Are they on a VM? If so, tell them to put the TFS on a real machine. TFS on VMs is not supported.
Is a local firewall blocking services from connecting to certain websites (and/or doing other nonsense like blocking TLS, etc., etc.)?
turbofloat server reactivation fails through service, but works on command line
We have customer where the turbofloat server activation fails through the windows service, but works when manually executed on the command line. The admin on customer side is a seasoned IT professional and he has checked certificates, no group policies that prohibit windows service from reaching out, no firewall issues. So out of frustration he has set a task scheduler to run turbofloatserver -a “ABCD-” manually. But he is demanding a fix.
version: 4.4.4.0
Windows Server 2019
Error from log.txt
2022-07-15, 13:26:52 <notification>: Successfully re-verified the license with the activation servers. 2022-07-16, 13:27:16 <error>: This TurboFloat Server is not activated anymore - exiting immediately. (Error code: 0x24).
You must activate this TurboFloat Server via commandline like this: TurboFloatServer.exe -a="ABCDE-FGHIJ-KLMNO-PQRST"
2022-07-18, 09:50:54 <notification>: Auto-detected 32 CPU cores; creating a thread pool that large. 2022-07-18, 09:50:54 <error>: Not activated (error code: 0x3). You must activate this TurboFloat Server via commandline like this: TurboFloatServer.exe -a="ABCDE-FGHIJ-KLMNO-PQRST"
They are not on a VM. It is a real physical machine.
No firewall blocking, it even works off the command line and task scheduler.
Much more information is needed. We cannot reproduce this. A properly configured “vanilla” Windows Server 2019 installation, TFS successfully re-verifies with the servers.
My guess is mis-configured registry, group policies, certificates, TLS policy, or all of the above.
But, if it's a genuine bug in TFS we need enough information to reproduce this.