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Why does Poweramp need to verify license through Google Play when Poweramp Unlocker is installed?


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I haven't been able to find an answer to this, so apologies if this has been addressed.

Why does Poweramp need to verify my purchase through Google Play License Verification when I already have the Poweramp Unlocker installed?  I found this out in a very unfortunate way and it disturbed me tremendously.  I was in the middle of a trans-atlantic flight while listening to Poweramp when suddenly the music stopped and I received a pop-up message that Poweramp was not able to verify the purchase through Google Play License Verification/APM.  I am sure this happened because I was in the air at 38,000 feet and I had the airplane mode turned on to disable any wifi and mobile data services.  

Anyway, I had the Poweramp Unlocker installed as well, so I am not sure why my license had to be verified online?  I thought the purpose of the Poweramp Unlocker was to unlock Poweramp without having the need to verify a license online since I had already paid for it by buying the Unlocker?  The reason why I found this most frustrating is that I no longer was able to use Poweramp for the rest of the duration of the trip because I was not able to get any mobile data service until I landed, which was about 5 hours later.  I had to resort to the stock player that could not read my Poweramp playlists.  I felt like I had paid for the license but was unfairly prevented from using it.

So, was it something I missed in the settings to fix this?  Or is there another explanation that I am aware of that justifies this?  I feel that if Poweramp needs to verify a license through Google Play, that I shouldn't need to have the Unlocker installed or at the very least, it needs to warn you well ahead of time that it needs to verify a license so that someone doesn't get caught off guard and unable to verify their license for hours and therefore lose access to an app they paid for.

Well, just wondering - not angry, but just frustrated that I couldn't use it when I really needed it.

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Hi, thanks for this - I don't know why I couldn't find it.  When it says "system is reset" - does that mean a reboot of the phone?  So therefore, it will check with each reboot of the phone?  It's the only reason why it must have happened to me.  This is helpful to know.  This makes me weary of ever rebooting the phone on a long flight since it might disable itself without warning.

 

Poweramp Unlocker:
- for Play purchase license is checked via Internet in first 24 hours after Unlocker installation and Poweramp next start, and if the Google Play Store check is successful, then it's never checked again, unless Poweramp is reinstalled, system is reset, or ROM is updated

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I've never got a fully clear answer on what the FAQ means by 'reset' either, I assume it means a full factory reset of the device, which requires a reinstall of everything. It certainly shouldn't need to do a license check after a simply power off / power on cycle, as you would need to do that on many airline flights during takeoff and landing - and then of course you won't have internet access for the rest of that flight (unless your airline happens to support in-flight access, and you decide to pay for it).

For what it's worth, I've just come back from a trip involving four flights (two of them long-haul) and PA continued to work perfectly during all of them - even with restarting the phone each time in Flight Mode once in the air.

Andre

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I experienced the licence fail again today, and it happened in a very remote place with no cell reception. (Which sucked a bunch)   So I am glad to find this discussion which shined some light on the issue.    It happens that I did allow my phone to do a firmware/software update early this morning.   And thinking back to the last time I had licence fail, it had done that same thing on that day as well.

So I can confirm, this will not happen from a restart.       

What I still wonder is how best to deal with the situation.  My concern is that I listened to music from my phone for most of the day before it finally failed its check in the early evening. So how will I go about forcing a licence check straight after an update, before I drive off away from civilization?

If I can't listen to my favorite beats on a long drive, I might end up having to listen to the voices in my head for hours on end, and that can't end well.  :/ 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I fly to South America monthly,  so it's 10 hours in the air  each way.  Poweramp gives me that stupid error that it cannot check the license and stops playing mid air all the time.  Once I land,  it checks license just fine and plays without a hitch.  How many times does it need to check for a license?   I almost never turn my phone off,  let alone never reset it… The link and info above is not accurate.   The program has a bug somewhere and needs to be fixed.  I paid for the unlocker,  it is on my phone,  so as long as the unlocker is on phone,  it should never have to connect to no server ever…  This player is one of the best around,  but my level of aggravation is just thru the roof.  I just landed from Chile this morning and I could not use player and I am going to China in 2 weeks… Get your act together,  this is not rocket science.  NEXUS 6P RUNNING STOCK ANDROID NOUGAT 

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Hi,

I spend a lot of time on airplanes for work, and this keeps happening to me over and over.  I'll be a couple hours into a flight, and Poweramp suddenly declairs that I don't have valid license .  I just got off a 14 hr flight with no music because of this (I'm sitting in the airport typing cause I'm so frustrated).  This isn't new either, it has been doing this to me off and on for a couple years now on various devices.

Somebody please fix this!!!!

