH]

Thank you very much for your reply. I also have always purchased directly from Corel online or from companies whose software was later purchased by Corel such as Bibble for AfterShot and Ulead for several video editing programs. My registered list with serial keys has over 25 entries and I am a fully paid, loyal, and very long term customer.

Could you please clarify what and where you find for email support once logged in? I only see email (actually webform) submission for return refund RMAs and for initial installation support using a special code which is issued at the time of purchase for brief support. Have you found some way to contact them otherwise without buying a support session?

Thanks again,
Larry

[hartpaul]

My apologies . Followed that up and yes if you want to ask a question they direct you to the knowlege base and if your product and error message cannot locate an answer there seems to be no other option except to try ask a question and you go back to the start again. Seems to go around in circles.
Just wondering why the piracy message has come up.
I initially thought that you may have purchased a version from one of those chinese or other area with dubious authenticity, but you have said you bought direct from Corel.
Then the other thought is that have you installed that same downoad on a number of systems and used the Serial key too many times. Thirdly has someone else borrowed the program and used the same key (and perhaps passsed it on etc)
I would expect such warning to come up if it gets used too many times from too many places.

There are a couple of other PSP forums that you might post on to see if you get a better response.
Lastly as some have mentioned set up a Facebook account (takes about 10 minutes - as long as the responses to your questions) Yes I know you shouldn't have to do that but set one up and avoid giving correct identifying details to Facebook and find the Corel page and start posting there like mad.
As has already been mentioned they might not like being publicly embarassed and you may get a response.
I do not have any problems so far , but if you do have a legitimate complaint with bought ,registered software then t could happen to anyone of us.
They do seem to be suggesting that the support pages are being updated and corrected, but to put pages up that are incomplete and circular seems wrong.

[LarrySH]

Thanks once again for your assistance and helpful suggestions. The Corel website does not offer ANY way to get help to solve this problem other than buying a support session as far as I can tell. What a disgrace.

There is no other reason for this issue other than a software bug in Corel software or the very remote possibility that my Norton antivirus software or some other protective software update from Microsoft has perhaps tampered with the Protexis code. I have one and only one machine with this software installed, have never given this serial number to anyone, have used this software uneventufully since it was installed on this machine and only this machine in October of 2011 when I purchased the full version of PSP4 directly from Corel online. No one else uses this machine.

I did have installation issues when this software was initially installed, and spent a lot of time exchanging emails with their support at Corel, eventually asking for a refund since the software would not install on this machine. I believe they issued me a replacement serial number during that time, and perhaps that may have been somehow related. My memory is really vague, and I can only recall that this installation was a huge PITA.

I have never been able to remove my prior PSP3 installation either, and prior attempts leave me with an unworking partuial install of that product. This only concerns me since it may also be somehow related. I purchased quite a while ago a highly rated Uninstall utility program called Revo Uninstall to remove stubborn programs which will not remove properly to deal with this and other software left on my machine by incomplete removals. I have a relatively small SSD, 128 GB, and want to not waste the space with last year's program when I buy the newer version. All of this may somehow be related but I am not sure.

The basic point here is that it is a totally unwarranted and totally incorrect deactivation, combined with no way to fix this issue I can find. I very much like this program but I absolutely HATE the way Corel does their support.

I have been asked previously to participate in Corel surveys and provide feedback, and have gladly done so in my attempts to offer product improvements. Corel is very one-soded about bombarding its customers with all sorts of promotions and even survey requests, but try to get one issue such as this resolved is essentially impossible.

I may ultimately resort to using Facebook. I have requested a refund on their RMA link, the only link which actually talks to them. Since I paid for a program but cannot use it, I am in the veruy same situation I was when it was not originally installable so I will expect my mopney back or a repair to this problem. If they fail to provide one or the other, then I will certainly give them as much unfavorable notice as they deserve for treating their customers in such a totally disrespectful way.

Once again, thank you!

Larry

[LeviFiction]

When I go to their website now directly under the cart symbol I see a "Get Live Support" link that opens a pop-up box where you can ask a question.

Or has this already been tried and it loops you around? It does claim to be a chat service.

[hartpaul]

Cannot see that Get Live Suport under the Cart symbol. Can you do a screen shot and a link or directions to the page?

[LeviFiction]

Hmmm.....

I just go to http://www.Corel.com and it's right there. No logging in, or anything else. I wonder if location is an issue....are you in the US? If it's not that then I haven't a darned clue.

Image1.png (8.35 KiB) Viewed 6782 times

And of course it starts a LiveAgent dialog window so it's not like it just sends you somewhere so I can't post any links.

