Thank you for playing fair
Comments
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@bazbsg Thanks for replying! And yes - I do see that ? Therefore the Community team and I are working on providing as much help and information as possible. For example, this blog post or the KB article, or collecting all posts from users struggling with the commercial usage detection underneath my explanation of how to request a reset.
But I need to respectfully disagree with you saying there have not been any improvements in the last years. The reset process is much simpler and way faster than ever before. Reading from your post, you have been one of the people who needed to wait a month for a reset (back then). Meanwhile, the reset is in most cases faster than 24 hours! Hours - not days - I call that an improvement ? I know that you have been engaged in helping others a lot in our community and wouldn´t you agree that the complaints about the super long waiting time disappeared?
Also, the detection of commercial usage has been optimized a lot. Yes - you are right, there are still false positives and there might always be some - although we are working on improving the detection constantly. For all those people we offer the reset page and e.g. this article in which I am trying to make the process as understandable as possible. Some might not like my gif-video at the top of the article, but I posted it anyway because others do not like reading such a long article or do not understand English well enough.
Another thing I wanted to highlight is the complete change of the trial process that was causing so much confusion. Now - we disabled the option to start a trial when installing the software. You need to request a trial manually from our Sales. This reduces the number of users who accidentally install TeamViewer as a commercial trial and come to our community to seek help in removing the trial.
Let me answer your questions:
- I have to ask you to clarify one thing. You said "if you are using TeamViewer for your work, you need a license". Are you saying both sides need a license?
- No - the TeamViewer licensing says: only one side of a connection needs a license to have a licensed connection.
- If I have a license on my office PC I am able to connect to my home PC to read my personal email, right? That is allowed.
- Yes - that is a licensed connection. However, I guess this was originally not the intended use case of the company that bought the license and might be unhappy with employees using the license to connect to their private device ? Therefore: It is allowed from the licensing point of view (of TeamViewer), but maybe not allowed by the license owner.
- But if I go home do I need a license to access my licensed work PC to read my work email?
- Yes - you need a license for that 100%. This is an absolute standard home office and requires a license. But: The license on the work device is enough for TeamViewer. You will not get disturbed during the connection to your work device.
- I would think that having a license on one side should be sufficient, but maybe Teamviewer disagrees???
- Nope - no disagreement here.
- If I were a tech support company that had a license to help my customers, am I expected to get my customers to buy a Teamviewer license before I am able to help them?
- Nope - only you (the tech support company) need a license.
Regarding your last question: Can you send me a link? I seem to not find it.
Former Community Manager
1 - I have to ask you to clarify one thing. You said "if you are using TeamViewer for your work, you need a license". Are you saying both sides need a license?
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@Esther I have rebooted the computers on both sides of the connection, and re-started Team Viewer. It still doesn't work. These are two computers in my own home and I don't use either computer for work. It's great that you got the reset process down to 24 hours, but if the reset doesn't actually do anything, it doesn't help me.
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I too have been getting the Commerical Use message. I have registered my TeamViewer ID and the TeamViewer ID of my 81 year old dad, my sister-in-law and my wife's computer. I did two processes to whitelist these ids as I forgot to register my own id. I have restarted my computer (Mac) and my sister-in-law (Windows 10) but I am still receiving the Commerical Use message and get kicked off my sister-in-law's computer after 5 minutes. I user TeamViewer less than 6 times per year but I'm getting frustrated as to why this process is not working. Please help us get this process working so we can continue helping our relativers support their machines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you.
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This is so frustrating. I have been trying to reset my account for at least 2 weeks now but the website doesn't seem to accept my username when trying to reset my account!!! This is so frustrating! I'm able to complete all of the other fields but teamviewer tells me to enter my teamviewer ID, which shouldnt be less than 8 characters but no more than 11, and it never works. My username is drewalkk - 8 characters. But for some reason, the site doesn't allow me to enter it so that I can progress to generating a pdf. I have never used my account for commercial use. I have only used it to help my elderly parents on their home pc whenever they have trouble. I've helped them from my own home or when I'm at work and never had an issue before. Please fix the website to allow me to reset my account.
