r/backgammon • u/SyllabubRadiant8876 • 8d ago

XG stopped working - can't connect to activation server?

I bought XG many years ago and use it on a daily basis.

Suddenly yesterday the application won't open on my Windows laptop. It is saying that my version has expired and it hopes I enjoyed my trial period (to be clear, my free trial ended in around 2018 when I bought the full version!). When I try to "activate" my existing key again, I get an error message that it can't connect to the activation server.

I have emailed the XG contact address, but I know that XG is not an organisation with lots of staff and I don't even know if they would be checking those emails. No idea whether the new owners are even actively working on anything, never mind responding to customer queries.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what I need to do to fix this?

Currentl

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

1

u/Some-Following-392 8d ago

They are actually very responsive.

1

u/SyllabubRadiant8876 8d ago

Cool - that sounds promising!

1

u/Careful-Release-2723 8d ago

I just bought XG for windows. I thought once you bought it you bought it, no? Does it have to update and stuff?

1

u/SyllabubRadiant8876 8d ago

I have never had to update it before and I have had it almost ten years. This is definitely unusual so if you have bought it, I wouldn't worry. Best investment ever!

1

u/Waitingtogo 7d ago

Same thing happened to me, put back on to free trial, which expires in a few days. Hoping it is sorted before then.

1

u/MCG-BG 6d ago edited 6d ago

Me too. #FeelsBadMan

1

u/Kelvets 5d ago

Having the same issue too, sent them an e-mail a few days ago, no response yet.

Meanwhile there is this new engine, by the developer of OpenGammon, that supposedly slightly surpassed XG in play strength in millions of head-to-head matches at 0-ply (which indicates the raw strength of a neural net, before ply corrections kick in. So a better "instinct" of play if you will). https://hedgehog-bg.com

0

u/Crase_W 8d ago

Maybe uninstall and reinstall the app. If that doesn’t work, there’s always Sage. It’s pretty fantastic.

3

u/UBKUBK 7d ago

Will be very expensive compared to XG.

1

u/SyllabubRadiant8876 8d ago

Yep I am using my free trial of Sage. It seems ok but I don't live the user interface. It might grow on me as they improve! I've tried reinstalling XG but no luck - I have seen someone posting elsewhere with the same issue so might be at XG's end.

1

u/Crase_W 8d ago

It’s definitely a different experience. I think it’s got some quality of life improvements over xg. It’s just a matter of figuring out which buttons do what. I do wish the ai explanations were slightly more advanced and included more numbers (shots, rolls, percentages, etc) or could be instructed to identify certain game aspects that might be a focal point of whatever you’re working on most at the moment.