As usual, can't activate
 

Every. Single. Year. The same issue. I don't even get the option for offline activation this time. I'll never learn.

This is likely because something on your system is blocking the activation process unfortunately.

I sent a reply to your support ticket, but I'll include the reply here as well, so anyone else having the same problem can see the initial steps:



First, double check to see you're using the correct code.

Next try running the game in admin mode and entering the license (If you're on a Windows machine, you can skip this step on a Mac).

To run the game in admin mode, right click on the icon and then you'll see an option to 'run as administrator'.

If you go to the directory where OOTP is installed and right click on the OOTP20.exe icon and then go to 'properties' > 'compatibility' you can select the option to 'run this program as administrator' on that screen and then every time you start the game it will automatically run in admin mode.

Sometimes doing that helps the license to stick.

Also, when entering the license, if you've been copy/pasting it, try entering it manually, if you've been manually entering it, try copy/pasting.

If those steps don't work make sure to whitelist OOTP in your firewall and anti-virus programs. Then try turning off your pc and restarting it as well and then try re-entering the license.

Let me know if that helps. If not I'll try to walk you through some more troubleshooting.

Done all that. This isn't my first rodeo with this. And the manual activation key I got for offline is "invalid"

Are you copy/pasting it?

Both copy/paste and manually typing

Same error. So frustrating,

Look for spaces in the code. Leading and trailing. I've had both in the past.

I suspect what Rich mentions may be part of the issue, so please triple check on the spaces and formatting, but in case it's not the problem we'll reach out to eSellerate support and see if they have any suggestions, especially given that the problem is extending beyond a point where it's typically resolved and the activation will work.

For what it's worth, I have found that saving my activation email as a PDF file (with PDF-Xchange) and then making it an accessible PDF (by OCR-ing the file), causes issues. The OCR software with PDF-Xchange does NOT correctly interpret the OOTP license code. It looks fine, but if you copy/paste the license code, you will see, if you examine carefully, that there are mistakes in the code. OOTP20, for example, is OCR-ed as OOTP2O. And S and 5 are often confused. It looks fine but you don't get what you think you are getting when you copy.

This does not happen, of course, if you copy paste the license directly from your email.

I only point this out in case it is causing others some problems.

Woof. I dove deep into my e-mail trash bin just now to retrieve the original e-mail and compare it to my PDF'ed version. Even copied both license codes to a text editor, one above the other, to make sure. Thanks for this tip. I've been PDFing these things for years but I never thought that there might be an anomaly in the transliteration.

That's not it either. 20 hours later and still can't play/activate. Fantastic.

Waiting is a sign of true love and patience. Anyone can say "I love you", but not everyone can wait and prove it's true.

We have contacted the eSellerate support. So far no reply. We'll let you know as soon as we hear something from them. Sorry :(

I've been waiting for years to activate a game on the first day. Never able to do it. Ever.

This is unfortunately nothing we can influence. Something on your system interfers with the eSellerates system.

You'd think there would be some urgency in getting this fixed or finding another provider since this happens every single year. My understanding is I am not the only one having this issue this year.

You are one of exactly three reports. Out of several thousand. And again, we cannot fix this, the only one who can is eSellerate, we have absolutely zero influence on them. And believe me, all providers have their share of problems, eSellerate is a extremely reliable one.

I am sorry you have this issue each year. But there is nothing we can do about it.

I know nothing about computers. And please don't take this the wrong way.
If you have this same problem every year, for years;
From a logical perspective, one could deduce that the problem lies with your computer, not the seller.

I could be wrong though.

I work in IT and this guy is literally the example of the worst customers I get. The type of people that make you hate people. Markus/Lukas you guys handled this situation great - kudos.