Normally licenses are activated with a couple of clicks, but sometimes there are things that may interfere with activation. This post is all about how to troubleshoot the process and get your plugin activated asap.

Activating a license

To activate your license, visit the “License” screen and follow the steps. Here is a video tutorial. If the license refuses to activate, walk through the following troubleshooting steps.

Server Test Plugin

First, make sure that your site passes the Server Test. This is recommended to do before purchase, because it determines if your site is functioning properly and compatible with USP Pro. The Server Test plugin basically checks that WordPress is able to make outgoing HTTP requests, so that your site can connect to the home server to activate the license.

For more advanced analysis, check out the Core Control plugin, which provides all sorts of juicy info about what’s happening behind the scenes. I wrote an tutorial about it here.

Troubleshooting activation

If the Server Test plugin gives you a green light for activation, but the license still won’t activate, here are some troubleshooting steps that may help:

Manual activation

To manually activate your license, and/or manage your license in general, you can log in to your account at Plugin Planet. Here are the steps:

  1. Log in to your account
  2. Visit your Purchase History
  3. Click “View Licenses”
  4. Click “Manage Sites”

There on the Manage Sites screen, you can add/remove sites as needed. This may be helpful when trying to activate your license on new/transferred domains.

Check the plugin

You can verify that you are using the correct version of the plugin, which is required for activation and proper functionality.

  • For USP Pro — Open /updates/usp-updates.php and make sure that line 5 matches your license level*
  • All other pro plugins — No need to check the license level (it’s handled dynamically)

* For USP Pro, line 5 of /updates/usp-updates.php should look similar to this (depending on license level):

define('USP_ITEM_NAME', 'USP Pro Personal');

Where “USP Pro Personal” is the same as your purchased license. If it is not the same, then that is the issue. Contact me asap to get the correct version of the plugin.

Fresh install

If all else fails, and you decide to re-install the plugin, make sure to walk through the following steps:

  1. Backup your database (just in case)
  2. Delete the license key from the license field and click save changes
  3. Deactivate and uninstall the plugin (i.e., delete it from the server)
  4. Download a fresh copy of the plugin, install and activate as normal
  5. Try again activating your license via the “License” screen

Note that in order to activate the license, your server needs to make an outgoing HTTP request to my server. So if there are any firewalls, plugins, or scripts that would prevent this, they will need to be temporarily disabled. Refer to Server Test plugin for more information.

Troubleshooting auto-updates

Normally plugins update like any other WordPress plugin, with a notice in the Admin Area and an option to upgrade automatically. If that’s not working, there a couple of things to check (note that this is for plugin updates, not license activation):

  1. Visit Dashboard ▸ Updates and click the “check again” button
  2. Is there a firewall or security plugin in place that would be prevent outgoing HTTP requests, which are required for auto-updates to work
  3. Are other plugins displaying update notices and auto-updating in the Admin Area?

If all else fails you can always grab the latest version of the plugin from your account at Plugin Planet and update manually. To help you stay current, subscribe to the Plugin Planet News Feed. That way you always will know when new versions of plugins are available.

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