License says "locked" or "invalid"

License says "locked" or "invalid"

What you'll learn: what to do when your panel shows a license error.

What "locked" means

When you see a license-locked screen, your panel's control surface is offline — but your customers' websites and email keep running. This is by design: a billing issue should never take a customer's site down.

Common reasons, in order of likelihood

1. A payment failed

The most common cause. Sign in to https://maxpanel.cenmax.in and check the Billing section. If a recent charge failed, you'll see it. Update your card or retry the payment.

Once payment goes through, your license is automatically refreshed and the panel unlocks within a minute. Just refresh your browser.

2. The trial ended

If you were on a free trial and didn't subscribe, the panel locks automatically on day 16. Subscribe from the customer portal to unlock.

3. The license was activated on a different server

Each license is bound to one server. If you (or someone) activated it elsewhere, the original server's copy locks.

If you didn't move servers intentionally, contact support and we'll investigate.

4. Server clock is way off

In rare cases, a server clock that's wildly wrong (days off) can cause license validation to fail. Check:

date

If it shows a time that's clearly wrong:

systemctl restart systemd-timesyncd

5. Network can't reach our license server

Your panel checks in periodically with our license server. If your server's firewall or your VPS provider blocks outbound HTTPS to maxpanel.cenmax.in, license validation will eventually fail.

Test:

curl -I https://maxpanel.cenmax.in

You should get a 200 OK or similar. If it hangs or fails, your server can't reach us.

Step-by-step recovery

  1. Check your billing first. Fix any failed payment.
  2. Refresh your browser.
  3. If still locked after 5 minutes: SSH in and run systemctl restart maxpanel.
  4. Still locked? Contact support with your panel's hostname and the email address on your account. We can usually unlock you within minutes.

Will I lose data?

No. License lock never deletes anything. As soon as you unlock, everything is right where you left it.

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Need help? Contact support.