Linux, erroneous activation count, locked out of my Donation edition

[grgoje]

Hi there,

I'm using FFS on my Linux desktop and windows laptop. Since recently everytime i restart a sistem i FFS registers this as a new activation. I started getting warnings and then i was locked out of my Donation edition. If i attempt to remove the erroneous activations it only allows me to do this once a month so no help there.
I would be very grateful for any help because my workflow depends on FFS.

Thanks in advance,
Grga

[grgoje]

I'm attaching additional screenshots which show the lockout and the fact that 9 of my activations are the same Linux machine:

Screenshot_20260309_145832.png (78.88 KiB) Viewed 190 times

Screenshot_20260309_145926.png (165.05 KiB) Viewed 234 times

I'm running Debian 13 on the machine in question, and my workflow is totally dependent on FFS so i would be extremely grateful for any attention to this matter.

Thanks in advance,
Grga

[grgoje]

For additional context, i'm using a bonded ethernet connection on debian machine so that might be part of the issue. It might be flipping the MAC adress now and then depending on the first network device to come online, but i do not now if that's relevant to the FFS activation at all?

[Plerry]

> ... i do not now if that's relevant to the FFS activation at all
Likely not, because, assuming a bond of two ethernet connections, FFS would then at worse register as two different installations on your ASUS (which would still be OK); not as nine different installations .

[bgstack15]

A lot of GNU/Linux distributions use dbus and systemd, which use a file named machine-id to store a unique identifier on the machine. It probably would have gotten less backlash had it been labeled "boot-id." But even then, it would have offended the privacy sensibilities of many folks.

Chances are, your /var/lib/dbus/machine-id is being rotated at each boot, and I suspect FreeFileSync reads that file as part of the licensing identifier check. There's probably reasons not to leave it as a static file (and on /var/lib, you probably cannot force it to be static anyways). But hopefully you can research further and determine if that is somehow affecting this.

I think FreeFileSync donation edition also uses the MAC address as part of the unique-machine-calculation logic.

[xCSxXenon]

Rotating MAC addresses absolutely has caused this in the past

[grgoje]

Ok, I'we found that even though i dont use WiFi, the board has it and network manager randomizes WiFi mac after each sleep or reset.
I can turn that off in a .conf file but i would kindly ask some of the staff to reset my activation count because i'm still locked out.

[grgoje]

Zenju has reset my activation count. And apparently redacted a unique licence id i exposed in the screenshot earlier. Thanks Zenju!
On my side i have found that NetworkManager on Debian 13 rotates a MAC adress for the Wi-Fi card, regardless of the fact it's not used. I have disabled that by creating /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/99-disable-randomization.conf with following content:

[device]
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no

[connection]
wifi.cloned-mac-address=permanent
ethernet.cloned-mac-address=permanent


I also suspect the bond connection flipping the MAC between the two bonded ethernet adapters, but so far i haven't seen this happen. Will continue to monitor and i hope my experience helps to resolve this. Here is the output of my 'ip link show' to that goal.

While the randomization was on:

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eno2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,SLAVE,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq master bond0 state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 8a:8f:42:86:0c:7c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr 08:bf:b8:16:5e:fd
    altname enp10s0
    altname enx08bfb8165efd
3: eno1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,SLAVE,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq master bond0 state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 8a:8f:42:86:0c:7c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr 08:bf:b8:16:57:5a
    altname enp9s0
    altname enx08bfb816575a
4: wlp8s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 62:0b:c1:03:f1:ec brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr f0:a6:54:d1:60:dd
    altname wlxf0a654d160dd
5: bond0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,MASTER,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 8a:8f:42:86:0c:7c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff


After i turned it off:

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eno2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,SLAVE,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq master bond0 state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 8a:8f:42:86:0c:7c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr 08:bf:b8:16:5e:fd
    altname enp10s0
    altname enx08bfb8165efd
3: eno1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,SLAVE,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq master bond0 state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 8a:8f:42:86:0c:7c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr 08:bf:b8:16:57:5a
    altname enp9s0
    altname enx08bfb816575a
4: wlp8s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether f0:a6:54:d1:60:dd brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname wlxf0a654d160dd
5: bond0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,MASTER,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 8a:8f:42:86:0c:7c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff


(the difference is in link/ether entry for the adapter #4 which was randomly rotated)

Best regards,

Grga

[bgstack15]

Thanks for the awesome follow-up and explanation, Grga! I wish everybody who gets a solution in a forum would share it, with explanation, like that.

[Plerry]

Just out of curiosity:
If you have a (bonded) Ethernet connection, why let FFS use your WiFi connection to register its installation?

[grgoje]

Just out of curiosity:
If you have a (bonded) Ethernet connection, why let FFS use your WiFi connection to register its installation?

Well it's not up to me - i didn't use that connection at all. I guess FFS just calculates a hash using, among other things, MAC addresses of all the network adapters in the machine.

[Zenju]

Thanks for the awesome follow-up and explanation, Grga! I wish everybody who gets a solution in a forum would share it, with explanation, like that.

This! Thanks to your before/after posts of "ip link show" the problem becomes clear:

eno1 and eno2 are bonded, thous return a locally-administered mac, just like the WLAN interface wlp8s0! The WLAN is then preferred, but the universal mac of either of these devices should have been used instead.

Fixed for the next release! You may then enable randomization again.