Purchased from Mac App Store but keeps asking to buy now or continue trial

[MarcusM]

I purchased Designer 2 on the Mac app store after starting a free trial but every time I open the app it says continue trial or buy now, as seen in the screenshot below, and the restore purchases button at the bottom is completely unresponsive.

I've been charged £35.99 and it shows in my purchase history on the App Store.

[walt.farrell]

Try Buy Now. It may at that point recognize you've already purchased, and let you continue.

That worked for me on an iPad.

[pblft]

Same problem on macOS, anyone have a solution?

[Stanley]

I tried Buy Now. It tried to take the money from my card again. Luckily I didn't have enough funds.

Ignore the above. I think I was wrong.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Stanley
Correct the post

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, Stanley said:

I tried Buy Now. It tried to take the money from my card again. Luckily I didn't have enough funds.

Thanks. For me it found my purchase when I did that.

[wolfii]

Have the same problem on my Macbook Pro M1. Tried the "purchase again and hope that it recognizes that I already bought" approach up to the point where it started verifying my credit card. At that point I aborted the process.

To me it especially looks like the restore purchases section (see below) of the start screen is without function.

According to the reviews in the app store other buyers seem to have the same problem which lead to poor ratings in the german app store (2 stars at the moment).

Serif Labs, please help and maybe put a note in the App store.

Thanks a lot

Wolfgang

 

[walt.farrell]

Perhaps this answer will help. It has some specific steps to take:

 

[MarcusM]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Perhaps this answer will help. It has some specific steps to take:

 

Thanks for the suggestions but it still isn't recognising my purchase. Seems a lot of people are having this issue on the Mac app store

[Stanley]

18 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

On 11/12/2022 at 3:05 PM, Stanley said:

I tried Buy Now. It tried to take the money from my card again. Luckily I didn't have enough funds.

Thanks. For me it found my purchase when I did that.

Walt. I’ve thought about this. Probably what I said earlier was wrong. I now think Apple checks for funds before the last window when you can approve the purchase or not. And it seems you have to get to this last window before it will recognise a previous purchase.

I edited my original quote to say to ignore it.

[GaryB1]

I have exactly the same issue with a single app purchase (not universal licence) of Affinity photo 2. Paid Apple via the in-app purchase system and have received the invoice, but still can’t open the app. It gets stuck at the “Activate”, “Start a free trial”, “Buy a licence” screen. The Serif website actually states that you don’t have to register/activate the app with them, if you buy a single license from a third-party such as Apple or Microsoft- but it seems that that isn’t the case. Are we certain that if you follow the steps to buy a new license, we won’t actually be charged twice? I’m already out £36, I don’t want to make it £72.

I have to say I’m really disappointed in Serif, this app release has been botched and they are nowhere to be seen “sorry we are receiving a lot of calls”… essentially, “you’re own your own, but thanks for the cash”. I also noticed that they had locked the thread where they were advertising the new versions of the apps, because users were posting about all of the problems and spoiling Serif’s marketing. Very poor. 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide

Edited November 13, 2022 by GaryB1

[wolfii]

Followup: I finally found how to solve the problem.

I bought the universal license as in-App purchase, but for some reason was not directly forwarded to the registration screen. As I downloaded all three Apps simultaniously, I later tried from a different application to restore my purchase, which (obviously) did not work. So what you need to do is:

Check the purchase confirmation you received from Apple for the application you used to purchase the license, and restore your purchase from exactly this application. This should redirect you to the registration form for the Affinity account. Register it there and afterwards start the other applications and activate them using your Affinity account.

Please note: The universal only works over an affinity account.

[pblft]

(Sorry for French) Le problème est résolu de mon coté avec Affinity Photo 2 ! Après avoir reçu la confirmation (facture) par mail de l'app store, j'ai réouvert Affinity aujourd'hui et osé cliquer à nouveau sur ACHETER, et un écran d'activation s'est alors affiché (pour l'activation de la licence). Mais attention car une confirmation Touch ID s'est mise par dessus pour confirmer l'achat donc j'ai juste annulé la confirmation Touch ID (par peur de payer deux fois) et j'ai pu accéder à la fenêtre d'activation en dessous, connecter mon compte Affinity et enregistrer la licence "in-app". Et c'est tout bon !

[GaryB1]

Merci, pblft!

[MarcusM]

Update: I finally managed to activate the licence by clicking the "buy now" link again and this time the activation screen appeared. Thanks for the help.

[Kal]

Nobody seems to be mentioning the 'I already have an Affinity Designer 2 or Universal Licence' link at the bottom of the window. That one worked for me (after I paid for the Universal Licence as an in-app purchase in Photo).