TeamViewer thinks I’m using the software commercially!

[Closed account]

I am getting following message when I am trying to get connected from my home private computer to another private computer. I want to use the free version. Any idea, how the problem can be solved?

[vitinholima2001]

Hello. I'm having trouble using my TeamViewer account, that detected commercial use, however this is not true. My main use is with family members who need assistance. How can I solve this?

[vice86]

what did Teamviewer change that sooooo many free users are now getting this false positive? 

[bhowes]

I got a warning - all I did was take an old mac pro and connect to it and it said commercial use detected (not suspected). On my home network with my home machines!

[kgonepostl]

I just got my laptop flagged upstairs on a laptop over our home wifi. Here's the deal guys. They are banking on not helping you. They're hoping you get so desperate that you buy their corporate liscense. They are 100% doing this on purpose in my opinion. How are you gonna flag my laptop that's upstairs? Simple, they are greedy and want your money!!

[vice86]

If they charged 5.00/month or something, i could see that but no one's gonna think "oh well, i might as well [The price has been removed as per the community guidelines]" when there's other free options. I think there's a screw up on their end that they're just not owning up to.

EDIT: Wow, they censor the word that's used to describe how you install a lightbulb into a socket...sc**w 

[kgonepostl]

What's more likely. The fact that they are a business, and are doing this on purpose, for more money. Or that they are working hard at fixing this problem for free users?? I'm sorry, I respectfully disagree with that notion. It's been an issue for quite a while. Occam's razor

[icoskey]

Same issue.  I support my in-laws and parents who are technology challenged.  I am using TeamViewer for business purposes.  I am getting the "Commercial Use detected" error.  How can I stop this error?

[April1904]

I'm using teamviews for personal, but I always got kick out from teamviews with a reason time out session .... what can I do ?

[rbmoving]

When I attempt to start a session with another it displays something like you are allotted 5 min Duration...you cannot connect (it shows a time)....

It might have displayed something about commercial use....not sure; my installed Version displays FREE LICENSE-NON-COOMERIAL USE ONLY..and so does the other persons installed Copy.  I went ahead and uninstalled my version...and re-installed TV14...checked PERSONAL USE ONLY.....so did the other person....

Todays date 8/31/19...does anyone know if this is a TeamViewer Server Issue?  I don't know what esle to try; thought New Installs might resolve, but it did not....

[vice86]

3 days since being "fixed" i'm getting commercial use flag again...lol. Teamviewer stinks.

[duderonomy]

That's good customer focus.

Run don't walk toward the exits!

[vice86]

I've given up on TV and use **Third Party Product** now. I was just curious to see how long .my free usage would last after being fixed. 3 whole days lol

[duderonomy]

It was very useful info to share. I am grateful for your post. It helps us know that we made the right decision. Take care and good luck!

[Joas_alc]

I got the same message for my laptop and my phone. Can somebody help me?

[vice86]

You have to waste your time filling out this >> https://www.teamviewer.com/en/support/commercial-use-suspected/

only for the flag to come back a few days later.

[Joas_alc]

Thank you very much!

[ssybesma]

It seemed that way for me for a while and then within a couple weeks all the notices finally stopped. They never tell you when they fix anything...you just find out. I made sure to provide them a list of ALL my machines names and IDs (not just the ones I saw the notices on). They can't seem to tell a business user from a hole in the ground. I only use TV on my home machines and occasionally those of my family to remote in and fix issues with them. All personal use. Never commercial use.

[vice86]

Hmm that may be my issue. I gave them one ID thinking both PCs have the same ID. Will look again.

[ssybesma]

Yeah, I figured give them info on all the machines, because sometimes it's hard to figure which machine is generating the complaint. It could be all of them, or just some of them. I noticed also if you ever run TeamViewer on a VM it will automatically give you that error and you have to beg them to exclude that also. When they do add the exception for the VM, you need to track the MAC address of that VMs network adapter to make sure it never changes (so you can change back to the original if needed). Changing a MAC address changes the TeamViewer ID (or rather, will require changing the ID) and you start that problem over again. I ran into that once.

[attorney]

What is so frustrating is it is inconsistent. I ran team viewer on the virtual machine for a long time because it made it simpler for me I ran a VM inside of my disk drive because I wanted to be able to access my files and I didn’t have any problem with that. But the minute I ran it on Ubuntu because I was curious how that worked well that immediately triggered a problem that never went away. I’ve given them all of the different IDs of all of my machine and it didn’t seem to matter. The bottom line is they don’t really support private use.

And I would respect that if they would be open about that but this cloak and dagger maybe it works maybe it doesn’t and you will only find out when you need it and it doesn’t work, that has forced me to switch to other choices like the remote option built into *** Third Party Product*** etc. They’re not as good but they work and you won’t get caught needing it and not having it.

