Received a new code from Intuit. Very helpful and kind agent. They had to do a screen share to confirm the license code issue. It came in the form of a new purchase email including a code directly from Turbotax, with a cost of $0. Whole process took about an hour, which is a lot. However, agent was very careful not to make any mistakes, double-checking many things, so an hour well-spent, all things considered. No activation issues yet and I've opened it a handful of times.
Here are the possibilities I can think of which are different from last time's purchase through Target.
1. There are issues with the Target/Synnex 3rd-party sales software. eg. license code mismanagement / distribution issues.
2. I haven't had activations on other computers or shared with other users yet. At this point, I'm scared to share this code or install on other computers. (note: agent specifically said it was ok to install on other computers.)
3. As recommended, I disabled every firewall and DNS protection I could think of, including at the router level.
My bet's on #2 - that the activation software is glitchy.
