3. Account and license

1. Choose Account → Sign in to your account or press Sign in on the sign-in screen.
2. The browser opens with the account page. In the program, an "Account sign-in" window appears with the text "Finish signing in in your browser. This window will close by itself" and a Cancel button. The program waits up to 5 minutes and does not "freeze".
3. Finish signing in in the browser and return to TCEPro — the window closes and the catalog list is fetched in the background.

If you do not have an account yet — the Create an account button on the sign-in screen opens registration on the account page.

After signing in, the Account menu shows your email address and gains a Sign out item.

Until the session is confirmed, the sign-in screen is shown instead of the working window. Its title explains what is going on:

Every locked screen has a Sign out button — this lets you switch accounts without deleting anything by hand.

If, while you are working, the server reports that the session is no longer valid, the working window closes and the sign-in screen explains why: "Sign in again", "The licence has expired. Renew it on your account page and sign in again", "The licence is not active. Get one on your account page", "This account was signed in on another computer. Sign in again", "Every slot on the licence is taken. Request one for this computer", "Too many requests. Try again in a minute", "The licence is damaged. Contact support". If the server returned an unfamiliar status, the text is "The license is not active: the server reported status "…". Check your license in your account".

License slots. Every license allows a limited number of computers. A new computer takes a free slot; if there are none, the program offers to request one on the account page.

The program confirms the license in the background roughly every 15 minutes and works without a connection for up to 24 hours from the last server response. The interface is not blocked meanwhile.

Without a network you cannot: download or update a catalog, see the purchase list, copy the details for a support request (the request code is issued by the server — the buttons are grayed out), or find out whether the open unit exists in a catalog you have no access to (the program says "access could not be checked", not "not supported").

Details worth knowing:

• when the connection drops, the program tries to reach the server once a minute;
• turning the system clock back by more than 15 minutes ends offline work until the server responds;
• a refusal from the server (license revoked, session invalid) locks the program immediately; a mere unavailability of the server does not.

After a Windows reinstallation, a system restore or a profile moved over from another machine, the service treats your computer as a new one. Catalogs downloaded earlier no longer open on it, and the program shows the "The catalogues on this computer no longer open" screen; in the "Map catalogues" window such catalogs get the Setup needed status.

What is happening and what to do:

• the computer has to be registered again, and that needs a free slot on the license;
• only support can free a taken slot, no more than twice a year per license;
• the Contact support button copies a ready-made request with the computer code — paste it into your request on the website;
• downloading the catalogs again is pointless until the slot is freed: the files are neither changed nor damaged;
• signing out in this state fixes nothing — it only deletes the downloaded catalogs (the program warns you).

Projects, saved firmware files and the license are not affected.

---