Error: "Cannot locate licence information"

This support note applies to:

AO Classic Tax (AU)
AO Classic Practice Management (AU)
AO Classic General Ledger (AU)
AO Classic (NZ)

Article ID: 23970

You may experience this error in a number of scenarios. Refer to the following scenarios for the recommended resolutions.

You experience the error opening Accountants Office for the first time. In this situation install the licence as per the instructions on the email you received with the file. If you are unable to install your licence file successfully, please refer to Installing my licence file

You experience the error when re-installing Accountants Office onto a new computer. In this situation, ensure that you have restored the data from a backup.

When opening Accountants Office, after having been able to access the application. This can occur if the value the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CA-Systems\Accountants Office\Datapath is pointing to the wrong folder. This can occur if you lose connection to the server. Ensure that the correct Data value is entered and for a workstation on a network - ensure that the network connection is active.

This article contains information about modifying the Registry. Please contact your Network Administrator or IT Technician if you are unfamiliar with Registry Editor. Please refer to Important information for making registry edits and file changes

Before you modify the Registry, make sure you back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information on how to back up, restore, and edit the Registry, refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base article Back up the registry.

The folder name of where the Accountants Office data is located is stored within the Registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CA-Systems\Accountants Office\Datapath.

Each time you start Accountants Office, the program will check to see if the licence file exists within the folder named in the above Registry key.

To identify the correct Data Path

Perform the following on a working workstation.

Open MYOB Accountants Office (AO) on a working workstation. Accountants Office opens.
From the Help menu, select About MYOB Accountants Office. The About MYOB Accountants Office window opens.
Note the Data Directory and close AO. AO is closed.

To update the Registry key

From the Start menu select Run. The Run window appears.
Type regedit and click OK. The Registry Editor window appears.
Navigate to:
32 bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CA-SYSTEMS\
64 bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\CA-SYSTEMS\Accountants Office
The registry key displays.
Double-click on the Datapath key. The Edit String window appears.
Change the folder name in the Value Data field to match the value of the Data Directory in Help > About MYOB Accountants Office and press ENTER. The value is updated.
Click Close on the Registry Editor window. The value of the Datapath key updates.

You can now restart Accountants Office and the message should no longer appear.

If you get a message saying that the directory does not exist when you restart Accountants Office, please check the value of the Datapath again in the Registry. If the syntax of the folder named in the Datapath is incorrect, you will not be able access to Accountants Office.

MYOB INTERNAL STAFF ONLY

The error message "Cannot locate licence information" appears when there is no instance of the licence file within the Data folder named in the above registry key.

For existing systems DO NOT double click on the *.MYL

Further information:

Network Installation
If you start Accountants Office on a workstation that is unable to connect to the network drive, the program will revert to looking for the data in a folder on the local drive, C:\. This is common on a peer to peer network where the workstations have been started before the workstation/server, and the network drive mappings have not been established before a user has tried to start Accountants Office.

There are two ways of finding where the Accountants Office Data is stored:

Login to another workstation where Accountants Office is running, and locate the Data Directory via the Help menu then About MYOB Accountants Office then click Application Details. Once you have identified the Data Directory, advise them to write down this value and return to the workstation where they are getting the error.
Note: if you are unable to login to another workstation, use the Windows Search utility to look for any instances of the MYOBPS.MYL file on their network drives. The folder name where the file is located will appear next to each instance of the MYOBPS.MYL file found.
Identify the value of the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/CA-Systems/Accountants Office on another workstation. Take note of the Data value of Datapath and return to the workstation where you are getting the error.

Note: Before altering the Registry settings, check that the network drive is accessible via Windows Explorer. If it isn't, you will need to reboot the workstation. If the network drive is still not visible or the icon for the network drive has a red cross through it, this means that the drive mapping needs to be reconfigured, or there is a possible hardware problem, eg. faulty network card or cable. Until the network drive becomes accessible, you will not be able to gain access to Accountants Office.