Activation Screen Hangs on Load

I found this and it works.  Change screen resolution temporarily to 800 x 600. Activate TT and the change back.

I talked to a Turbotax representative who recognized the problem. It appears that there are a number of display screen resolutions that cause the activation window (where you are to enter your license code) to fail. Mine was set to 1920x1080. We tried several resolutions and found that 1360x768 worked for me. Complicating factor: I was using an external display via a docking station and no  resolution worked for the activation window until I went back to the native display. This problem seems to affect only the activation window. Once past that step I went back to my normal configuration and everything was fine.

This exact problem just happened to me.  I have a new computer and the screen resolution was set to 1920x1080.  My activation screen was frozen until I changed the system display resolution to 1366x768. (I chose that one because someone else had suggested it.)  That was all it took to fix the problem. Instant success!  After the activation, I changed my display resolution back to the recommended and the rest of Turbotax deluxe 2020 seems to be working normally.

It opens up to the activation screen and just keeps loading.

Thanks for asking this question.    I ran into the same problem.

I ran this as an admin and it didn't work.   Fortunately, re-starting my computer and re-launching seemed to finally do the trick.    I only lost 45 minutes of my life trying to get this POS running. 

Changing the screen resolution to 800x600 worked for me. No idea why that would fix the activation screen freeze but it did.

so dumb and a waste of time trying to figure this out

I tried all the suggestions made in the forum.  Although none of them worked,. I found a new solution.  I installed (successfully) TurboTax 2000 on an older Windows 10 laptop.  Then I copied the entire contents of the installed Deluxe 2020 folder onto the new laptop.  I double-clicked TurboTax.exe. was prompted for the registration code and got into the program.  Problem solved.  I have no idea why this worked, but it worked.

Maybe a new thread for 2021 products.   Unbelievably for years this problem has existed..

OS:  windows 10, latest (as of 12/21), high res laptop screen 1980x1400 or so.   I'm running split login for safety;  normal user is non-admin.   Install went ok as non-admin giving the admin pw to the dialogue that pops up running the installer.

The activation screen hangs while blank. for both 2021 TT business,  home and business.

I did an in order of simple to complex steps to get one app past activvation;

- set run as administrator (no help)

- added both turbotax.exe's to the firewall exempt list (no help)

- did the forced resolution to 800x600 and this worked but I can' see what I'm typing.  Pasted the key from amazon..   Switched back to full resolution and it showed Successful. 

THIS IS CRAZY GUYS/GALES AT INTUIT!!!!

This is 2021 new product.

I also had the same problem and what worked for me was disabling M.S. Windows Defender, both  antivirus and the firewall.

I had the same problem with my Dell Vostro.  I ended up talking with TurboTax help.  I got an agent in about 4 minutes, but it took 2 hours to finally find a solution.

After the install from either the CD or the download from web (I did both), the activation screen was blank except for title bar. There was NO box to insert the license number or Activate Now button.

After wiggling the cursor around the blank box many times I noticed that the cursor changed from a pointer cursor to an INSERT TEXT "I" beam cursor or to a pointing finger CLICK cursor at different spots on the blank page. 

1.  After I mentioned this the TT Agent had me change the display resolution to 1024X768.

2.  Restart computer

3.  Restart Turbotax.  (It continued to hang on the blank Activation screen).

4.  The agent indicated the entry boxes and buttons are on the blank screen but I could not see them.

5.  I was instructed to move the cursor around the Activation screen until the "I" beam cursor appeared.  It needs to be about 2/3 down from to top of the  activation box  and about 1" away from left hand side because there is a different box about 1/4 the way down as well.

6.  I was able to find the box then while keeping the "I" beam visible, I moved it toward the left to be near the left hand side of the invisible entry box.  The "I" beam will change when you are out side the box.

7. At this spot I entered the license key with out any hyphens or spaces.  I did not bother with cap's.

8.  After entering the long string of characters, I next moved to the right hand corner near the bottom where the cursor changed to a Pointing Finger and Right Clicked.

9.  After about 20 seconds, the TT Registration Page appeared for my Name and Address.  When you see this page, it means the license key was accepted.

10.  I restarted TurboTax and it loaded immediately to the Start a New Return Page.

Once the agent realized the Activation Screen as actually live, just invisible, it only took about 5 minutes to be successful (and that long only because I tried entering the key in the invisible box only 1/4 of the way down on right side, not the box you should find about 2/3's the way down).

It appears this problem all has to deal with the video driver but even an update to most recent version from Nividia did not solve the problem.  Ultimately, simply working with the blank screen with the change in cursor shapes provided enough information to work around this problem.

Then I noticed