topic Re: Active licenses revoked at random in Installation & Licensing Forum

Active licenses revoked at random

b_morrisKGYYL — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 13:18:47 GMT

We are an engineering & design firm with 7-10 licensed AutoCAD users.

On or about Oct 7 our users were suddenly kicked out of the software or were unable to launch it with a message they were not licensed users of the product.

Obviously this is incorrect and a severe blow to productivity. To answer the obvious question, yes I have contacted support over numerous days and long hours in an attempt to penetrate the bureaucracy, as it were.

The only 'response' has been a frankly bizarre, convoluted tale of our primary or secondary admin being changed upon request from a person. But we made no such request and the person cited is completely unrelated to our firm. But even such a change in designated admins or web site users should not have produced this random, arbitrary action.

Eliminating the impossible and leaving the possible means one of two things occurred: customer data was scrambled, overwritten or otherwise altered by automatic or human means. At the risk of being dramatic all we desire is to use the software for which we have paid and are a customer in good standing.

This is a plea for help, information and referral to anyone who may be able to assist as we approach a week in this state of inertia.

Thank you

Re: Active licenses revoked at random

pendean — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 16:24:00 GMT

@b_morrisKGYYL Are you all on single subscription licenses for each user?

Or is this a local License Server type setup?

What year versions of AutoCAD are we discussing here?

Are you the admin on the Autodesk Account, and you logged in, checked all software availability and assignments, deleted those you do not recognize, remove and reassign seats to try and fix the issue?

Double-checked everyone's assigned emails there and confirmed at each station that each user is logged-in the same exact way?

Or are you not that person or have been locked out of the account altogether as well?

And did all of you get locked out of your individual Autodesk Accounts?

Did that person you say you've never heard of an actual previous employee that perhaps left you all a surprise after an event on October 7th? You brought it up so I'm asking.

Re: Active licenses revoked at random

b_morrisKGYYL — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 16:51:43 GMT

I freely admit I'm not an expert in the product lines but according to info from my users we have

2 licensed seats for AutoCAD LT

3 licensed seats for Product Design & Manufacturing Collection

The Autodesk account was established under the email of my predecessor - let's call him XYZ. However, since his departure we have access to his mailbox and have successfully logged in, viewed our users etc and assigned at least one license to a new engineer hire. In other words, we have multiple seats for multiple products. As far as I know we don't have individual licenses as payment is made from a single source/invoice. Memory is my only evidence here but we had just one admin - XYZ - and he was/is a primary admin.

It was only when users reported being locked out - some while using the software - that we attempted to log in again and could not. We contacted support who reset the password for XYZ. Bizarrely, XYZ was now listed as a secondary admin under two people we'd never heard of and a company we definitely didn't work for and were unaffiliated with. Even more bizarrely, support demanded we obtain 'consent' from their primary admin to become a secondary admin...of an account that wasn't ours. This was bureaucracy run amok. A scavenger hunt posing as 'customer service.'

But we played ball and contacted the primary admin who, to his credit, was quick in respond and providing them what they wanted. But to what end? Our users still weren't listed. Our licenses were still nullified. Later that same day, I logged in again as XYZ and...he'd been demoted to plain old user. No admin rights at all despite their request and promises. Naturally, I asked what was going on and got a load of flannel from them: 'However, upon further review, we now see that the current primary admin for the same team is somethingatsomethingemail (email masked) and the licenses are currently associated with their account. This is why the licenses are not visible in your account, and the user is unable to access them.'

This was 1 step forward and about 5 back. Oh by the way, 90% of my replies to customerservice@autodesk.com were bounced back to me with 'Oops — we didn’t receive your message.' A 'support' department that operates strictly by email refusing to receive those emails. The mind boggles.

If the previous IT person had taken malicious action it would have been weeks before we first took over access to the Autodesk site and, as before, successfully viewed and assigned licenses. And malicious action would not have resulted in our account somehow becoming attached to or affiliated with third parties completely unknown to us.

Data has clearly been scrambled by humans or computers. Autodesk at least concedes it's a 'considerable mix-up' but to date has refused or failed to rectify what must be a very simple solution: reestablish the account (using a different email if necessary) and reassign/revive the licensed users. It would save time, money, effort and productivity all round yet they refuse to do it or consider it.

Re: Active licenses revoked at random

pendean — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 19:03:20 GMT

@b_morrisKGYYL So this is legacy software, you folks are not actively paying for subscriptions to that software?

It appears from your posts alone you all got hacked and accounts got hijacked/stolen from you. That's a tough hole to dig out from as far as I can tell with any software vendor.

Re: Active licenses revoked at random

b_morrisKGYYL — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:23:47 GMT

Conclusion/epilogue: Autodesk said that our purchase of licenses occurred during a time when we had business ties to another entity.

It's possible but we were cruising along as our own entity for months until the 'throwing of the switch.' It still hasn't been fully explained how and why this action occurred unilaterally, without warning or inquiry and without apparent recourse.

My proposed solution of establishing a new teams ID and adding existing users as new users via invitation and assignment of licenses was more or less accepted and implemented.

Re: Active licenses revoked at random

mari.shimode — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 03:10:26 GMT

Hi @b_morrisKGYYL, thank you for sharing the situation and also proposing a solution with the community. I have marked your latest reply as an accepted solution so people who have the same or similar situation can refer to your case. I see your case with our support closed but if you need any further help regarding your license, please contact them anytime. Thank you for visiting the Autodesk Community.