CopySafe DRM Portal

Current server time: 2024-11-20 22:24

Digital Rights Management (DRM) for eBooks and PDF documents

Media Rights Management

The most secure document and video protection on the planet.

Ebook User-Guide : Troubleshooting

Understanding the Validation Process
	How it works DRM validation failure Common reasons for failure Failure to receive server responses Unauthorized for Virtual Analyzing document statistics

How It Works

When DRM is applied to a document the CopySafe PDF Reader will request permission from the DRM Portal for the user's right to open the document every time that the document is opened for a new session. When the Reader requests permission there will be two (2) data transmissions:

The Reader sends the user's Computer ID and Document ID to the DRM server.
The server will respond by returning an appropriate response depending on the user and document status.

If either data transmission is interrupted or prevented the sequence will not be completed and the user will fail to get permission to open the document.

DRM Validation Failure

When a user reports that they cannot open a document, you as the admin need to narrow down what the possible causes might be and the user simply reporting that "it doesn't work" is totally useless. So always encourage the user to be as descriptive as possible by explaining at what stage the failure or error occurred, what the error or response message was and especially which document so that you check your usage logs, group and the permissions applied to that document.

In most cases troubleshooting a validation failure is a process of elimination and its early success depends on the information provided by the user and what you can learn from your logs.

Common Reasons for Failure

The following causes are listed in no particular order of occurrence:

User was not connected to the Internet.
The document or the user account has expired.
The document or user account has been suspended.
User is not a member of the group sharing the document.
User does not have eBook permission to access the document.
User was detected as using a "remote" connection which was not allowed.
The permission request was either not sent or not received.

The first thing to check is the reason that this user should have access, ie: is their access rights bestowed by "group permissions" or "ebook permissions". Unless they have been white-listed for use of the document then they will need either Group or Ebook permissions for the right to open the document.

Checking your Stats page will show all requests for all of your documents. All requests for your documents are logged so that you can check the date, time, which user, which IP address and the response that was sent back to the CopySafe PDF Reader.

Failure to Receive Server Responses

If the send or receive of data between the user and the server fails, it will be due to interference. The requests and responses sent to the DRM server uses port 80 which is the most commonly used port for web traffic so the failure in either direction will be due to one of the following:

Firewall - some network administrators suffer paranoia and stifle network traffic.
Anti-virus software - some are not friendly and give no option to allow a program to run.
Limited user account - the account using the computer has limited permissions to use programs.

Determining if the server response failed is quite easy... if the user's request for the document appears in your stats, than it means that the request was sent and received by the server, so no problem there. But if the stats show that access was granted yet the user reports that they could not open the document, then the response was blocked for one of the reasons above.

Remedying a response failure may require that the anti-virus software be shut down*. Firewall is rarely the issue unless you are on a corporate network. Limited user rights can be improved by starting the CopySafe PDF Reader by using "Run as Administrator".

* A recent survey of retail IT stores showed 4 well-known AV packages on display, none of which are recommended for anyone using software that was not included with Windows or software not provided by Microsoft. In fact Microsoft provides better anti-virus software for free... look for "Microsoft Security Essentials".

Unauthorized for Virtual

This means that the user has been detected using a virtual computer, ie: running Windows in a virtual partition or while running Remote Assistance or a Remote Desktop Connection. By default "remote viewing" is nor permitted. However if you need to provide access to DRM documents for remote users you can change the "remote" setting in document properties. Please note that enabling Remote View can enable a use to screen capture and record your document which is why it is not recommended.

Analyzing Document Statistics

Authors can analyze ebook stats to arrive at the problem.

Click for more info about validation failure.

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