Thank you for following up on this. I have been in contact with NewBlue. I worked with them for a couple of days to be sure that their products have been installed/registered properly. After making some adjustments on their end, this was their response... "I'm glad it was able to show it's activated within your App Manager now.  Although I'm sorry it's not able to activate through VEGAS. That's not our service when it tries to connect through the window within VEGAS. I would suggest reaching out to VEGAS support to see if they can get it activated within their NLE since it's activated within our App Manager and not activating within VEGAS."

So, that's why I'm opening up this dialogue.

Here is a screenshot of the NewBlueFX products installed...

When I select one of these effects and apply it to a video clip, it sees that it's a trial version and prompts me to enter in the serial number/license key to activate it (step1.jpg). I enter in the number and click "Activate" (step2.jpg). After it thinks about it for a few seconds, it displays an error message (step3.jpg). But I have full internet access and nothing is being blocked on the firewall.

If I select to Manually Activate the products, it points me to this address: https://activate.esellerate.net/, which is not a working link. It appears that esellerate has been purchased/transferred to https://www.mycommerce.com/.

There seems to be no way for Movie Studio to reach whatever website or 3rd party handled these transactions.

NewBlue says all is good on their end. So, is there some different way by which these plugins are incorporated into Movie Studio? Since version 14 is several years old, it wouldn't surprise me if this activation sequence has changed, but I don't know what that might be. So if esellerate is no longer handling the activation process, who is?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

@Randy-King4088 Suggest you black out the activation numbers in your images. This forum is public and they could be seen and scammed by others.

Have you tried temporarily turning off your security/firewall while you try to activate even though nothing appears to be blocked by your firewall.

Thanks for the tip about the activation number. I've deleted the image that has the full serial number.

Yeah, the firewall and security items have been shut down just in case, but there was no change. Are you able to get to https://activate.esellerate.net? If so, I'll try looking deeper into my system to see if I missed something.

However, I'm quite sure that the above address is no longer working. If you google "esellerate," it will display what appears to be the correct domain of https://esellerate.net. But when you click on that link it's automatically redirected to https://www.mycommerce.com. Plus Google is unable to put together a description of esellerate because there's no content from which it can build that information.

My guess is that esellerate, at one time, was the company that handled that transaction, but they were bought out by mycommerce who no longer deals with that. If a different 3rd party company is handling this process, I'll need to get the new address so I can enter the activation codes manually. Or, if there's an updated version of Movie Studio Platinum 14 that has the correct activation process written into it, I'll need that updated version to install over the top of my copy so all of this can work properly.

Thanks for your help.

@Randy-King4088 With Firefox the link gives me "502 Bad Gateway". Fiddling around adding www I also arrive at MyCommerce.

What build is your MS Platinum 14? Try here to see if it's later than yours https://dl03.vegascreativesoftware.com/vegasmoviestudio14platinum_dlm.exe

That link came from Nick Hope's https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-where-can-i-download-vegas-movie-studio-17-or-earlier--134340/ which is among the Important Posts at the head of this forum.

The product I have is MS Platinum 14.0, Build 148. It would be nice to know what Build the above link is before attempting the download. I have a spouse who's working from home and dragging a large file across our network might cause a disruption, so I'll need to wait until later in the day to do that - unless you (or others) happen to know that information and can pass it along sooner.

Yes, the error message and redirect you're seeing is what I get, too, when trying to reach the esellerate site.

Looking a little deeper into things, I see that esellerate was bought out by Digital River. I've tried reaching out to them, as well as MyCommerce, to see if they can provide any help with this. But I suspect they no longer care about that aspect of the company they bought out years ago. My only hope is that MAGIX is using a different company or method for validating plugin software within their legacy products.

Again, thanks for your suggestions and patience.

You should not need to access esellerate. That has not be used for a few years now. Which installer are you using? Here's the last installer:

http://www.newbluefx.com/downloads/Windows/NewBlueFilmEffectsForWindowsSetup30-140723.exe

And the NewBlue activation has nothing to do with Movie Studio or the age of the Movie Studio version you're using.

Actually, I think I've found the problem (or at least a workaround). When I view the plugins, for the NewBlue entries there are duplicates. One of them is the normal name (which I'm used to), the other has "OpenFX" after it. If I apply the effect with "OpenFX" as the suffix, it appears to work fine. If I apply the same effect without "OpenFX" as the suffix, it wants me to activate the software.

I guess as long as I remember to use the right version, I should be OK. Hopefully that will stay consistent throughout the life of the product. I'll check with NewBlue to be sure my assumption is correct and see if I can remove the duplicate version so there's less confusion.

Thanks all for your support.