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I see the error, ‘Activation of your license failed. Try again or contact Unity Support for help’.

Maxine
  • Updated

Symptoms:

  • I am unable to activate my license.
  • Why do I see an error when I try to activate my license?
  • I want to connect to the internet to confirm my license.
  • Why is my Unity Personal (=free) license not activating?

Cause:

Activation errors are generally caused by network issues blocking the connection between your machine and the Unity servers. However, other, less common causes can result in your license not activating; such as:

  • A cache issue.
  • Insufficient admin privileges.
  • An old license file blocking the creation of a new one.

Resolution:

 

Restart the Hub

The Unity Hub runs as a background process. Sometimes, a simple restart of the Hub can resolve many licensing errors.

  1. Sign out of the Hub.
  2. Close all Unity processes using your task manager, (or force quit). 
  3. Relaunch the Hub and sign in to activate

If you continue to see an activation error after restarting the Hub, continue below for more troubleshooting steps.

 

Network issues

If something on your network is blocking the connection to the Unity servers, for example, antivirus software, a firewall, or a proxy, your license will fail to activate. 

First, try deactivating your firewall/ VPN to see if this is the cause of your error. If you're able to activate your license after clicking the Try again button, the simplest solution is to add entire domains for the following resources in your exception list before enabling your firewall or proxy again:

  • unity.com
  • unity3d.com
  • plasticscm.com
  • google.com
  • googleapis.com
  • microsoft.com
  • aka.ms

If you want to control the subdomains selectively, add items from the table in the proxy exception manual page. 

See also: Using Unity through web proxies

Verify machine access privileges 

If you're still experiencing problems activating your license after confirming that you have a strong and stable internet connection, your issue may be caused by the lack of permission to make changes to your machine's hard drive. To resolve the problem, follow the steps below:

  1. Close all Hub processes using your task manager or similar. 
  2. Right-click the Hub icon > Run as Administrator. (See, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204012
    to enable root permissions on Mac.)
  3. Try activating your license again following the steps outlined in the article, 'How do I activate my license?'.

Delete an old license file

Sometimes, a previous license file isn't removed correctly during the reactivation of a license. This old license file can block a new one from being created. To resolve this, follow the steps below:

  1. Close all Hub processes using your task manager or similar. 
  2. Using your file browser, navigate to the following locations:
    - Windows: C:ProgramData/Unity
    - Mac: Library/Application Support/Unity
  3. Delete the .ULF or .XML file housed there.
  4. Try activating your license again following the steps outlined in the article, 'How do I activate my license?'.

If you continue to see errors after troubleshooting the above, contact the Customer Experience team with the log files found in the below file locations for further assistance:

(Select View and tick the Hidden items checkbox if the files are hidden.)

The Hub log file (info-log.json): 

  • Windows: C:\users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\UnityHub\logs
  • Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/UnityHub/logs
  • Linux: ~/.config/UnityHub/logs

Unity.Licensing.Client:

  • Window:C:\users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Unity\Unity.Licensing.Client.log
  • Mac: ~/Library/Logs/Unity/Unity.Licensing.Client.log
  • Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/Unity/Unity.Licensing.Client.log

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