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@Esther You seem to be either deliberately ignoring the problem or genuinely don't understand why users are upset, both of which are troubling.
Beyond the primary issue of these false positives (which seem to be at a rate high enough to justify the impression of pushing out free users), the provided "solution" is asinine - we as end users should not have to be given the burden of proving that our use is legitimate. Beyond that, to ask end users to print and SIGN a form acknowledging this is completely absurd. The whole process appears to have been intentionally designed to be convoluted in order to push free users away.
Continuing to go in this direction is only proving the idea of pushing free users away to be true. This is even more apparent when the back end has been shut down to the point where access is flagged at the MAC address level. I've personally already switched over my 3 PERSONAL systems to use an alternative software, and I had an easier time getting that set up than I did trying to jump through hoops of getting my machine unflagged.
You guys have a very simple choice to make - own up to the mistakes you've made and fix them, or lose your reputation and your users just like a certain other remote access software did a few years back when they pulled this **bleep**.
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@Esther Here is a permalink to one example of someone that was asked to buy a license because of "very high activity level". https://community.teamviewer.com/t5/General-Questions-EN/TeamViewer-thinks-I-m-using-the-software-commercially/m-p/106502/highlight/true#M49585 Here is a permalink to my request for a moderator to address the issue. https://community.teamviewer.com/t5/General-Questions-EN/TeamViewer-thinks-I-m-using-the-software-commercially/m-p/106556/highlight/true#M49586
I was thinking that one reason for the perception that nothing has improved is that we the users of this community mainly see the complaints from users that are not happy. We do not get to see the number of users that are happy because they had their problems solved quickly or didn't have problems in the first place, because those users don't come here and complain. So maybe it's unfair to say there have been no improvements over the past four years. But on the other hand, we don't have the information available to see the true picture and extent of the problem. I will try to remain helpful to users whose questions I can address.
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used to use teamviewer alot but stopped cause didn't need it. just tried using it to set up my moms printer at her place but got this message that ive been using for commercial use, then her wifi cut out and teamviewer says i cant connect for another 20 minutes because ive been using it for commercial use **bleep** your a joke. fix your automated detection system cause its laughable especially from where im standing. [removed per Community Guidelines]
edit: what kind of tyrant bleeps out **bleep**.... ofc the dudes who penalize you for nothing
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@robtpt Sorry to hear that. You got the confirmation via email it has been reset, right? You can send me a PM with the email address you used for the submission and I can ask the team to check.
@DadCobra Thanks for your feedback. I also need to ask whether you already got the email confirmation from our reset team. Did you already try to restart the TeamViewer service?
@drewalkk The reset does not work for TeamViewer accounts and also not for your community account. You will need to enter the TeamViewer ID of the devices that got flagged. Please read this article to learn more about what a TeamViewer ID is and where to find it: What is a TeamViewer ID?
@kmjohnsonpgh Thanks for your feedback. Sorry to read you switched the software but nice to know you are still around!
@bazbsg Thanks a lot for the links. No - high activity does not require a license as long as it is purely private use. I can imagine that the usage suggests a usage pattern typical for business or enterprise users. However - the wording is not very well chosen in my opinion as well and I will reach out to the responsible staff.
And yes - I also believe that once a case is resolved the users just move on and are not coming back to update their experience. Some do and I am really thankful for those! But I guess we all need to live with the fact that people are coming to a forum to seek help and therefore forums (not just TeamViewer but all) are having more questions, concerns, and complaints than posts about how smooth everything works. And: It´s totally fine because a forum is there to provide help and assistance ?
Former Community Manager
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Hi @Esther, I am still receiving 504 gateway time-out errors (this is an indication there is a communication problem between your customer facing proxy and your backend servers that do the work) when attempting to generate my PDF. This is the same issue I was experiencing last week. It seems it might be fixed for some? But I cant confirm. I still need to get my machine(s) reset, but I cant generate the PDF to get to the point where I can upload it. I have tried a different browser to no avail as I still get the 504 error. (which does not surprise me as noted, 504 is a reflection of an issue on the TV side and not mine, although I am not 100% ruling out something on my end). When I get access to my personal PC I may try it from there, but it shold be working from my laptop just the same. Can you please offer any other suggestions, and please ask your Ops or Dev team to validate the timeout sesttings on their gateway, and/or find the root cause of the delayed response from the backend server(s) to the front end proxy(s). Thanks, I look forward to your reply.
