The "...licensing ID is invalid." message indicates that the licensing ID has not been input correctly (a licensing ID contains self-checking information). A licensing ID is 65 characters in length, starts with a zero and ends with a number. When viewing the License ID, you should use a font that clearly distinguishes between ones and els, zeros and ohs, etc.

Note: some LicenseControl Vendors provide the ability to enter a subset of the License ID. If you're attempting to enter a supplied License ID that is shorter than 65-characters and it's not working, please contact the application's Vendor (or get/use the full 65-character License ID).

If you typed the licensing ID, it's possible that there's a typo — which is why we recommend that you copy/paste the licensing ID. The most common typo is when there are "vertical bar" characters in the licensing ID. The "vertical bar" character is the "straight vertical line" character (i.e., it's not an "el" and not a "one"). It's usually located above the "\" character on keyboards. If you can't see the difference between ones and els and vertical bars, try changing the display font in the email/editor in which you're viewing the License ID.

If you're getting this error after copying/pasting the licensing ID, then it's likely that there are one or more invisible characters being (erroneously) copied/pasted along with the licensing ID. This can happen with some email programs, especially browser-based programs or where email is rendered as HTML.

To remove any invisible characters that exist before the licensing ID:

1. place the cursor at the beginning of the licensing ID
2. press the left-arrow key a few times
3. press the right-arrow key once
4. if the cursor is not to the right of the first zero in the licensing ID, then there's an invisible character that needs to be deleted
• to delete the invisible character, press the left-arrow key once then the delete key and continue starting again at step 1

To remove any invisible characters that exist after the licensing ID:

1. place the cursor at the end of the licensing ID
2. press the right-arrow key a few times
3. press the left-arrow key once
4. if the cursor is not to the left of the last/65th character in the licensing ID, then there's an invisible character that needs to be deleted
• to delete the invisible character, press the right-arrow key once then the delete key and continue starting again at step 1

If you have the (excellent and free) TextWrangler application, you can paste the licensing ID into a TextWrangler window and select the "Text => Zap Gremlins..." menu to remove any "bad" characters from the licensing ID. TextWrangler can also count the number of characters in total or that are selected.