Resolving common Plesk Panel license errors

This article applies to 123 Reg servers running Plesk.

Please note: this article was originally created for our previous generation of Virtual Private Servers. As such, these instructions may not be relevant to our current generation of Virtual Private Servers.

When logging into Plesk you may receive one of the following messages:

• The amount of Parallels Plesk Panel resources you operate with has exceeded the limits defined by your current product license. Please contact Parallels sales department to purchase a new licensed key.
• You are currently operating within the grace period of your product license.
• The license key is invalid.

These messages are all completely normal and do not normally affect the running of your server/websites in any way.

The reason these messages appear is because it is Parallel’s (the creators of Plesk) way of manually checking/tracking if the license is still being used, still valid and if you have upgraded/downgraded it. Normally you cannot set it to do this process automatically.

The Parallels Plesk Panel key has a built-in expiration date. This has been implemented to help prevent fraud and theft. It requires the Parallels Plesk Panel software to check back with Parallels’ licensing system during a 10 day grace period (prior to the expiration date) to verify that the key has not been reported stolen and is being used in accordance with the End User License Agreement. Once this is verified, the expiration date is auto-updated.

Parallels Plesk Panel will attempt to connect via TCP/IP to ka.parallels.com through port 5224. Please make sure that this is not blocked by a firewall. If the Parallels Plesk Panel key should expire, check your firewall and then click on “retrieve keys” in the Parallels Plesk Panel license manager. If the key could not be updated, please contact your hosting provider to have the license manually re-applied.

If you get the messages above you can fix this by doing the following: