Sublime Forum

License key issues with Sublime's data folders synced via Dropbox

#1

Hello :slight_smile:

I’m using Sublime for my dev work at work on my work computer, and at home on my MacBook Pro.

I’ve put a lot of my config files in Dropbox to make it easier to keep my setup and histories, as well as work states easily synchronised. I’ve done this with Sublime as well, so that ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3 and friends are symlinks to matching folders inside Dropbox. I do have to be disciplined and remember to close Sublime after a session on one computer so as not to get conflicts when switching between computers, but I’ve gotten good at the workflow and it’s just fantastic to be able to continue with Sublime on a different computer exactly as I left it, including unsaved changes and whatnot.

There’s just one hassle, though, and that is that Sublime keeps asking for my license key when I switch computers and fire it up. It’s probably some protection thing that the license key is stored with some system id or something to make sure you don’t just copy its config folders to a different computer and use someone else’s license.

I’m just wondering if there’s some way to avoid it. I can live with it, if not, I’ll just paste it in every time I switch, but I’m also worried that there might be some installation counter somewhere increasing every time I do it which will eventually invalidate my license :smiley:

Cheers!

Daniel

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#2

Yes, in a nutshell this is your problem.

More specifically, when you enter your license, Sublime creates a file named License.sublime_license in the Local folder of the Data directory (which is the folder you mention in your question). The created file contains the license information, and the data in that file is specific to the machine that the license is entered on. Thus if you try to use it on a different machine, it’s no longer considered valid.

To get around this, replace the binary file with a text file of the same name that has your license information in it; the same stuff you paste into the License dialog.

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#3

Holy moly, that’s awesome! It works just the same with the text file in its place :smiley:

Thanks a lot! I wonder if this binary file format is a relatively new thing, because I feel like this started happening not too long ago :slight_smile:

Here’s fingers crossed that Sublime won’t require the binary format on a later date :slight_smile:

Thanks again!

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