Stardock Forums
With the Multiplicity 4.01 release, we are creating this thread so that users can report any observed issues.
Thank you for your interest and any time you put into making Multiplicity a better product.
Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager
I like this software but feel the support is lacking. Its strange that so many software developers don't write manuals for their products, yet they are not always either intuitive or finished, making it harder to use and enjoy them. In todays YouTube world the lack of recent videos for any Stardock software is remarkable, and I don't understand why a company with a seemingly large customer base would be so poor in supporting purchasers. Maybe its a vicious circle - no support leads to lack of happy customers, which leads to a lack of recommendations, leading to a lack of videos, then lack of interest etc. I've been trying to figure out why this is the case with this vendor.
The cause of my frustration (and little rant above) is that after buying Multiplicity, an awesome concept and great software, I cant figure out, or find out, how the tabs operate. I am able to click on a plus sign to open a tab, for what I expect to be another remote computer, so that I can then easily tab swich between the 5 computers I am controlling from my main. But it always says "You currently have no configured computers, or no computers are currently ready for a KVM connection. You can configure computers from the Multiplicity set up window". But I have 5 computers in my sidebar that I can use. I would expect them to appear in the tab.
I cant find any documentation, so if anyone knows if I am even right to expect this to work as I think it should, if I am setting it up wrong, or if its just not working, please enlighten me. 
I bought this even knowing about some of the issues, and am not looking to refund, I think its great software and performs a function I need.
Thanks
I just tried to use the "Create Shortcut" option, which I have successfully done in that I have a shortcut, but it takes me to the page telling me
"You currently have no configured computers, or no computers are currently ready for a KVM connection. You can configure computers from the Multiplicity set up window".
But I have 5 computers in my sidebar that I can use. I would expect them to appear in this page.
Another issue I have just encountered. ANYDESK and RUSTDESK which I use, allows me to log in to a PC, but Multiplicity, though showing me the log in screen, would not let me log in. Is is this correct, can it be changed or have I set up something wrong?
Thanks.
https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1326874625/Multiplicity
The forums also act as a place where support is provided, every day, all day.
T
If you have an older version of Multiplicity installed, toggle this option off:
Or install the MP beta from your account page
https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products
Only show did the trick. Weird as the computers ARE powered on. Have turned that off and its working. Thanks.
The beta, on your account page, has it fixed
https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products
Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager
All
Multiplicity 4.05 Beta has been released. For details, please see:
https://forums.stardock.com/536738/multiplicity-405-beta-feedback
As always, thank you for your time, feedback, and support.
Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager
I am licensed for both Object Desktop (subscription) and have a separate license for Multiplicity v4 Pro, however Multiplicity is showing the Pro features as disabled:
I suspect that one (or both) of the following are the cause of this:
1) I have an Object Desktop subscription, which entitles me to a basic Multiplicity license.
2) I originally purchased Multiplicity KVM v3 in October 2024. At the time, it was promised that those of us purchasing KVM after September 2024 would receive a license for v4 Pro for free. This did actually work for a time, but then somehow my license was reverted (possibly with the upgrade to v4.0.1)
One other note (this is a constant annoyance and also probably part of the reason why this happened) - for some reason, the license for my Stardock software randomly gets "lost" by the computer after a reboot and I have to re-apply my license (which I do by logging into my Stardock account). I suspect that it was during one of these "refreshes" that my license got reverted to the basic license.
Please let me know when my license has been corrected.
Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Please raise support ticket using the link below, use the product not receive option. Include all information details. Remember to record down the ticket number for future reference if needed. Do not raise multiple ticket, that will make your ticket back to the end of the line. Send once and wait. Ticket will be answer by the order they send in.
https://stardock.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/13
Thanks
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant
If you are activating with email \ password (account), don't... Use email \ product key, the MP one from your account
https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products
Form the Primary MP config, About tab, 'Manage License' to change it.
Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager
If you are activating with email \ password (account), don't... Use email \ product key, the MP one from your account
I will try that out to see if that works, however, the other problem I'm running into (that I have to periodically keep re-activating my licenses) makes this a pretty annoying solution. I know my Stardock password off by heart, I don't know my license keys, so doing it the way you suggest means I'll have to keep logging into the site to get the keys whenever the products deactivate themselves. I would prefer if the activation system just worked properly and using the software I purchased didn't involve so many hoops to jump through.
If something is killing your license.sig file created here after activation:
C:\ProgramData\Stardock\Multiplicity
That is what you will see, a need to reactivate. That is almost always an over-aggresive Malware app so check its logs.
Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager
This is a work computer and my organization uses WatchGuard EDPR which is a pretty extensive malware product, so I wouldn't be surprised if it could be causing issues with Stardock software. I only have access to the basic malware scanning log for on my machine, though, so can't really tell definitively if it is the cause. There are no entries in the log that mention any file ending in .sig, anything with the keyword "Stardock" or "Multiplicity", or anything in the C:\ProgramData\Stardock\ path.
FYI - for your own troubleshooting: there is also no real consistency in terms of when it happens, except for two things:
1) When it does happen, it is always after a reboot of the system. I did suspect that Windows Update might be the cause because there are some stretches where this workstation might be running for a couple of weeks straight before it has to be rebooted because of an update, but I've been through a few "Update >> Reboot" cycles more recently where it didn't cause the license to disappear, and the most recent case was a regular shut-down and the re-started the next day (ie, no updates were applied).
2) All Stardock products appear to lose their licenses at the same time (on this machine, I run Groupy, Start11, Fences, and Multiplicity), so whatever is causing the licenses to deactivate, it is doing it to all of the licenses, not just one product.
Also, I did follow the path that you provided to get my MP key, and it worked. Originally I checked my "Orders" page and the MP 4 key is not in there, so that might have something to do with the activation not working properly when I use my credentials.
I would propose at least the following two enhancements to the software to help mitigate this kind of issue:
1) If a product shows no valid license as being active, have it ping your activation server to check for a valid license before disabling itself or prompting the user to re-activate. As part of this, we should be able to save our Stardock credentials securely in the system so that this activation request can happen transparently in the background and not interrupt our workflow.
2) Update your licensing database and your activation server such that it doesn't get confused when someone uses their Stardock account to re-activate their license. The system should be smart enough to see that if there are two valid licenses for different service levels for the same product on a person's account (ie, Multiplicity Basic via an OD subscription and Multiplicity Pro via a direct purchase or upgrade) that it should know to return the license for the more full-featured service level when queried by the software.
I understand the requests, I do, but you are asking us to make decisions for users when there is no way to know their intent. For the 1st one, they could have multiple licenses on a single account (we have countless corp accounts like that) - which one would we pick? That's rehtorical, its unknowable, but it's meant to illustrate a point.
For the latter, this is basically the same answer; a client may want two MP licenses - one via OD and the other singular, so as to not have to purchase 2 copies of MP.
That said, again, your points are well understood.
You can script activation to make reactivating with the key much quicker if the license file has been deleted:
https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1352531974/Silent+Installation+&+Activation
Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager
While I can understand the issues you describe in your examples with volume licenses, varying service levels, and multiple users, these all seem to me to be solved problems. I have four other applications on my workstation that are volume-licensed by my employer and are online-activated, with two of them having differing service levels for different users in my company: MS Office, Visual Studio, Adobe Acrobat, and TechSmith SnagIT. In all four cases, my IT admin assigned me the license I need for these products once, and I just logged in with my company e-mail to activate them. I cannot recall the last time that I had to re-activate any of these products outside of a full re-installation (usually a hardware upgrade).
I also use products that are licensed using a key (VMware Workstation and ZOC Terminal) and I have had neither application just randomly forget its license key. This is an issue that appears to be unique to Stardock software.
My suggestion was just meant as a starting point or stop-gap and is admittedly based on my own use-case. I'm sure there are plenty of things that require consideration that I haven't thought of. My bigger point is that something needs to be done to improve your license enforcement system. License enforcement, while important, provides no value to the end user, so when it breaks, it is particularly irritating.
While I can understand the issues you describe in your examples with volume licenses, varying service levels, and multiple users, these all seem to me to be solved problems. I have four other applications on my workstation that are volume-licensed by my employer and are online-activated, with two of them having differing service levels for different users in my company: MS Office, Visual Studio, Adobe Acrobat, and TechSmith SnagIT. In all four cases, my IT admin assigned me the license I need for these products once, and I just logged in with my company e-mail to activate them. I cannot recall the last time that I had to re-activate any of these products outside of a full re-installation (usually a hardware upgrade).
I also use products that are licensed using a key (VMware Workstation and ZOC Terminal) and I have had neither application just randomly forget its license key. This is an issue that appears to be unique to Stardock software.
My suggestion was just meant as a starting point or stop-gap and is admittedly based on my own use-case. I'm sure there are plenty of things that require consideration that I haven't thought of. My bigger point is that something needs to be done to improve your license enforcement system. License enforcement, while important, provides no value to the end user, so when it breaks, it is particularly irritating.
