Licence activation

The plugin is installed but most features are gated until you activate a licence. This page walks through the activation flow and explains what happens behind the scenes — useful both for verifying your install and for diagnosing issues.

Where to find your key#

Your licence key was sent in the welcome email immediately after purchase. The format looks like:

NS-STD-XXXXXXXX-XXXXXX

The four segments mean:

• NS — product prefix (always)
• STD — tier (STD for Standard; other tiers reserved for internal use)
• XXXXXXXX — random binding identifier (8 hex characters unique to your licence)
• XXXXXX — checksum suffix (6 alphanumeric characters, lets the plugin catch typos locally)

If you cannot find the email, log in at nivosync.com/account/licenses — every key you have purchased is listed there, along with which domain (if any) it is currently bound to.

Activating in the WordPress admin#

1. After installing the plugin, click the NivoSync menu item.
2. You will land on the Licence page (the only page available pre-activation).
3. Paste your key into the Licence key input.
4. Click Activate.

What happens between clicking and seeing "Activated":

[Browser] POST /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=ns_license_activate
   ↓
[Plugin] Validates key format locally (checksum)
   ↓
[Plugin] HTTPS POST → api.nivosync.com/api/v1/license/activate
   {
     "license_key":      "NS-STD-...",
     "domain":           "example.com",
     "domain_hash":      "<sha256 of normalised domain>",
     "plugin_version":   "1.0.0",
     "wp_version":       "6.7.1",
     "timestamp":        <unix>
   }
   ↓
[Server] Verifies key exists, status=active, max_domains not exceeded
[Server] Records activation row, returns HMAC-signed response
   ↓
[Plugin] Verifies HMAC signature with shared secret
[Plugin] Stores encrypted licence data in wp_ns_options
[Plugin] Schedules daily verification cron
   ↓
[Plugin] Reloads admin → all menus appear, welcome notice replaced by dashboard

The whole exchange completes in under a second on a normal connection.

What activation actually unlocks#

Before activation, only the Licence page is accessible. After successful activation, the rest of the admin appears:

• Dashboard — overview of sync status, diamond counts, recent activity.
• Diamonds — browse the catalogue cached locally.
• Sync — manual sync controls, the schedule editor, and sync logs.
• Appearance — the three premium themes plus customisation.
• Filters — enable / disable filter chips and configure defaults.
• Settings — API credentials, pricing engine, currency, VAT, slugs, Ring Builder and Bookings configuration, advanced options.

The plugin also schedules a daily cron job (ns_cron_license_check) that pings the licence server to verify your key is still valid. This is what catches expired subscriptions and lets the plugin downgrade gracefully rather than break.

Common activation errors#

"Licence key not recognised"#

The key does not exist in our database. Causes:

• Typo — the most common. Copy from the welcome email rather than transcribe.
• Wrong product — keys for older Teksyte products do not work with NivoSync. Check the prefix is NS-.
• Refunded licence — keys from refunded orders are deactivated. Check your account dashboard.

"Maximum activations reached"#

Each licence has a max_domains value (1 for Standard; higher for custom multi-domain agreements). If you already activated this key on another domain, that slot needs to be released before reusing the key.

How to fix:

1. Log in to the other WordPress install where this key is active.
2. Go to NivoSync → Licence.
3. Click Deactivate.
4. Try activating again on the new install.

If the other install is no longer accessible (host gone, site deleted), email support — we have admin tooling to release dead slots.

"Domain mismatch"#

The domain in the activation request does not match the domain bound to the licence. This usually means:

• You are testing on localhost or a .test / .local development domain after the licence was already bound to a production domain.
• A reverse proxy is sending a different Host header than the WordPress siteurl.
• You have multisite with subdomain mapping and the licence is bound to the wrong subsite.

Quickest fix: deactivate from the bound domain first, then activate on the new one. Development domains do not consume activation slots provided you deactivate before deploying.

"Connection failed" / "Could not reach licence server"#

Your WordPress server cannot reach api.nivosync.com over HTTPS. Causes:

• Firewall — corporate or hosting firewalls sometimes block outbound HTTPS to non-allowlisted hosts. Ask your host to allowlist api.nivosync.com on port 443.
• DNS resolution — rare, but check dig api.nivosync.com from the server returns an A record.
• Local SSL bundle out of date — a server with a CA bundle from 2018 may not trust the certificate chain; update via your package manager.

The plugin enforces a 72-hour grace period for transport-only failures, so a brief outage on either side does not break the licence. If you see this error for more than 30 seconds during a fresh activation, it is a routing issue, not a transient one.

"Signature verification failed"#

The plugin received a response from the licence server but the HMAC signature did not match. This indicates either:

• A man-in-the-middle proxy is rewriting HTTPS responses (some corporate networks do this). The plugin treats this as fail-closed and refuses to activate.
• A cached intermediate response from a CDN that should not be caching API responses. Bypass any caching layer between your server and api.nivosync.com.

This error is rare but security-relevant. If you hit it on a clean install, email security@nivosync.com — we want to know.

Verifying activation#

A successful activation gives you these signals:

• The Licence page now shows your key, tier, customer name, and an Active status badge.
• The activation banner across the top of the WP admin disappears.
• The full NivoSync menu (seven items) is visible.
• A new entry appears in the sync/licence log: License activated for example.com.

You can also verify from the command line:

wp option get ns_license_status
# expected: "active"
 
wp option get ns_license_data
# returns the encrypted licence envelope (binary; trust the status field)

Up next#

With the licence active, you are ready to connect the plugin to your Nivoda account and run the first sync. Continue to First sync.