his is constructive criticizem, you should check out the link I provided WITH an open mind
I obviously read it all, and I already worked on a complete reply, because the thread is full of mistakes and inaccuracies, but they locked the thread yesterday before I was able to post a reply. I see they re-opened it today, and I posted some reply, although not the complete explanation that will hopefully clear all the wrong information which was spread there.
This process is way too complicated. Something needs improvement
You are confusing two issues, and are wrongly attributed BOTH to the "complicated process", but there are entirely separate and none of them has any relationship with the "process"
1) Your FIRST issue is that you initially TYPED THE WRONG SERIAL. You can't obviously fault the system for not accepting an "almost-correct" Serial. No program I know how works with mis-typed Serials, you either insert it 100% correct, or it will not work. Confusing the letter O with the number 0 is a very COMMON mistake, but that's not a mistake of the program.
As soon as you fixed the Serial, the activation was successful.
2) You had to go through the MANUAL Activation method. I guess THIS is what you can call "complicated", and I agree with you but, this is NOT how it's supposed to work!!
With "Manual" activation, I refer to the method that gives you 3 option, one to create an Install id for your system, then prompts to go to the Esellerate website, generate an Activation ID that you will have to insert back in the registration dialog when it asks for an "Activation ID".
THIS is the MANUAL activation, and it's NOT our regular activation method. NORMALLY, it comes out ONLY if your internet connection is not working OR if a software firewall you installed is blocking online access from FSX to the activation server.
The NORMAL activation requires JUST the Serial Number! No Esellerate web page, no Installation Id, no Activation ID. This is how our "system" USUALLY works, and it has been working like that for the past 7 years since we used Esellerate.
But the issue is, THIS WEEK, Esellerate seems to have some problem with their Activation servers which couldn't be reached for some reason. This triggers the MANUAL Activation method AS IF your internet connection was blocked. We have been in touch with Esellerate engineering since several days by now, and they are confirmed the problem to be on their own side, are working on a fix, but couldn't provide a precise estimate how much time it will take to have it fixed.
This doesn't obviously mean you can't activate while they are fixing the problem. You simply have to go through the alternate "complicated" method, which is there for a sound reason: to provide you a backup, in case your internet connection goes down OR the activation server has a problem. So you a HAVE a backup which, as complicated as it might be, is allowing you to activate nonetheless.
Note that, I see that many users managed to have the regular "easy" online activation, by simply restarting their router or Windows and trying again. This seems to indicate only some activation servers are not reachable (Esellerate have many of them, running in parallel, likely selected at random to balance the load).