[ssybesma]

My theory is that TV uses mainly the MAC address to identify the machine that's being connected to. It can also identify the OS separately and that's why you will get the notice if running a server OS. If either the MAC address or the OS (or both) changes, then basically you have to get a new TeamViewer ID. I'm pretty sure I got an exemption on a VM once when I submitted the information for it to them. Thing is that each VM you create will give a different MAC address. If you're in Virtualbox and switch to or create a different VM, you get a different MAC address and that means you get a different TeamViewer ID. Once the TV ID on a VM is set as 'personal use' in their database and you don't use it to connect to a commercial-use machine or vice versa, you should be good to go permanently as long neither the MAC address nor the OS change. A word about MAC addresses generated by Virtualbox...since the first three octets of the MAC address (called the OUI) identify the manufacturer of the network adapter, I believe that will always trigger the notice from TeamViewer and that's why you have to get each of those VMs exempted. Anyone who knows better than this is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that's close to the truth. The 'manufacturer' (08:00:27) that Virtualbox uses for its MAC addresses according to the OUI database is CADMUS COMPUTER SYSTEMS which is long out of business and may have been purchased by DEC. It seems TeamViewer flags all of those it sees.

[Glassdub]

Nope, I flip the mac address on my notebook several times a night if this was the case I could log on without this issue.

[ssybesma]

You have to fill out their form with your name, machine's name and TeamViewer ID and wait at least a week and they should remove the restriction on your machine. Total pain, I know.

[ssybesma]

Fill out the form to get ALL of your machines exempted from their false positive. You have to do ALL of your machines at once or you will be playing whack-a-mole. If ANY machine appears as commercial use, you violate even by connecting to it from a machine that was previously deemed to be personal use, then that previously personal use machine can technically get stuck with the commercial use restriction also.

[vice86]

---

@attorney wrote:
What is so frustrating is it is inconsistent. I ran team viewer on the virtual machine for a long time because it made it simpler for me I ran a VM inside of my disk drive because I wanted to be able to access my files and I didn’t have any problem with that. But the minute I ran it on Ubuntu because I was curious how that worked well that immediately triggered a problem that never went away. I’ve given them all of the different IDs of all of my machine and it didn’t seem to matter. The bottom line is they don’t really support private use.

And I would respect that if they would be open about that but this cloak and dagger maybe it works maybe it doesn’t and you will only find out when you need it and it doesn’t work, that has forced me to switch to other choices like the remote option built into ***Third Party Product*** etc. They’re not as good but they work and you won’t get caught needing it and not having it.

---

I find ***Third Party Product*** a good alternative. Just can't copy from desktop to remote desktop without paying a yearly fee for **Third Party Product**.

[ssybesma]

Yep, you can't make any change to it or else TeamViewer sees it as a completely new machine with another red-flagged MAC address. If you want to use another one you'll have to go through that hoop all over again. I assume you're using Virtualbox for the VM or are you using VMWare? I think they both have the same problem but thing about Virtualbox is that it never registered the MAC address range that it uses, at least that anyone knows of.

[rodspc]

I got an email said it had been reset to free. Guess what.... first time I use it got the same **bleep** ...commercial use. I replied to the email and have yet to get a response.

[DanLester]

OK, I tried to do this, and got hung up with this

Where the **bleep** is the recaptcha???

----------------

Later edit: ah, what they don't tell you is that you need to be using Chrome. Firefox won't show that recaptcha. Real **bleep**er.

[jtalstad]

Same experience and question here...

[DanLester]

OK, having figured out that you needed to use Chrome to fill out the form in https://www.teamviewer.com/en/support/commercial-use-suspected/

I registered my complaint and got a message saying they would look into it. We shall see. In the meantime, [removed per Community Guidelines] Nothing really making me want to stay with TeamViewer, given this "Commercial use Suspected" trash.

[johnzageek]

Teamviewer is getting lamer by the day

[vice86]

The censoring is useless if your subscribed to the topic. We get alerts of new messages and it shows what's said before the censor

[johnzageek]

Since when has a community of users become outlaw's. What a croc of **BLEEP**...

[picard80]

Teamviewer is actively trying to get rid of user who do not pay for a commercial license. Instead of simply admitting it, they enforce these stupid pop-ups.

[DanLester]

You know, in it's day, TeamViewer was da king. It was fantastic in that it offered the oportunity to leanover someone's shoulder working on their computer. But there are many good options now to do that that don't fall back on "Commercial use Suspected". TeamViewer does have some nice features, though.

Hard to rant about a community of users that have become outlaws. I don't pay TeamViewer anything. They are generous to let me use their system for free. I'm getting something for nothing, which could make me an outlaw. But I'd at least like to be treated consistently.

[cobalt503]

I'm looking into alternatives right now because I am tired of this nonsense. I've been a loyal fan of teamviewer and if they had a reasonable price for one time purchase I would totally buy it. Or even a 30$/ year license I could get behind for my personal use. But 50$ a month is stupid rediculous when there are at least 5 options for free. 

