Date: September 11, 2026

Over the past few days we’ve had reports of COGS installations downgrading from their paid license to Lite, and we have identified this issue to only affect users:

• Running COGS on a Windows PC
• Using a pre-5.9 COGS release

This issue is due to a recent Windows Security update that affects COGS’s ability to obtain the serial number of the PC for authentication. This can cause a 2nd installation to appear on your COGS account for the same PC, with the paid license still assigned to the old installation.

Symptoms

If you’ve been affected by this issue you will spot 2 symptoms:

1. After launching COGS, not all of your devices connect due to the installation now having a Lite license.
2. In your COGS account, you will see 2x installations matching your PC’s name. The active one with the green icon will be assigned a Lite License, and the inactive one will be linked to your paid license (example below).

Fix

If you’ve been affected by this issue then there are a two ways to resolve it.

Option 1: Update to COGS 5.9

COGS v5.9 has changes the way a COGS installation is identified which resolves this issue.

⚠️ **** Upgrading your running show to a newer version of COGS requires testing to ensure that everything migrates correctly. Whilst we test every new release very thoroughly, we always recommend testing your particular setup. We wouldn’t advise upgrading to a newer version of COGS if you’re not able to manually test your show after upgrading.

In the case where an issue does occur after upgrading, it is possible to downgrade back to the previous version.

Option 2: Reassign your license

1. Go to the Installations tab on your COGS account.