The CD Key or Activation Code is not valid.

[Wannie The Sane☠]

I'm going off memory, but I think my title is what UPlay kept telling me. I could not get my game to activate, I submitted a ticket and everything.

Then I read someone saying they had changed all their capitals to small letters and it worked. I tried that, but UPlay automatically capitalises. So I went to notepad and rewrote it, but with small letters, I then pasted that into UPlay, which automatically capitalised it.

I then thought "might as well" and hit "ok" and the game activated. I later read another user saying that Steam was adding an extra space at the end of the key.

So I'm guessing my notepad, small letter, stuff had nothing to do with it, and it was just copying it without the extra space that worked, but just in case anyone else has this issue I wanted to put my full solution down, haha.

Godspeed.

[Wannie The Sane☠]

You can send them a ticket on their website, but it takes a day or two for them to respond. When you type it in you are using the dashes (-)? Also, make sure you aren't putting an O instead of a 0 (zero), or vice versa.

[LTCMcGhee]

Hey Wannie,

I have even taken the same steps as you: copying and pasting in a text editor and then copying from there to the UPlay interface. That should really remedy everything. So yeah, dashes and zeroes. No "O"'s.

I've filed a ticket with Ubisoft. We'll see what happens. At least it works great in offline mode.

[Wannie The Sane☠]

Yeah, I didn't think there was much chance, but I figured I'd better suggest it just in case. We've all been guilty of "not plugging it in" or something like that at one point or another, haha.

[Ev!l P@in]

Here's a workaround for all those, who still can't activate the key:
In my case i had ubi launcher already opened, while installing the game. The result is, that a certain file can't be written into uplay. This ended up in Uplay not accepting my steam key for activation.
So now step by step:
Close ubi launcher
Open steam library
Select Rocksmith 2014 with right mouse and select properties
Look under the "download" tab for: Check game files for errors (think it's called like this, but since i have a german version of steam i'm not certain about the exact description in english)
This will take a little while
Steam will now tell you, that one file could not be checked and will be downloaded again
After that run the game through library and copy/paste the key again into ubi launcher
Should now be fixed

Have fun!

BTW: I copy the key from steam into clipboard, then select the empty space for the key entering and press ctrl+v
And also my login has admin rights. Dunno if that is really needed for the key check.

[LTCMcGhee]

RIght, in Windows, that might work. I use a windows box as well. I see this on Mac as well and there is no UPlay client. Yes, I count myself blessed in that regard.

[LTCMcGhee]

Wannie,
Received a response or two from Ubi, but after screenshots and sending them the key, they have been silent for days...

[Wannie The Sane☠]

Wow. Awesome customer service there. You would think they would at least write back immediately about the extra space in the Activiation Code. I know that wasn't your problem, but they should know by now (I wrote to them about it when I closed my ticket) and be automatically informing users.

You should try and demand some compensation, like a song pack or something. Probably wont work, but you can try at least. It's ignorant how they're handling your case.

[LTCMcGhee]

No kidding. I'm a patient guy. But I should be able to sign in and do the "Online" thing. Even if only to try that learn to play in 60 days. I'll let you know how it goes. I wrote back a couple days ago in the ticket asking for an update. I tried again last night and the site was down (whoa...). I'll try again tonight.

Hey, at the very least thanks for checking in. Otherwise, it is the void of space out there...

MAJMcGhee-aw-

[LTCMcGhee]

Wannie,

Oh. They sort of mentioned the error you mentioned...

Typically when players get an invalid CD Key error, they are entering the code incorrectly. Make sure that you are entering the code exactly as it is printed. Please use capital letters and dashes. Make sure there are no spaces before or after the key. From the Uplay Client, click the gear icon in the top right-hand corner and select "Activate Product". Enter the key to activate the game and you should be good to go! If you continue to experience issues, please send me the key and an image or screenshot of the key, showing the error you received.

So...kinda'. That was a few days ago..on the 3rd.

[LTCMcGhee]

You know...I just solved it myself. You know what it was? My UbiSoft password. I was getting annoyed with the service they were not providing and wanted to see why i was in the minority of people getting stuck.

I use a password keeper program (1Password) to generate single use passwords that are complex and hard to guess. I use it to log into UbiSoft and it works great. Tonight, I pasted the password in to the username field by mistake and looked at it. It had a colon in it. Thinking about the crappy way the UI did not trim spaces from the CD-Key field, I wondered..."is the UPlay client in RockSmith choking on the unusual, yet valid colon character?" I changed my password to something using normal numbers and letters and logged in with no issue. In fact, on a Mac, the copy CD Key function from Steam does not add spaces.

Don't know if others will find this useful, but I thought I'd post. Terrible UI writing, terrible service. The game is fun though.

Cheers,

MAJMcGhee-aw-

[Wannie The Sane☠]

Haha, glad it finally worked for you! Totally agree with your last sentence, the game is great, the UI and service is awful.

Kinda feel cheated, don't you? I was kinda mad when I realised it was just the extra space because that made it mostly my fault... but they were doing such a terrible job at helping me that I still felt mad at them.

Anyway, glad it all worked out, hopefully our chat helps other people with similar problems.

Peace,
WannieTheSane.

[Lets Play]

thank you!!! i had the same problem

[LTCMcGhee]

Woo hoo! Good to hear. Welcome.

[Wannie The Sane☠]

I love that this is the go-to for helping people with this problem. I'm happy every time I see that someone else has solved this stupid issue.