[Spire.PDF for Java] Broken license?

[RicoScheller]

Hello

We have noticed that we get evaluation warnings in some of our PDFs after using a new license.
The old license works perfectly.

The old license is valid up to V10.6.0 which is why we're using this version in our test project, but the newest one (10.10.7) behaves the same way with the new license.
You can check it out in the attached test project, what happens is:

1. If we use our "old" license to produce 20 PDFs and PDF/As, none of them have the evaluation warning watermark.
2. If we use our new license (license version 1.4):
a. the first PDF and PDF/A has no watermark: So we know the license is valid and applied correctly.
b. but all other 19 have an evaluation warning!
c. the PDF/As even have 2 evaluation warnings!

Can you please check if the license with serial number D3403525-0EB8-4811-B842-D7004EC27B3E is somehow broken?
Or what could be the problem here? We should have Developer OEM licenses.
Or is this a bug? I can see that if I don’t create PDF/A, I get no watermarks.
However, in our real application, we do not use PDF/A, but still something seems to invalidate the already applied license during runtime.

Since our old license works where the new one doesn’t, I’m not sure if it’s a license or a software problem.
Unfortunately we realized this right before our planned release. So we would appreciate quick help.

P.S: If you provide a secure way of sharing my old and new license keys, I would happily do that.

[Doris.Liu]

Hello,

Thank you for your inquiry.
Our technical team has addressed your issue, and we now confirm that your license is functioning properly. Please test it again and contact us promptly if you encounter any problems.

Sincerely,
Doris
E-iceblue support team

[RicoScheller]

Hmmm, this is weird.
I just tried it again and as you said, it works.

But our regression tests ran through once and now they are failing because of the watermark.

Is there some sort of restriction, where we can only produce X amount of PDFs per day?
Does having no internet affect the license check?
What could lead to this weird behavior where it sometimes works and sometimes not?

I swear yesterday it didn't work with the same test project, I've run it multiple times before opening this forum post!!!

[Doris.Liu]

Hi,

Do you mean that your regression tests did not have watermark issues before, but now they do? Are you using the same license for your regression tests? What is the method of appling license?
Our product does not limit the number of files generated per day, and the lack of internet connection will not affect the use of your license.

Sincerely,
Doris
E-iceblue support team

[RicoScheller]

Hi,

Do you mean that your regression tests did not have watermark issues before, but now they do? Are you using the same license for your regression tests? What is the method of appling license?

Yes, that is exactly what happened.

We implemented the new Spire.PDF version and added the new license key.
We then ran our tests and we had no watermarks.
When we wanted to deliver this, we run the tests again and they had watermarks.
I then created the aforementioned test program and it constantly had watermarks.
Now when running the same test program again, it has no watermarks anymore.

So it temporarily didn't accept the license and now without changing code, it works again.
If you truly do not use internet to check the license or something else, then this behavior is veeery strange!

But we have now delivered our release. So I'll update once again if the customers also notice such strange weirdness.

[RicoScheller]

We do not have/user a server!

The license we should have should be a Developer OEM which allows some amount of developers to code and then release our end-user application to unlimited locations.
Quote from the e-mail we got:

Your license allows 20 developer(s) within a company to use our product Spire.PDF for JAVA, to acquire priority email support and a one-year subscription for free upgrades to any new versions or fixes that come out during this time. And your license allows deployment of any number of custom applications, utilizing The Product, to UNLIMITED Geography location(s).

So, if you're saying that our license is a server license, and that you made background-adjustments without us using a new Spire.PDF version or getting a new license key, then this means that you have sent us a wrong license key!

Can you please provide a clear answer, why our Developer OEM license with serial number D3403525-0EB8-4811-B842-D7004EC27B3E is using the internet to verify the license key!?

I'm hoping we truly have a wrong license. Because if Developer OEM license relies on internet connection to verify, this is really bad!!!

[Doris.Liu]

Hi

The type of license you purchased is Site OEM (for 20 developers, with unlimited deployment locations). However, our previous verification process only covered the four types of verification listed on the webpage below, which is why your license did not take effect initially. Now you can use it at ease. If you have any further questions regarding the license, please feel free to contact [email protected]. We apologize for any misunderstanding and inconvenience caused.

https://www.e-iceblue.com/Misc/purchase-policies.html

Sincerely,
Doris
E-iceblue support team

[RicoScheller]

For other people that might be interested, here is what I found out via analysis and mails with e-iceblue:

How does license check work?
1. The first few PDFs work as expected and use the local, applied license.
2. After a few PDFs (it seems to be 3), saving the PDF will send a HTTP query to api.e-iceblue.cn.
3. If nothing comes back (no internet, server down), nothing happens and PDFs get created normally because the local license check was ok.
4. But if the server sends back that the license is not valid, the next PDFs will have the watermark!

So what happened in our specific case?
1. We ran our tests and somehow didn’t connect to the e-iceblue server. Either the tests were done offline, or our/e-iceblue servers didn’t send/respond. So, local license check was valid and everything was fine.
2. We corrected some other issues and ran the tests again, the e-iceblue server responded that the license was invalid, meaning that PDFs saved after this response had watermarks. So the first few were locally checked and fine while others were checked via server and had a watermark.
3. After this initial forum post the e-iceblue “technical team made corresponding adjustments to the verification process”, meaning that they added our license type because “our previous verification process only covered [other] types of verification”.
4. So then suddenly our tests were ok again, without adjustments on our end.

What does this mean?
If e-iceblue messes up their server validation, your PDFs could suddenly have watermarks even though you purchased and applied a valid license and tested it to work!

[Doris.Liu]

Hi,

Thank you for sharing. Sorry for any inconvenience caused before. Welcome to contact us if you have any problems during future use.

Sincerely,
Doris
E-iceblue support team