Turbotax 2021 Deluxe asked for activation a second time after 11/18 update

[GregY]

@SteamTrain, thanks for asking, but no.  I keep the VPN disabled before launching TTax.  And I did try rebooting with the VPN off.  

[krochat]

My VPN caused TurboTax 2020 to deactivate itself (no VPN when originally activated, launched 9 months later with VPN active and TurboTax 2020 deactivated itself!

So no, I'm careful to NEVER USE VPN when running TurboTax.

[GregY]

@SteamTrain @proudmom52 This whole saga is really disrespectful of customers who use the product for year end tax planning.  I have one activation code left after installing it on my 3 devices.  The fact that Intuit distributed the bug as part of an update and is unable to provide replacement activation codes... you really have to have lack any sense of caring about users to set that up.

[GregY]

@krochat Yes - the algorithm used to detect a change in hardware is childish.  Any USB device (even a printer or an additional drive???), change in VPN..., and now the installation of a buggy update.  Seriously.   I'm not a criminal.  I'm a customer who pays retail price and just wants to use the product for a valid purpose within the terms of or the user agreement.  It's not me that's violating the terms right now.  It's Intuit.

[SteamTrain]

@GregY 

Year end planning?.. 

The new tax product that comes out in November is almost useless for doing that...every year....and usually isn't substantially useful for that until it's actually into the next year...Jan or Feb.  Might be lucky and get some crude estimates with it by mid December, but you can't trust it ,one whit, this soon.

The What-IF worksheet in the prior year's desktop software (2020 in this case) is almost always better.  Yeah, there's usually some yearly change that the What-IF won't cover for the next year, but it's usually close enough for most planning purposes. At this point, the major one I could see going screwy in the What-If , would be the advanced tax credits that some families may be getting and how that will balance out (or not).

[SteamTrain]

...but looking for commonalities for the bug, at least 2 of the three of you use VPN's in one way or another.....even if you already do turn it off during installs or updates.. 

Haven't heard form @proudmom52    yet..

[proudmom52]

Hi Steamtrain

I use Norton VPN but only for my IPad and phone. I verified that it is not turned on for my desktop machine.

However, I may have had it activated for my desktop machine when I first installed Turbo tax Premier and Business. I don't remember exactly when I turned it off (edited to add second comment 6:56 on 11/20)

[krochat]

@SteamTrain - The deactivation was caused by the 11/17 TurboTax update. One of my two PC's that got deactivated didn't have VPN installed.

I think everyone who does their own finances online should be using VPN, so it's no surprise the most of us early adopters have it. What's sad is that TurboTax activation doesn't play well with VPN so we have to make sure its deactivated when starting TurboTax.

[krochat]

@SteamTrain   My experience with year-end tax planning with the TurboTax "beta" has been varied, but last year (2020) I used it to do the maximum Roth conversion I could and still stay in my tax bracket the last week of December and was only off $8. Realizing capital gain/losses and Roth conversions / IRA distributions are things that have to be done by 12/31, so I use the best tools I have at that time.

[krochat]

I started up TT that was deactivated because of the 11/17 update and not reactivated. It installed the 11/22 update on start up but is still deactivated.

I have another  PC with TT that was activated and did not install the 11/17 update. I wonder what will happen if it loads the 11/22 update on startup.

It would sure be nice if there were release notes with the updates...

[krochat]

There was a new update on 12/1/2021, the second since the unfortunate 11/17 "deactivation" update. I started up TurboTax on my 3rd install that had not been started since 11/11. On startup it updated with a 10/20/201 update. This date is prior to any previous updates. After that update TurboTax started and was still activated. I checked for any additional updates and there were none.

[krochat · Accepted solution]

Update to the previous message. The second time I started TT on the third machine it asked for an activation code.

I called support on 12/7/2021 and was able to get a TT Deluxe 2021 Fed+State pushed to me. It requires a remove / new install for the new download - the new activation code didn't work with previous federal-only installation that was deactivated.

[VolvoGirl]

Also something to know.....

Make sure your computer is the same way when you originally installed it.  Like with no flash drives plugged in or plugged in if one was.  It asked me again so I just closed the program and took out a flash drive that was plugged in and tried again.  It worked.  Or you may need to connect a flash drive or printer or something that was connected when you originally installed the program.

[krochat]

Yes, thanks for the reminder. And yes, I did have a flash drive plugged in when TT asked for activation on the third machine since I'd forgotten about this quirk. I also had it plugged in when I installed and activated the replacement TT. I just unplugged the flash drive and the replacement TT is still activated - whew! So many things to remember - no VPN, no external drives...

[GregY]

@krochat - thanks for letting us know that Intuit was finally able to provide replacement activation codes.  It took a month, but it's finally resolved.

After 25+ years as a customer, I expect that this will be my last.  There are other capable options and although I respect Intuit's need to protect against unauthorized users of their product, the buggy November update broke the product so that legitimate, paying customers could not use the software.  It took nearly a month to resolve it.