"Can Not Connect To The Internet" issue in DesignSpark Mechanical v2. Patch available! (October 2020)

*OCTOBER 5, 2020 - Incident resolved*

10:30 BST: The patch script for v2 users is now ready to download here. Extract the ZIP and then run the BAT file.

You can ignore any Windows SmartScreen or Anti-virus warnings when running the BAT file. We can assure you this file is safe and only updates the default security protocol (TLS 1.2) used to ping the DesignSpark server for licence checks. Please ensure you have local admin rights as the patch requires it.

In case the above patch fails, there is also a manual way of making the same changes. This is a bit advanced with direct registry editing and that is why the batch file was created to make it simple for users.

As precaution, please make a backup of the registry before proceeding: 

1. Click the Windows Start button and choose Run.
2. Enter Regedit in the Open field and click OK.

   Note: If prompted by User Account Control to allow this program to make changes, click Yes.

3. In the left pane, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v4.0.30319
4. If the SchUseStrongCrypto key is not listed in the right pane, right-click in the right pane and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
5. Replace the highlighted New Value #1 in the Name column with SchUseStrongCrypto.

   Note: If you press ENTER or click elsewhere before you replaced the New Value #1 text, right-click the item, choose Rename, and enter the new name.

6. Double-click the SchUseStrongCrypto item that you just added, and enter 1 in the Value data field.
7. In the left pane, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v4.0.30319 and repeat steps 4, 5, and 6.

For more information on Windows registry items, see Windows registry information for advanced users.

On Windows 7 PCs, you will also need to enable TLS 1.2 protocol. Follow instructions as given here: https://help.runbox.com/enabling-tls-1-2-on-windows-7/ 

Oct 2nd, 17:00 BST: Further investigation has revealed that DSM v2, being a legacy version was built on .NET Framework 4.0 which used TLS 1.0 as the default security protocol to communicate with our server for periodic licence checks. Recently, TLS 1.0 and 1.1 were deprecated globally in favour of the newer TLS 1.2 protocol which supports stronger cryptographic schemes.  Following industry recommendation, the RS network security team also stopped TLS 1.0, 1.1 support but the impact on legacy DesignSpark software was unknown.

As we have now found out, all DSM v2 users are impacted by this change and a fix is only possible on client-side (update to TLS 1.2) rather than the remote server.

Consequently, a patch is being tested now and will need to be run by users locally on their computers. The patch will be a very small batch file (~5KB) and will execute in just a few seconds.

Please stand by for our next update with the download link and instructions.

Oct 2nd,10:00 BST: Authentication issues persist at our servers but a fix is being worked on. We will update as soon as it is deployed.

Our apologies for the inconvenience this causes to your projects. 

As this is specifically impacting v2 users only, if you need to urgently use DSM and meet the system requirements, please upgrade to version 5.0 of DesignSpark Mechanical: https://designspark.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010645273-Setup-instructions-DesignSpark-Mechanical-5-0 This is the latest stable version of the software.

OCT 1, 2020; 16:00 BST: v2 users report the following message when trying to open the program. This prevents them from using the software even with a working internet connection.

This is under investigation by our web platform team and we will follow-up shortly.