Replacing an expired time-limited license

Symptoms

In certain cases, a message stating that a time-limited license has expired may be displayed in the installer of VisualSVN Server or in VisualSVN Server Manager.

When displayed in the installer, the message looks as follows:

License has expired
Please provide a valid license.

The time-limited license installed on this server has expired. Please provide a valid license to continue.

When displayed on the dashboard of VisualSVN Server Manager, it looks as follows:

The time-limited license has expired.

If you, as the VisualSVN Server administrator, see such a message stating that the time-limited license has expired, you need to install a valid non-expired license for VisualSVN Server, as described below in this article, to prevent some or all of the restrictions described below.

Note
It is important not to confuse the message saying that the installed time-limited license has expired with a warning saying that the maintenance period ended/expired, which may be displayed in a different situation described in the Maintenance Subscription article.

Cause

Seeing the above-mentioned symptoms means that a time-limited license is installed on your VisualSVN Server and this license has expired. Where this expired time-limited license can be one of the following:

  • an Evaluation license. This is the license that you obtain when you request a free 45-day evaluation (trial) period, either through the Evaluation page or by having selected the Start 45-day evaluation option in the VisualSVN Server installer. The Evaluation license unlocks all the features available under the Essential, Enterprise and Enterprise Multinode licenses. But the Evaluation license expires once the 45-day evaluation period is over.
  • a temporary license for a Purchase Order. Having this type of license installed means that you or your organization have already ordered a paid license for VisualSVN Server and have received and installed a temporary license key, which can be used before the order gets paid. This occurs either if the Purchase order option was chosen during the purchase on www.visualsvn.com (out of the wide variety of payment options that are available) or may occur when purchasing a license through a third-party reseller. In these cases, a temporary license key is initially sent to the email address that was specified when making the order. Once the order gets paid, a regular (permanent) license key is sent to the same email address. If you have this type of license installed, refer to the section Resolution 2: Replacing a temporary license fora Purchase Order for more details.

The resolution of the issue with an expired time-limited license depends on which type of an expired license you have, out of the 2 types mentioned above. To determine which type of an expired license you have, see the section called Determining the particular type of the expired time-limited license below.

Restrictions resulting from an expired time-limited license

While an expired time-limited license is installed on VisualSVN Server:

  • When attempting to install updates for your VisualSVN Server, the installer will prompt you to resolve the license issue before you can continue installing the update.
  • You will only be able to use those features of VisualSVN Server that are included under the free Community license. Advanced features (such as Windows authentication, scheduled repository backups and others) become unavailable. For more details, see the license comparison matrix in KB220: VisualSVN Server 5.2 Licensing Overview.
Note
If the Windows authentication mode is chosen in the settings of VisualSVN Server, but you have an expired time-limited license installed, VisualSVN Server may become inaccessible to users, because this mode becomes unavailable.

Determining the particular type of the expired time-limited license

To determine which type of license is currently installed on your VisualSVN Server instance, follow these steps:

  1. Start the VisualSVN Server Manager console.
  2. In the left-hand pane, select the topmost VisualSVN Server node.
  3. In the top menu bar, click Action | Properties.

  4. In the Licensing tab, see the Installed license section.

    If the Installed license section has a Valid until field, then you have a time-limited license installed. Also check the Type field:

    • If the Type field in the Installed license section says Evaluation, it means that you are using an Evaluation license.
    • Otherwise, if the Type field says anything other than Evaluation (for example, it says Essential or Enterprise) and the Valid until field says expired next to a date, then you have an expired temporary license for a Purchase Order installed.

In case of an expired time-limited license, at the bottom of this Licensing tab you will also see a message saying that the time-limited license has expired (see the screenshot below).

Note
If you have a permanent license installed, the Installed license section will not have a Valid until field. There may be an unrelated Maintenance expires field, which just shows the date until which you are eligible for free updates and upgrades of the product.
The Certificate Private Key screen

Resolution 1: replacing an Evaluation license

If you have an expired Evaluation license installed, you can choose any of the following 3 options to resolve the issue:

  • Purchase and install a paid license.
  • Or extend the evaluation period.
  • Or switch to the Community license.

Detailed instructions of each of these 3 options are provided below.

Purchasing a paid license

You can purchase a paid license of a desired type and size by going to the Pricing page, clicking Buy for the desired license type and following the steps of the Purchase license wizard, which provides a variety of payment options.

You will receive a new license key at the email address that you specified during the purchase. To enter the license key, follow these steps:

  1. Start the VisualSVN Server Manager console.
  2. In the left-hand pane, select the topmost VisualSVN Server node.
  3. Select the Action | All Tasks | Update License main menu command.
  4. Enter the license key and click OK. After that, the message about the expired time-limited license will no longer be displayed.

Extending the evaluation period

If you cannot purchase a paid license at the moment, you can extend your evaluation period by submitting a request on the Evaluation page.

You will receive a new Evaluation license key at the email address that you specified in your submitted evaluation request. To enter the license key, follow these steps:

  1. Start the VisualSVN Server Manager console.
  2. In the left-hand pane, select the topmost VisualSVN Server node.
  3. Select the Action | All Tasks | Update License main menu command.
  4. Enter the license key and click OK. After that, the message about the expired time-limited license will no longer be displayed.

Switching to the Community license

The Community license is a free permanent license, but it does not provide advanced features. If you decided that you want to switch to the Community license, then:

  1. You need to disable the features that are not included under the free Community license. For more details about such features, see KB220: VisualSVN Server 5.2 Licensing Overview. If you remain unsure about the exact features you need to disable, you can also perform step 2 below, and it will inform you about the currently enabled features that breach the Community license limit.

  2. Then perform the switch to the Community license as follows:

    1. Start the VisualSVN Server Manager console.
    2. In the left-hand pane, select the topmost VisualSVN Server node.
    3. In the top menu bar, click Action | All Tasks | Update License | More actions | Switch to Community license.
    4. Click Yes.
    5. If you see an error stating that the Community license is not sufficient, return to step 1 of this Switching to the Community license section.

After this switching, the message about the expired time-limited license will no longer be displayed.

Resolution 2: replacing a temporary license for a Purchase Order

If you have an expired temporary license for a Purchase Order installed, you need to replace the currently installed temporary license key with a permanent license key. When your purchase order gets paid, this permanent license key is sent to the email address that was specified when the order was made.

If you were not the one who made the purchase of the license, you may need to contact the procurement department of your organization, to obtain the permanent license key. If the purchase was made not directly from www.visualsvn.com, but through a third-party reseller, this permanent license key should be provided by this reseller.

Note
If you have a temporary license for a Purchase Order and have any difficulties with finding the corresponding regular (permanent) license key sent to your organization, please contact us at sales@visualsvn.com. In the meantime, as an intermediate solution, you can request an evaluation key on the Evaluation page and install the evaluation key in the usual way described below.

Once you have a regular (permanent) license key, install it on your VisualSVN Server as follows:

  1. Start the VisualSVN Server Manager console.
  2. In the left-hand pane, select the topmost VisualSVN Server node.
  3. Select the Action | All Tasks | Update License main menu command.
  4. Enter the license key and click OK. After that, the message about the expired time-limited license will no longer be displayed.

See also

KB220: VisualSVN Server 5.2 Licensing Overview

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