Bally Alpha 2 Dongle issues

[rickhunter]

I am starting this thread, because I can't possibly be the only person who has intermittent issues with Alpha 2 dongles.  So maybe the collective will help solve this problem once and for all.

Ok, so here I am again.  I have a machine where all the dongles work, and a machine where no dongles work.  Even moving the mpu from the machine where the dongles work to the machine where the dongles don't work, does not fix the problem.

I had this issue originally with a curve cabinet and Mayan wheel.  Nothing seemed to work, but on one particular boot, game came up with license disabled, I pulled dongle in and out, and it worked.  Now I'm back to that same issue with an A2 V32 pro, this game was working with a wonder woman dongle 3 weeks ago.  I loaded a non-dongle game for a couple of weeks, and now I'm trying to load Super Quick Hits Playboy Midnight Diamonds.  I've been told to boot the machine up with the logic door open, go through the setup up process with it and then insert dongle, but no dice.  The mpu reads the dongle (dongle light flashes) and nothing happens.  There's a license screen where you can see what the dongle is for, but it doesn't even register the dongle.

I have a converted A1 V32 to run alpha 2 games, and it works like a charm.  I took the SSD used on the A2 Pro into this machine and after clearing the game and setup again, the game works as it should with the dongle.  The exact same procedure does not work on the A2 Pro.  The license screen on my converted cabinet correctly identifies the dongle, every time!  So I know the dongle is working.  There's just something about the other machine that is just being stubborn.

I will chronicle everything I try to get this working and hopefully others can add and eventually benefit from the findings in the future should a definite fix be found.

[idesign]

Did you try inserting the dongle into the backplane?  Also, I had that issue with a 2.0 CPU.....would not play Wonder Woman.  No matter what I did it would never play any dongle games.  I ended just using it for non-dongle games or playing dongle games without the dongle using OS 361F.

[rickhunter]

I found out the DEFINITIVE answer tonight while trying all kinds of things.  The issue is the DATE/TIME!!!  I set today's date on the machine.  Pulled dongle out/in and PRESTO!!! dongle worked!  As a test, I then went to the machine where all dongles have been working, and sure enough it had the correct date and time (although only the date is important).  I put the date back to the year 2000.  Pulled dongle out/in and the license disabled error came up.  Set the right date, pull dongle out/in and the error goes away.  The probable reason is that the license manager probably checks the date of the license manager vs the system date to verify the dongle.  If the date is before the OS, then you have the dongle issue.  I set the date on my OS370B machine to Jan 1, 2017 and got the error.  Set it to Jan 1, 2018 and error goes away, so somewhere in between OS 370B was released, or at least I theorize it is based on the OS, could very well be based on the game as well, but in any case, if you put today's date, you will not have the dongle issue at all.

Case solved.

Global op, please sticky the post, or include in FAQ.

[Stayouttadabunker]

Somewhere in IGT-land, an engineering programmer is laughing his  off...haha
Good job  Inspector Hunter! 

[twa8000]

I found out the DEFINITIVE answer tonight while trying all kinds of things.  The issue is the DATE/TIME!!!  I set today's date on the machine.  Pulled dongle out/in and PRESTO!!! dongle worked!  As a test, I then went to the machine where all dongles have been working, and sure enough it had the correct date and time (although only the date is important).  I put the date back to the year 2000.  Pulled dongle out/in and the license disabled error came up.  Set the right date, pull dongle out/in and the error goes away.  The probable reason is that the license manager probably probably checks the date of the license manager vs the system date to verify the dongle.  If the date is before the OS, then you have the dongle issue.  I set the date on my OS370B machine to Jan 1, 2017 and got the error.  Set it to Jan 1, 2018 and error goes away, so somewhere in between OS 370B was released, or at least I theorize it is based on the OS, could very well be based on the game as well, but in any case, if you put today's date, you will not have the dongle issue at all.

Case solved.

Global op, please sticky the post, or include in FAQ.

+1 for Rick!. Had this issue with my Curve. My date was 2010 I think. Changed to 2019. All fixed!