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Hi Esther,
I have twice sent my IDs to get reset and twice received a confirmation that it got done. But I'm still getting the warning. Can you please help?
Thanks,
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This is insanely frustrating!
After 2 weeks of aggravation I finally get the whole reset process to work, receive the Personal Use confirmation email from Teamviewer, and the VERY FIRST TIME I try to connect to my 88-year-old mother's notebook (brand new a month ago)--which does nothing but use a browser and email--and I get the "Commercial Use" penalty flag. Teamviewer's gone off the rails. You get what you pay for. Thanks, guys, for a couple years of nice service, but I get the message, time to move on. I'd rather pay a few dollars a month (but not $49/mth) for reliable service.
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I have a computer that I use teamviewer from/to within my house for personal use. I have went through the processs to have the teamviewer ID's of all my computers unlocked twice now in teh last 3 days but its still not allowing me to connect to this one computer. What can I do?
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I HAVE ATTEMPTED TO HAVE MY USER IDS RESET TO PERSONAL USE ONLY, USING THE PROCESSES PROVIDED TO ME BY THE TEAMVIEWER KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR MORE THAT A MONTH. MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS DEPEND ON ME TO HELP THEM WITH THEIR COMPTERS BUT I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO BREAK THRU THE WALL.. I HAVE NEVER RECEIVED A CONFIRMATION THAT MY REQUEST HAS BEEN RECEIVED NEVER MIND THE RESET APPROVED/COMPLETE. WHO DO I HAVE TO CONTACT TO GET RESET????
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i have printed, filled out, and submitted the form last friday but i received no response.
trying to access the device again, even while on the same homenetwork still pops up commercial use detected and blocks me out.0 -
I followed the link to reset my account to private use. there is no form to fill out. It looks like the "connect with teamviewer" just opens up the teamviewer app and nothing new appears. However below that it says "Please log in with your TeamViewer credentials to start the reactivation process." I did so and I don't see anything.
I should note I am logging in from a different laptop than I received the messages re: commercial use. Is this the reason?
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I've been using TeamViewer for longer than I can remember. It's always been a terrific product that enabled me to help family and even the occasional friend to stay online when they encountered technical problems. I have used it for many years to keep my parents who are now in their mid-80's online. I am not now, and have never been, in the IT field and never once realized even one thin dime in payment for my use of TeamViewer from anyone. Still, fair is fair, so I have long been wanting to upgrade my free license to a paid one, though commensurate for my essentially non-commercial use. It's just that TeamViewer's business plan is such that I can't justify spending $50 a month, no less $100 a month for non-commercial friends-and-family use.
But my father in particular, who at 86 is now working from home for the first time in his life owing to social distancing requirement. I can appreciate that because my unpaid use of TeamViewer facilitates my father's ability to work from home it is reasonable for TeamViewer to determine that this is now "commercial use". I am no longer comfortable asking TeamViewer to override their "suspected commercial use" flags (which they kindly did in the past). I access my father's laptop several times a day to print out emails and articles he's interested in (he never even looks at the laptop itself and only reads what I print for him).
So I am going to relinquish my Free License with TeamViewer and make other arrangements to keep up my entirely unpaid "tech support" for my parents, the widow of an old family friend, and my and my wife's laptops and desktops. There are paid alternatives to TeamViewer, who have pricing to accommodate my sort of use, but none of them approach the quality. performance and dependability of TeamViewer. Just a terrific product and a terrific company.
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Ok, I tried connecting to my sister-in-law's machine today, and whoa, it's working now. I had already received the email saying that my ids had been whitelisted and I had even restarted my machine and her machine, did not work. Again, today, it worked so not sure if there was a delay from the time I received the email and the ids being whitelisted.
