Worked well in the office, failed on the boat
I'm using opencpn on a Linux Laptop, bought o-chart maps for Germany and Denmark. Copy protection allows installation on 5 devices. Installed well, maps look good, thed Danish look like the paper maps from Geodatastyrelsen.
Facts:
- After unplugging laptop from the docking station, getting updates did not work any more, maps still usable. Error was 'Something has changed ...'. Meaning that I tampered with maps, e.g. copied them to new device without officially using one of my allowed installations
- Support was responsive in the beginning. They said 'laptop changed identity when disconnected from docking station', and recommended using new installation for operation without docking. I did not reinstall since maps where still working.
- When I restarted laptop on the boat, maps were blocked with error 'something has changed ...', not displayed and totally unusable.
- In the next harbor, I created another installation, as recommended, using laptop's LTE connection- Maps worked again.
- After disconnecting LTE, maps were blocked again, 'something has changed ...' Restarting LTE did not help, maps were still blocked.
- I wrote to support a couple of times. Answers have no new ideas any more. No solution. o-chart maps are 100% unusable on sea.
My guess about what the problem is:
- copy protection looks mainly at network interfaces' mac address or some other other id
- if the interface goes away or changes id, 'something changed ... ' error apeares, blocking all maps
- wireless interfaces nowadays do frequently change id for privacy reasons. That means that devices with only wireless network are likely to have the same problem
- o-charts bought copy protection from external partner and do themselves not really know what's happening
my recommendation:
- don't buy o-chart if your device does not have a built-in ethernet interface, especially if device has only wireless network
