What is Grace Mode?
In the event an Aiir product is not licensed correctly, Grace Mode will be enabled. This doesn't restrict any features but displays a warning banner asking you to let your station manager or accounts team know to contact accounts@aiir.com and resolve an outstanding issue.
Grace Mode is automatically enabled at the end of your product's current license. For PlayoutONE, licenses are renewed automatically and managed through the Monitor application. For Aiir websites, mobile apps and other digital services, Grace Mode will show a warning banner to all users at the top of the Aiir platform dashboard.
After several weeks in Grace Mode, your product may stop working entirely, so it's important that someone from the station's management team contacts our Accounts Department as soon as possible, which will work to fix the issue.
On this page, we'll outline some of the potential causes of Grace Mode and how they can be resolved.
Your product is unlicensed
Grace Mode will be enabled at the end of a station's license period to use PlayoutONE or Aiir's digital services. If you see Grace Mode warnings, the product is currently unlicensed. If you wish to continue using it, ask your station management to contact accounts@aiir.com.
Licenses can lapse for multiple reasons, all easily fixed, but the most common cause is that one or more Aiir invoices have passed their due date. We try to prevent this by giving plenty of notice before invoices are due.
If your station's main point of contact has changed, make sure you keep Aiir up-to-date to avoid issues like these by contacting accounts@aiir.com.
Once your station's account is in good standing, Grace Mode warnings will no longer be shown and your product will continue working without interruption.
If you notice your product has entered Grace Mode, please notify your station management as soon as possible. Our accounts team cannot resolve licensing issues outside their working hours, which aren't necessarily the same as our support hours. Getting in contact at the earliest opportunity ensures your station's use of the software remains uninterrupted.
Monitor is not running
PlayoutONE and its suite of applications are licensed centrally from Monitor - usually on your main server. Rather than having multiple applications trying to interface with our licensing server, doing it centrally via Monitor allows us to reduce the load on your network.
However, if Monitor isn't running or a PlayoutONE application on your network cannot communicate with it, the application will have no way of knowing whether it is licensed.
You should know which machine on your network is responsible for updating and issuing licenses. Make sure it is working correctly with Monitor open and other PCs can connect to it.
Ensure your system date/time is set correctly
An incorrect system time affects not only scheduling and logs but also licensing. As licenses are issued for a set period of time and renewed automatically, it's important your PC remains set to the present time.
Jumping too far into the future could make your software think its license has lapsed as the one for the time it believes it currently is has not yet been issued.
After several weeks in Grace Mode, your use of the product will be suspended:
- PlayoutONE will not open or play items from the log
- Websites, apps, and skills will display a generic error to visitors, indicating that the service is unavailable.
If your account is not in good standing after a month, your product risks being cancelled due to non-payment and any data hosted by Aiir permanently deleted.