[Ken Berry]

I think location must be an issue. This is the screen I get on Corel.com. As you will see, I live in New Zealand. Although the Purchase by Phone number is in New Zealand, I would suspect that there is not a substantial Corel staff here capable of more than carrying out a sale. Though there may be some support staff in Australia (though I am not sure about that either), I don't think there is such a thing as a free international phone connection, apart from any question of paying for support -- and idea I also find totally unacceptable.

[LarrySH]

Sorry to report that the LiveAgent chat is a total and complete waste of time.

In both attempts, consuming well over an hour of typing and waiting time, the aganet dumped my chat session when it became apparent that they had no answer. The dialogs and dumping messages are reproduced below. The Corel support is just terrible....

First chat was with an agent named Aland:


Aland S: Hello, my name is Aland. Welcome to
Corel Customer Service!
For Quality Assurance purposes:
Question: I cannot use my Corel software since it has been deactivated. Please see my issue at:

http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php ... 70#p265570

Thank You!!!
Aland S: Hi Larry.
Aland S: Could you please tell me the Name and Version of the Corel program that you are using?
You: Hello Aland! Thank you for helping mwe. PSP4 X2 Ultimate.
Aland S: Thank you. For how-to's, Installations and technical issues, it is best that you contact the Corel Technical Support Department directly by going to this link. http://www.corel.com/corel/pages/index.jsp?pgid=800034. They will be providing you with a tailored solution to your issue.

- Click on "Contact Technical Support" button under "Technical Support"
- Select the "Product" and "Version" and click "Continue" on Step 1
- Click "Continue" on Step 2
- Click "Continue" under "Warranty Support"
- Enter "Support Code" and the "Email Address" where you received your support code and click "Continue"
Aland S: You can also try our self-help page. http://corel.force.com/index and our online Tutorials. Here's the link. http://www.corel.com/corel/pages/index. ... d=12100072.

2nd chat will appear in my next post

[LarrySH]

2nd chat was with agent named Adonis:

Adonis C: Hello, my name is Adonis. Welcome to Corel Customer Service!
For Quality Assurance purposes:

Question: My PSP4X2 has stopped working and has been deactivated. It is a full version I purchased and registered.

Please see my issue at:
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php ... 70#p265570

Thank you.
Adonis C: Hi Larry!
You: Hi Adonis! Thank you for helping me!
Adonis C: Please hold for 1 to 2 minutes while I check on this for you.
You: Thank you again!
Adonis C: You are welcome.
Adonis C: The program paintshop pro X2 is registered on our system under your account if you have any technical issue you may need to contact directly our tech support by going to this link. http://www.corel.com/corel/pages/index.jsp?pgid=800034. They will be providing you with a tailored solution to your issue.
Adonis C: Unfortunately since this is an older version your support code might already been expired.
Adonis C: Please also be advised that this version of program is no longer supported and is already discontinued. You may consider upgrading to the latest version.
You: Is there a way to get some help from Corel without paying for a technical support call? This problem is entirely a bug in Corel software and I have no desire to buy another program which has no customer support and fails without any good reason. I have purchased many programs from Corel and expect some type of help here.
Adonis C: I’m sorry I am not from the technical support. As far as I know the link above is the only option you can reach tech support and the one on the protection plan.
You: I just tried the link above. All itdoes it take me back to the top of your Support landing page with no actual useful help. I want a refund for this software if I can no longer use it.
Adonis C: - Click on "Contact Technical Support" button under "Technical Support"
- Select the "Product" and "Version" and click "Continue" on Step 1
- Click "Continue" on Step 2
- Click "Continue" under "Warranty Support"
- Enter "Support Code" and the "Email Address" where you received your support code and click "Continue"

Adonis C: Just to set experctation the version of your program is no longger supported it will ask for a support code.
You: This software is not recently purchased and has no support code. The Corel support is just terrible and I will never buy another program from Corel based on wasting two days trying to get this fixed with no solutions or real help other than to direct me back to a support page which does not really offer support.
Adonis C: You can choose Corel Legacy > Paintshop pro X3 or older.
You: This is NOT OLDER than X3. It is X4.....
Adonis C: I'm sorry but you type "My PSP4X2 "
Adonis C: If it was X4 then choose Paintshop pro X4.
Adonis C: Product > Paintshop> paintshop pro X4
You: Yes, the PSP4 was the prrior version to the recently released new PSP5. Where should I choose this?
Adonis C: Click on this link it is already chosen http://corel.force.com/support/cSupport ... 20Products
You: I checked the support page and it says that PSP4 and PSP5 are both supported.
Adonis C: If it was supported then use your support code and submit a case.

Corel management has obviously chosen to focus resources on sales people, very persistent and aggresive email marketing, and Live Agents to facilitate sales.

