This error can arise after you've installed Adobe Digital Editions and when you try to "authorize" your installation of the software using an "Adobe ID".

Occasionally Adobe's activation server goes down. This is a system that belongs to Adobe and is out of our control.

Normally, if you just wait a few hours and try again, it will work. It shouldn't be having issues for more than 24 hours.

If you're on an office or organization network, check with your network administrator. Sometimes there are rules in place on a corporate network that prevent Digital Editions from communicating with the Adobe server.

A quick fix is to choose to authorize your computer without an Adobe ID. That will get you up and running.

If at some point you want to transfer ebooks to additional ereader devices, you'll then need to authorize each computer or device with the same Adobe ID. And probably need to redownload the ebook after authorising as authorising ebooks happens at the point of download.

If you are still having difficulty authorising even after waiting for 24 hours, please please contact our support team.