The issue here is almost certainly a tool which is actively deleting the activation files from your hard drive.
Tools which clean up 'unused' files, or remove user history on reboot are typically the cause here as they often have no idea what they are doing with files and delete things in error. The same is true of registry 'cleaning' products.
The problem isn't with Stardock apps, it is with whatever tool that is running which is doing this. If the tool took out the activation for your other apps the very same problem would occur.
Remove the tool and you will remove the problem.
The issue here is almost certainly a tool which is actively deleting the activation files from your hard drive.
Tools which clean up 'unused' files, or remove user history on reboot are typically the cause here as they often have no idea what they are doing with files and delete things in error. The same is true of registry 'cleaning' products.
I'm not disputing the idea that it could be our anti-malware software or some other external utility causing this by deleting the registration files. What I'm disputing is the notion that this should be considered "normal" and that it is somehow infeasible to update the license management system in the software to mitigate against it.
Except that it hasn't. This is not happening for any other apps on my system, some of which I have been using for more than a decade without seeing this issue. VMware and Zoc both store license information on my local machine, and neither have ever "lost" their license. I've also used other similarly licensed software on my machine in the past without this kind of issue occurring. Over the years we've used several anti-malware systems and I've used some clean-up utilities (usually just the one that comes with Windows), and cannot recall ever having run into an issue where an application has just mysteriously lost its registration info.
As far as I'm concerned, this problem is with Stardock apps. They are the only apps that exhibit this problem.
Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say "nope" to the idea that I should uninstall my corporate anti-malware software so that I can continue to use my fancy Start menu app without getting prompted to renew its license.
Quoting atomic_cattleprod,
Point taken.
That said, reactivation is no more complicated than the initial one, and ours is pretty standard. What you seem to be saying is that when something other than us breaks it, find a smoother way to fix it. I am simply saying is we don't have enough information to do this with the confidence that we would not be creating more problems than if we just asked the client again what their true desire is.
Your Adobe example is fair, but I find it hard to imagine that if you nuked a local license for one of their products, they would not have some presentation stating as much, and what would you like to do. If I am wrong there, ok.
'Remove the problem' is perhaps the best phrasing, and that starts with 'is' it doing it (the corp app), then 'why', and then is there a path to fixing it. Checking the logs for it would illustrate that it did \ did not, and might have a path to whitelisting it.
I appreciate the feedback.
Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager
This is degenerating a bit into a debate, which wasn't really my intention. Whether Stardock has the technical capability or the inclination to implement these changes is really just something you and your development team need to discuss. This is a feedback forum and, outside of my initial issue (which you've helped with and is working now, so I thank you), I was merely offering feedback on a related aspect of the software in which I see some room for improvement.
What I am saying is really three things, all of which are merely product improvement suggestions.
Okay, so firstly, you're making an assumption. It may be an educated assumption, and this may be the two-hundred-and-eleven-thousandth time you've seen these symptoms and the cause has almost always been a third-party process deleting the registration keys. Chances are that you may well be right. But you can't possibly know this for sure because I haven't given you enough information for you to make that assessment and I haven't really got the ability to gather all the information that you'd need to make that assessment.
Secondly, and more importantly, it really doesn't matter whether this is true or not. This is only affecting Stardock's license activation system. Even if we assume that it is a third-party product deleting the Stardock licenses, that doesn't change the fact that it is not deleting any other licenses. While it is true that you have no control over a third-party application deleting the contents of the folder where you are storing the license, you do have control over the fact that the license is stored in a folder that is prone to being deleted by third party utilities or system processes. This may not be a direct "bug" in the Stardock activation system per se, but it does point to at least a probable incompatibility with commonly-used anti-malware systems, system maintenance utilities, or possibly Windows Update itself.
Again, I was just providing feedback - whether you decide to act on it or not is up to you, but actively hand-waving it away as "not my fault" isn't really helpful to either of us.
Again with the profound "if" scenarios. Yes, I'm quite aware that "if" I, or some third party utility, or some ne'er-do-well hacker, or some virus, or poorly-programmed Bart Simpson voice changing app were to delete the activation information from any of the other dozen products I have installed on my workstation, they would need to be re-activated. Just to cover any other hypothetical scenarios you may want to throw out there, I assure you that I am also aware that "if" I throw my laptop off of a cliff I might need a new screen and "if" I cram a mouldy lemon into my PS4's optical drive I might have trouble re-installing Grand Theft Auto.
Luckily for me, none of those things are happening or have happened. This is because:
With the release of Multiplicty 4.05, we are closing this thread.
As always, thank you for your time, feedback, and support.
Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager
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