It is not a coincidence that the Live Agent chat button is right next to the Shopping Cart. These are sales people with no technical support capabilities other than to send customers to an essentially worthless support landing page which only provides support briefly during the initial installation process.

Corel management clearly doesn;t give a sh!t about their customer situation after the sale. The only reason they provide RMA contact support isbecause they are forced to do so by federal laws to protect the consumer against buying a defective product.

And as this forum most clearly shows, Corel certainly knows how to ship defective products. They are a disgrace.

Larry

[LeviFiction]

The current support system is a joke, and not a funny one. Even if they insist on sticking to this payment plan model, there should be absolutely no reason that someone can't take the initial call to decide if a full support ticket purchase is needed. In your case it shouldn't be.

[LarrySH]

Thanks very much! I would suggest to them that the initial warning and all subsequent threatening pages have an actual link to Corel support rather than a link to their essentially useless landing page.

Companies which challenge the authenticity of the user software such as Microsoft provide a tooll free number, a really legitimate Live Agent for chat, and a utillity tool to determine authenticity. Corel provdes none of these.

It is also worth noting that I have at least 10K worth of software on two machines here, including Final Cut Pro, Edius and Adobe CS6, and several products which are well over a thousand bucks apiece, as well as dozens of programs like Corel PSP4. Never in my entire use of these machines for daily work over many years going back to the 1980s have I ever seen such a total and utter screw job as Corel creates. It is entirely outrageous to declare a user software product as pirated and then deactivate it, and offer no way to allow the user to connect with them other than to pay for support.

There is a special place in Hell for the morons who came up with this concept of "customer support".

They clearly have no repect for their customers, and their combination of poor programming and utterly useless service will eventually bring them down.

They have already taken excellent products from Ulead, Bibble, and others and added their layers of crummy installers, even worse uninstallers, and tons of buggy code. My RAW import which worked beautifully on Bibble suddenly stopped working when Corel bought them out and reissued their product. Their PSP software has NEVER imported RAW files correctly.

I am worn out trying to deal with these jokers. Hopefully you will pass some of this on.

I am signing off here as this typing and rehashing is getting me nowhere.

Thanks again,

Larry

[Ken Berry]

Just another thought: have you tried doing a System Restore to before receiving that deactivation message? Just to see if the message reappears afterwards?

[LarrySH]

Yes I did Ken and yes it does reappear. I did a full Acronis restore from a 1 week old backup and the same deactivation messages and shut down reoccured.

I am guessing that somehow the Protexis software got confused and is the root cause here, but who knows?

Thanks again,
Larry

[LarrySH]

I spoke with my attorney today on an unrelated matter and asked him if there is recourse for defective products being sold in my state. He encouraged me to contact the Attorney General's office and present a claim. I am seriously considering this step next, given no technical options. I would like to raise the visibility of this disgraceful business practice even if my own remedy or repair never occurs.

I will post further in this thread if any developments occur.

Thanks again to all who volunteered help.

Larry

[LarrySH]

I found instructions on the web for disabling the Protexis software, based on my assumption that this was where the problem was coming from.

The instructions can be found at:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-di ... rvice-exe/


Finally, after a total of 17 hours of wasted time, threating warnings, disabled Paint Shop software, and the most frustrating experience I have ever had trying to deal with a totally uncooperative company who could care less about their customer service, I am now able to again go back to using the software I purchased and registered.

After all of this was accomplished, I did receive a very encouraging and helpful reply from the RMA department at Corel, who I had contacted via their web form asking for a refund since my software could not be used.

He provided a new serial key code and recommended I reinstall the software. As I replied to him, I am unable to remove the software and reinstall it since there are other issues with this piece of software crap that make it impossible. I previously posted the error messages from the installer when I attempted to do so.

Unlike AfterShotPro, designed by Bibble and now marketed by Corel, there is no way to change the serial key of PSP4 without reinstallation, so the effort he made, while very much appreciated, was still not a viable solution.

Unless Corel puts some serious effort into fixing their approach, I for one will never, ever buy another product from them.

Their business model is to buy products and re-issue them, eliminating competition and entering in some cases new markets in the process. They replace the installers and change the original support offered by JASC (for PSP products), Ulead (for their video products), now Roxio, Avid (for their Pinnacle products), and even the WordPerfect, CorelDraw, etc, none of which were developed by them initially.

I could care less if they take over a product or company as they done over and over again if they provided even a modest amount of support when THEY SCREW THINGS UP. But the sad truth is that they have really buggy programs and yet do not provide service. This case I have encountered is an extreme example but many people report non working software here. And this forum is filled with people who are not able to do what they expected when they bought the software.

I am entirely done posting here and need to go back to work.

I thank all of you for your assistance, and especially the kind person at Corel named Dindo in their RMA Department for finally taking some initiative to actually provide customer service.

Larry