WAIT: Bricks license glitched and user couldn't edit anything at all

For whatever reason, the Bricks license glitched out on two websites, both happen to be on GoDaddy (different hosting accounts).

When visiting the license page, it was shown as “No license” even though the textbox was greyed out and couldn’t be edited. I had to click the button to first deactivate, so I could activate the license again and it was fine.

That’s one issue, random license glitch. But the main issue is that with the license glitched out, it fully prevented them from being able to edit their pages at all! It just told them the license was bad and they couldn’t even edit.

When I look at the FAQ for Bricks, it has this to say:

  • What happens if I cancel my subscription?

Once canceled, your license remains active until the end of your current billing period. After that the license status changes to “canceled” and you will no longer have access to updates, support, or our community templates.

But you can still edit your Bricks sites as before. As you won’t be able to receive updates, please be aware that running outdated versions of any software brings an inherit security risk with it.

At least according to this, if the license is “canceled”, they can still edit the site. But in my case the license became listed as “no license” even though it was previously activated just fine, and it blocked them from using it at all.

I don’t know what the solution is here, but it scares me to think one little license glitch will break the theme and nobody can edit anything. Shouldn’t they still be able to edit no matter what status the license is shown as? What could have made it think there is no license? This happened on its own, nobody was working on the site at this time, so I assume it could only be triggered by some kind of auto-update.

If anything, I just want to let it be known that a license glitch can stop the plugin from working. And I don’t think it should, given the nature of this as a theme and page builder, it essentially jams up the entire site.

Hi Zack,
Thanks so much for your report!

This is the first time someone has reported this problem and it is of course relatively difficult to understand what has caused it.

Can you reproduce the problem somehow? If so, it would be good if you could send us the necessary steps, access data and licence details (in your case) by email to help@bricksbuilder.io so that we can take a closer look.

Best regards,
timmse

I wish I could help but I don’t think there is anything I can do. I don’t know precisely when the license validation changed. I only know when the client first messaged me saying they couldn’t edit a page. Nobody was using the site in this middle period. That’s why I assume it must have been an automatic update.

I thought the keyword “No license” would help you track this down. That is exactly what it said on the license screen. Not cancelled or bad or invalid but just “no license”. Mabye you can find that in the source code and figure out what causes it to appear.

The license box, the textbox where I would put it, was greyed out. I couldn’t re-enter the license without first deactivating it, and then I could activate it again.

Perhaps you could tell me under what conditions Bricks would change to “no license” after it was previously activated. Something change in the database or options table or file system or cache or I don’t know what.

The bottom line is, for whatever reason, if the license status is “no license”, it shouldn’t block people out of the builder. I suppose it would be best if it just behaved like it would if the license were cancelled or invalid or something. Where it works but doesn’t get updates.
I can’t conveive of a way to duplicate the issue. I just find it odd that it happened on two different sites at the same time (with fairly different plugin stacks), but they were both on GoDaddy.

Hey Zack,
Please send temporary login credentials and a link to this thread to help@bricksbuilder.io using the email address you used during the purchase. Then we can try to reproduce the problem.

I have the same problem! :skull_and_crossbones: In my case I built the website as a completely new one - the new one works wirt bricks, the old one doesn’t. I rebuilt the whole page and changed DNS from the Hoster Namecheap for my domain (to show the old one) - and then exactly the same issue appears as described here before - I can not do any changes at the website and the license says after deactivating it that I have reached the max of active sites already - but it ist only this one page.

I found out what was the problem: I updated my profile in bricks and clicked “check all sites” under “sites” - and there were a wrong domain in - the temporary one from rebuilding.

Logical in hindsight - maybe this can help you meanwhile…

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Hi Lise,
Welcome to the forum and thanks so much for sharing your experience and the potential solution :raised_hands:

Thanks for sharing. But just to be clear that isn’t the same as mine. My site didn’t change hosts or get rebuilt or change DNS or really anything like that. It was just fine one day and not fine another day. Saying “no license”, not that I reached max active sites or whatever. I have unlimited TLD anyway. It was just weird. Only happened on two sites that suspiciously were both on GoDaddy accounts.