Hi @zynthianers!
On the recently released version 6.4.1, pianoteq’s team have added a new CLI option that allows to activate the licensed software without the need of opening the Pianoteq’s native UI. This option simplifies the license activation procedure, specially for Windows and Mac users.
I just integrated this new option in the webconf tool, so now it’s possible to upload the licensed binary and activate it from there. Just update your Zynthian Software!! 
Kind Regards!
Thanks @jofemodo!
Your work (and that of pianoteq regarding cli activation) is highly appreciated.
Although Pianoteq is not open source or free software, the demo for arm and zynthian platform was one more reason for me building zynthian.
Thanks and God bless, Marius
Hmmm… it’s a little bit strange. I can activate Pianoteq after a fresh installation, but only my Electric-Pianos are in non-demo mode. The Hohner and the Steinberg are not activated…
Regards, Holger
Yes … it’s quite strange! I’ve 3 licensed instruments (Hohner, Steinwey D and Electric Pianos) and all the 3 are enabled. Are you using the last binary from Pianoteq, with the webconf activation method (Pianoteq GUI is not needed nevermore!)?
Regards,
Yes… and in my Pianoteq account I can see that there is a Steinway D. Strange. Will try the next days again…
I removed the config file by hand, reinstalled PT-6.4.1 and added the license key again. Now it works. I don’t know what I have done wrong before…
Hmmmm… trouble again. I just installed a fresh image again. Updated twice. Uploaded my PT-6.4.1 and tried to activate with my license and got a 500: Internal Server Error on the page http://zynthian.local/api/sw-pianoteq 
After that I removed the configuration via ssh (rm ~/.config/Modartt/*) and tried to add the license again. Same error…
Regards, Holger
[EDIT: This is reproducable…]
Could you check the webconf tool logs?
Ahhhh, yep, done that. The problem is located directly in front of the screen: I have changed my RPi3B against a RPi3B+… so I have to change my license on the Pinaoteq web page.
Activation Failed
An error occurred during the activation:
Your copy has already been activated on 3 hardware configurations. Visit the user area (https://www.pianoteq.com/user_area) if you want to deactivate an old hardware, or contact us at support@pianoteq.com
But it is good to know that we have an uncaught exception here if this happens (@mheidt: should I open an issue on github?):
INFO:root:Configuring Pianoteq License Key: *****-*****-*****-*****-*****
ERROR:tornado.application:Uncaught exception POST /api/sw-pianoteq (192.168.0.146)
HTTPServerRequest(protocol='http', host='zynthian.local', method='POST', uri='/api/sw-pianoteq', version='HTTP/1.1', remote_ip='192.168.0.146', headers={'Dnt': '1', 'Cookie': 'user="2|1:0|10:1553962449|4:user|8:cm9vdA==|1f3b895477d4aaaffeefab63601ebbcdf9cd789f0c71793968"', 'Referer': 'http://zynthian.local/api/sw-pianoteq', 'Content-Length': '630', 'Accept': 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8', 'Host': 'zynthian.local', 'Accept-Language': 'de,en-US;q=0.7,en;q=0.3', 'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/66.0', 'Upgrade-Insecure-Requests': '1', 'Connection': 'keep-alive', 'Content-Type': 'multipart/form-data; boundary=---------------------------1849547432173242621635170081', 'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip, deflate'})
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/tornado/web.py", line 1346, in _execute
result = method(*self.path_args, **self.path_kwargs)
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/tornado/web.py", line 2626, in wrapper
return method(self, *args, **kwargs)
File "/zynthian/zynthian-webconf/lib/pianoteq_handler.py", line 80, in post
}[action]()
File "/zynthian/zynthian-webconf/lib/pianoteq_handler.py", line 78, in <lambda>
'ACTIVATE_LICENSE': lambda: self.do_activate_license(),
File "/zynthian/zynthian-webconf/lib/pianoteq_handler.py", line 129, in do_activate_license
result = check_output(command, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
File "/usr/lib/python3.4/subprocess.py", line 620, in check_output
raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args, output=output)
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '/zynthian/zynthian-sw/pianoteq6/pianoteq --activate *****-*****-*****-*****' returned non-zero exit status 2
ERROR:tornado.access:500 POST /api/sw-pianoteq (192.168.0.146) 3465.67ms
Regards, Holger
@C0d3man
Could you give it a try?
Hi Markus,
thx for fast fixing! Ok, no exception anymore! But there was no error message and it looks like Pianoteq is acitivated. I am sure that it is not, because I don’t had a free license.
Regards, Holger
HI,
Just bought Pianoteq 9 and am trying to activate throguh the webconfig page, but get this error message as soon as I submit the key: “Connection failed. Error, could not connect to Pianoteq website. Check that your internet connection is working, and that no firewall prevents this program from connecting to it, or use the ‘manual activation’” I have not worked out a way to do manual activation in Zynthian itself or via anything that works with windows 11. The Pianoteq website is excruciatingly slow and the webconfig error message comes up almost instantly, so I guess it would work if webconfig was more patient or could be slowed down. Any ideas would be much appreciated. Cheers, Simon
How are you connecting to the Internet? If it’s via WiFi, you should definitely try a wired connection if possible.
It’s wifi (and all I have where I am), but quite fast. Other sites load quickly while the Modartt servers barely crawl along.
I’m still wondering if there’s any way to do it all on my Zynthian without webconfig.
I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think you can do it in the Zynthian UI, since the wiki is pretty explicit about using webconf:
Are you comparing to another device, or accessing other sites from Zynthian? Zynthian has issues because of the metal case. It gets better if you can get close to the wifi source, but a wired connection is generally better.
I’m sure you can do it manually if you know what you’re doing, but I don’t.
If you enable VNC then you can access the pianoteq GUI which offers the ability to register the product. But I wonder whether the problem through webconf is related to the zynthian’s access to the Internet and hence whether an alternative approach will be of much benefit. There is regular and strong advice to avoid using the builtin wifi, especially for software updates. You may be suffering from poor Internet conncectivity from the zynthian (not your PC).
Thanks riban. I’m using ethernet cable for zynthian which generally works ok (except that I only get a few minutes before it stops working and I have to physically disconnect and reconnect). Anyway, I changed the webconfig options and ‘VNC-Engines’ now appears there for selection…but always fails to load any page when I select it, while the rest of webconfig works ok. Grok has not been so helpful on this point for some reason.
btw, VNC-UI also fails to load anything
What do you type into your web browser to access zynthian? This may be a naming issue.
http://zynthian.local/ Works for a few minutes on every task I’ve tried through Firefox, apart from VNC. (Almost worked once in Chrome before I gave up there. Maybe Firefox has a similar problem to a lesser degree.)