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've sent in numerous error reports through the app over this issue and finally came here to ask about it.
 I prefer Poweramp over anything else, but this is becoming a daily problem. I'd like to hear about a solution soon.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I forwarded this issue to Max (the Poweramp dev) again, and his response was:

 

Quote

Regarding revalidation. It's checked once/twice (website/play) and stored forever. If it's revalidated, then:

  • Validation never happened (99% of cases). Poweramp is very allowing and continues to work (as it gives huge timeout for license check and there are many attempts), but finally it fails. This is easily visible in Settings (license verification progress item on top of settings).
  • Settings can't be saved due to ROM/permissions bugs (usually affect many apps due to screwed custom ROM/permissions issue). Symptoms are settings not saved after phone reboot (or app kill)
     

Andre

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have the same problem on one of my devices (Xioami Redmi 1S, Android version.in 4.4.4 KTU84P, MIUI version Global 8 stable 8.0.1.). Poweramp version 703, but it was the same with the 588 version. I have to use a Wi-Fi connection to get it running again. The other smartphone (HTC Desire, Gingerbread 2.3) works fine with 588. Is it a phone bug or some compatibility issue? And it didn't cancel the settings after reboot but again started the routine with verifying the purchase (it was purchased via GooglePlay)

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Hi Andre,

Thanks for looking into this on our behalf :)

This bug happened to me on a vanilla Invidia Shield Tablet (Android version 6).  I bought a shiny new Pixel C tablet last month running vanilla Android version 7, and this still happens to me nearly  every time I fly.  Other settings in Poweramp are retained, so I'm thinking that bad ROM is not the issue.

I would be happy to run a custom build of Poweramp for a bit if the developers wanted to chase this annoying bug.

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  • 6 months later...

This just happened to me on a flight. Really annoying not able to use an app when needed, specially if hard earned cash is spent. 

Why would costumers have to suffer the inconvenience of DRM?

stock Android, galaxy s8

please fix  

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I don't know why a stock Galaxy S8 should have this issue, unless there is some issue with saved licence retention methods on this device (did you have to turn your phone off and reboot after takeoff?). Once a licence has been fully verified (within 48 hours or so of first install) it should not need to be checked again.

http://support.powerampapp.com/knowledgebase/articles/323557-is-internet-connection-required

Andre

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This is happening on a regular basis to me too. I'll be in airplane mode and the player will suddenly demand to check its license. It's pretty infuriating to be mid-flight and lose access to the app. Stock HTC 10 on Android 7.0.

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I wish I knew why this keeps happening to some people. Max think some devices or ROMs might not be allowing PA to save the status data correctly, and so it does not survive a reboot and needs to check again afterwards (which of course is a problem with planes where you have to switch off for takeoff/laving).

I fly several times a year and have never had a licence issue (mine is a regular Google Play licence key). I'll be taking two flights tomorrow and another two on Friday so I'll check again, but I can never recreate the problem.

Andre

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I've flown about a dozen times and tried to replicate this issue, but I couldn't. That said, before I posted here, I deleted the data & cache within Android settings, so perhaps that's worth a shot for anyone else with the issue.

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I did try on my four recent flights, and could not replicate this problem either. They were each fairly short hops though.

Do you find the same problem if you put your device into flight mode (overnight for example) and then start Poweramp running? (with or without a reboot after you enable flight mode)

Andre

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  • 1 month later...

I was affected by deactivation of the app due to license issues many times in the past, but I always explained it to myself that I probably reinstalled or updated the app via Google Play before and forgot to validate the app online. Now I had the same issue and I'm very sure that nothing from this http://support.powerampapp.com/knowledgebase/articles/323557-is-internet-connection-required happened. Luckily, I was able to note what exactly happened.

I've always used wi-fi connection to go to internet. That's how my last activation was made. Now I had to use mobile data connection for a while and did not launch the app during this period. My data limit was exceeded and I had to turn my data connection off. I did not go online or launch the app since then. Today I was offline, listened to music via Poweramp and it got deactivated again due to license issues. Luckily, there was a wi-fi connection available, so I turned wi-fi on and solved the problem. But in many cases, I get license error and have no chance to get connected to the internet, so I have to use default music player with poor sound quality. That suck pretty hard. If I had permanent connection, I would use Spotify, not my own offline library played in Poweramp.

If you as a developer cannot fix the licence issues, please don't punish us, your paying customers, by making playback impossible. There are less invasive ways how to limit operation of the app if it is not activated, like prohibit library changes or settings changes.

I listen to music stored on SD card via Poweramp 2.0.10 build 588 on my LG (Optimus in some territories) L90 D405n with stock Android Lollipop 5.0.2 (the latest official release).

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