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@borisattva Did it give you the message that the form has been submitted successfully?
@ejtorres Did it meanwhile work? There were some connectivity issues yesterday as you can see on our status page. Maybe it was at the same time you tried to log in? Can you test it again?
@mmcpher Thanks for your feedback! Always nice to read that TeamViewer helped you to make your and your families' lives easier. However - if you want or need a license for your father's work. Did you think about the Remote Access license instead of the Business version? Check out this one: https://www.teamviewer.com/en/content/remote-work/ Check out whether the features are enough for his needs.
@DadCobra Thanks for your feedback and for keeping us updated on the process! Always good to see people coming back and giving a heads-up! And yes - maybe there was a delay, but the important part is that it is working now.
Former Community Manager
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I have been through the entire reset process 3 TIMES, listed both computers, etc., including receiving the confirmation email. Makes absolutely no difference: as soon as I try to connect--the very first try, the Commercial Use **bleep**'s are on me with the same stupidly incorrect dialog box about suspected commercial use appears. (And by the way, the time-out is consistently about 15-20 seconds, not "5 minutes".) @Esther Is this just absolutely hopeless?? Is there no way to wake up a live person to the insanity of this???
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@Esther I am STILL getting the 504 bad gateway error. I have used 2 different machines and I have tried firefox and edge. The odd thing is that I actually made it to the point where I could actually produce the PDF document to sign, which I did. But because the timoeout is so short, by the time I was able to print it out, sign it, scan it, and go back in to upload it, the site timed out on me. NOW I get the 504 bad gateway. Which means, IF I actually can get past that error, I will have to go through the entire process yet again. There has GOT to be an easier way to do this. The timing of these errors are between 15:5g-16:20g. Not sure why this is happening to me. Sounds like many others are at least able to submit their forms. NEED HELP PLEASE. This has been going on for weeks. Thankl you.
Addendum, I tried it again on my PC with firefox and actually made it to upload and submit my form....Then I got a gateway error. This was around 16:32g on 11/30. The inconsistency makes this even more frustrating
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I have been using TeamViewer for personal use for nearly 12 years. Now I get blocked for suspected commercial use. I use TV to help friends and family only. I never charged a fee or got paid for helping. Most friends or family I help are in their 70's and 80's. Now I cannot connect to help them. Nice move there TemViewer! I have put in my plea for unblocking, but have not heard anything in nearly a week. I am losing faith in TeamViewer.
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Hi TeamViewer Community - this is more for me to vent to the community and Teamviewer on my way out the door than to solve any particular issue. I'm way beyond wanting to work with TV anymore because frankly it shouldn't be this difficult. TV used to be the "go to" tool but just because you've been around for a while, doesn't mean you are the best there is on the market. I have 1 computer at home. I use that computer for private support for my elderly parents and have been doing that successfully for several years. I also now (thanks to COVID) use that same computer for intermittent work from home since my employer does not provide equipment for me to do so. I do not use TV for work but apparently that doesn't matter. TV has changed their mission and is pandering to a different audience now. That's their perogative.
I've switched to a tool called "third party product", which works fine and accomplishes my goal to support my parents remotely. I suggest if you find this blog thread and all the swirl around the "new and improved" TV stressful and cumbersome, just jump ship. They simply aren't the only game in town anymore. I, for one, will be closing my account and moving on. If you feel the same, I suggest you do the same. Stay safe everyone!
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Hi Teamviewer team, thanks for providing this post and forum for us non-commercial users to provide feedback about this process.
First off I understand the need for commercial use detection. It comes with the reality that a company like this need to make some money off their service and should be compensated for their service. On that note, I would consider paying for some limited service level to use for aiding my family, perhaps on some per use payment or some other arrangement. But unfortunately the current licenses are not within the realm of "elderly parental support".
That said, the commercial use detection system seems a bit overzealous and ever worse is that the reset process seems buggy at best.