[rbmoving]

[removed per Community Guidelines] seems to me it is a waste of time to fill out the form to get a wrongful identified acct changed to personal when in days it just goes back to commercial.. Sounds to me this is a detection software poorly designed and implemented that is inpropely determining Commercial use of the software.  I use it for personal only, guessing the last time I used it other than yesterday when I got the Duration Time notification...was abiut 6 weeks ago.  

[DanLester]

Wish I could, but the TeamViewer Community website is tuned not to let you list commercial products - [removed per Community Guidelines] Both are free, but you can buy more sophisticated options on the latter, which I don't need. There are others as well.

I have all three engaged in my system, so I can have confidence that, whatever happens, I'll be able to get through.

[wraythompson]

Exactly the same issue with me and Teamviewer does not respond. I guess they now want to generate revenue from personal use. Only thing I changed was my ISP

[AlenaC]

Hello everyone,

thanks for your posts. We are sorry to hear that you are still unable to use TeamViewer.

If you did get the confirmation that your ID was reset, please remember that it could be necessary to restart TeamViewer.

If you are still not able to connect that means, that the remote side is the one flagged as "commercial use" and then the next step would be to send us the request also for the remote device.

Note:  please note that when you submit the form, it is only for a single ID. That means that if you want to reset several IDs, we need ONE FORM for EACH ID. Please see the form here: www.teamviewer.com/reset 

Please note that this is fully explained in our article: Why do I see 'Commercial use suspected' / 'Commercial use detected' 

Best, Alena

[nobu]

Thank you, but it did not work for me.

I tried everything. Both TVs are updated, I got even the "set to free confirmation" for my parents, i reinstalled the TVs after cleaning every trace of it, i even tried the portable version of TV.

I allways get immediately the kommercial use claim and the 5 min limit but then get thrown out after only 20 seconds. 

My parents would even pay but not as much and not for an application with defect licensing.

Is there realy no hope and no one responsible? No one to turn to?

[rbmoving]

In my opinion, this issue casts a very poor image of TV...poor treatment of customers service, poor image of something they employed that should properly detect Commercial users and it is not.....poor design and implementation from a company who should be highly sophisticated when it comes to software.  It is clear many of us have been wrongfully accused of using TV for commercial use. Fill out a form, maybe TV agrees you are not using the Software for commercial use, wait a week or more for maybe a response, than others who got the response have written here that after only a few days get ID'ed as a commercial user again...then complete yet another form....it nothing more than making lots of people talk about TV in a very negative way.  Shame on TV....this treatment is unexcusable...and the service provided...gets a D(-)

[kfsutops]

I go the dreaded message today out of the blue. Been using the software for years now connecting to one computer, using one computer. Never used it for more than one computer. 

I understand the need to potentially catch people using your software outside the scope of design but really. I use it for one computer so I don't have to go upstairs. 

The bad part is nobody can really answer why TV declares it's commercial use. Shady and I will no longer recommend this product. 

[rbmoving]

I can write negative comments...and when things I hope are made right...I will always write Positive comments in Thanks.  Coincident or not, in about 12 hours from my earlier Posting of today expressing my disappointment with TV as recognized me as a commercial User when that was not so...I got the form email from TV advising I was no longer identified as a Commercial User.  I had also sent the form 3 days ago that is available in this form....so was it my Post or the form...and does it even matter...TV thus far has made it right.  I have read where others who got this same email...no longer recognized as a Commercial user...only to be recognized as a Commercial User again. 

I want to Thank TV for resolved my issue, removing the Commercial User status...and it is my hope that TV is using my findings as well as others to Tweak whatever monitoring software is in use to identify those that are using TV Commercially to the harm and disadvantage of those of us who are using TV honestly...for personal use.

Again; thank you TV......after getting your email I did connect with my sister for a few seconds and that popup Notification about durations, etc...did not appear.  I hope it remains in the Free License (Non Commercial use Only) Status  

[vice86]

It took them 10 days to finally fix my account but I appreciate it. There's other options but I'm just used to TeamViewer and I like it. Only thing is I didn't know I had to report each ID, so while one PC is good for free use, my other is still flagged. I filled out the form again for the other ID. Now I just wait for them to set that to free and I'll be good to go :)

So far 6 days in on the fixed ID and no false flags yet like some are getting after the fix. 

[tankhimo]

I restarted service and the entire PC. Still shows "trial expired". Is it a bug in version 14?

[iouiou]

i need to be set back to a free user cant find ticket used it the other day and phone number hangs up when I hit I have free account can I get an message so I can send the right user id

[bigolebear]

i have used the free version for years helping friends and family. today TV believes im using it for commercial use. any ideas how to resolve this?

[halani]

I have the same **bleep** problem from my personal mobile phone to my personal desktop. This is Irritating. I spoke with someone from TeamViewer and they wanted me to pay [The price has been removed as per the community guidelines.] a year to allow the connection.

**bleep** that and **bleep** TeamViewer. I have been trying to find an alternative without any luck.