Like many others I'm trying to resolve the "commercial use suspected" behavior on my Teamviewer installation. I'm trying to play completely by the books here. I've attempted to reset my license a couple times now, and both experiences have been very frustrating. The website throws 504 error's, the PDF upload is never actually confirmed, it just stalls. After enough attempts to upload the PDF, and page refreshes I got the notice that "my request has been submitted is pending further review". The first time I did this, I never received any information or follow up. Eventually I just gave up and waited a month or so, and now I'm back at it again.
If the reset process can be improved, I think most of the problems would be resolved.
Is there anyway we can help to improve the reset process? Please feel free to contact me if you would like discuss further.
Thanks!
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@parentalsupport To help us debugging this, would you mind sharing the information: Where are you located (country)? What date/time did the error appear?
Former Community Manager
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@Esther sure I will PM you the details
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Hi
it saying I'm a business and I don't have a business. pc I'm on is my personal computer and I'm helping my friends with their pc who has disabilities
Please help I hope someone can tell me how to fix this.
thanks,
Matt F.
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I have a question about such cases, and firstly I want to say this is a true story.
My sister have husband, who use TeamViewer to help his old parents.
They have single PrivateHomeComputer.
My sister work in CityHall, and as we have Covid Pandemia she started using PrivateHomeComputer to connect via cisco vpn client to CityHall infrastructure and work via MS RDP.
Few times CityHall IT Specialist using TeamViewer with commercial licence connect to my sister PrivateHomeComputer.
Few times even I (using my corparate TV licence) help my sister in some problems with his PrivateHomeComputer.
I could also imagine that my sister can also take help from other LOCAL IT HELP CENTERS.
As you can see she was using TeamViewer few times to GET HELP from properly licenced ITSpecialist .
My brother-in-law, during his connection from PrivateHomeComputer to his parents, as for now he has not told me yet about the problem (commercial licence suspection).
Here is my question:
How much Incoming Commercial connection to PrivateHomeComputer varry on suspecting commercial usage in case when PrivateHomeComputer try to connect to ParentsHomeComputer ?
Regards,
mLipok , AutoIt MVP0 -
november 2014, I purchased a Premium and forever licence. I paid US$ 1,500.00. I hoped to be using, that expensive licence, for a long time, but a year later was released the version 11 and then began my problems, becase many users had version and I could not access those PCs, and they had to remove the version 11 and reinstall the version 10, and the same problem with the version 12, 13 and so forht. Since the version 15 was released, those PCs running this version could no acces thos PCs using the version 10. In others words, my expensive Premium License was almost inusual and I've facing a lot of trouble to connect with the PCs with the new versions. Even, PCs running Window Server 2016 and above, neither runs the version 10 and there is not any patch to update and be able to access the servers running window 2016.
Then that means I have not useful licence, nonetheless I paid a lifetime licence. And the opcions that Teamviers offers to me si so expensive and inconvenient that seriuosly I've thinking FORGET Teamviewer, accept I was cheated becasue my expensive paid licence was not lifetime. Thats, actually is a fraud and must exists any that protect the agreement with the consumer. I Teamviewer is goign the change the rules, shoul give our money back.
I am very dissapointed with them.
Angel Dario Rodriguez
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november 2014, I purchased a Premium and forever licence. I paid US$ 1,500.00. I hoped to be using, that expensive licence, for a long time, but a year later was released the version 11 and then began my problems, becase many users had version and I could not access those PCs, and they had to remove the version 11 and reinstall the version 10, and the same problem with the version 12, 13 and so forht. Since the version 15 was released, those PCs running this version could no acces thos PCs using the version 10. In others words, my expensive Premium License was almost inusual and I've facing a lot of trouble to connect with the PCs with the new versions. Even, PCs running Window Server 2016 and above, neither runs the version 10 and there is not any patch to update and be able to access the servers running window 2016.
Then that means I have not useful licence, nonetheless I paid a lifetime licence. And the opcions that Teamviers offers to me si so expensive and inconvenient that seriuosly I've thinking FORGET Teamviewer, accept I was cheated becasue my expensive paid licence was not lifetime. Thats, actually is a fraud and must exists any that protect the agreement with the consumer. I Teamviewer is goign the change the rules, shoul give our money back.
I am very dissapointed with them.
Angel Dario Rodriguez
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