Office 2016 Licensing Service Not Available

We had the same issue with skype for business that refused to connect to internet.  In fact we found the root cause : it was blockey by our new proxy.  The message in the event viewer was exactly the same.

Subscription licensing service failed: -1073418220

When you open your session, office checks the office online license AND windows license. (Thanks Microsoft.... even if you're genuine...) 

I came to this conclusion by checking the event id error code and conducted a test into a lab.

Here's the code :

-1073418220 (Error code 0xC004F014) = Invalid license (Windows not genuine)

With the new proxy, i checked the windows genuine validation test, and it failed.  I removed the proxy settings, the test succeeded.

So i tested to restart the station encountering this issue without the proxy setting and guess what's back?  Skype for business and office tools.  And the event viewer is now free of this message.

So to overcome it, I now allow all traffic from the domain microsoft.com and the license issue isn't appearing again.

So check the firewall, check your proxy because obviously, Microsoft do want to know if your licenses are up to date at anytime.  Your proxy is maybe tailored to allow Office365 domains and apps but it needs also to allow other traffic to Microsoft for license checking...... .  If you're note genuine, you know what to do -> regularize your situation :)

Kind regards,

Benjamin D'Haeyer

If I had a nickel for every bug that Microsoft has introduced into my event viewer, I could retire.

Yes, we should ignore it, but that's after everyone has wasted a lot of time and effort chasing it down. Not our job, and I'm a little tired of dealing with issues like it.

P.S. to Microsoft staff: I'm also tired of useless, uninformed instructions from "Support Engineers." If you don't have a real solution, say so. Don't further waste our time with blanket, vanilla "troubleshooting" that does absolutely nothing to fix what's broken. Stop it now.

Ignoring people who "cry wolf" is dangerous because you wind up ignoring real problems as well.

I've located the subscription check scheduled task under Task Scheduler -> Task Scheduler Library  -> Microsoft -> Office -> Office Subscription Maintenance, set to run at 6.06 AM every day.

Right click, disable.

It still doesn't work, but at least now it's not a decoy hiding real problems.

-- Ken

I wonder how many people would sign a petition to chastise Microsoft for these practices and to demand a change in how it deals with those seeking support.

Maybe we've been going about this the wrong way for all too long.

Strongly agree with this couldn't agree more. Support staff and technicians on all levels waist many hours reading and searching then "trying" these suggestions put forward by these Microsoft Engineers only to find nothing works or it's related to or resolved by something totally different. 

I always try to avoid the Microsoft support sites these days unless I have exhausted all other avenues. 

It's just frustrating and infuriating. Microsoft support must post tried and proven fixes otherwise don't post anything. At least admit you don't know and say your working on it and do that. Then post the fix.

All the Microsoft support sites should be reformed. The culture and the way they provide support must change as it is truly appalling at times.  We know they are "Very grateful for being able to help us with our problem and they will do their very best to assist in helping us to resolve our issues". And that they are "very sorry that we are having these issues". Please spare us the small talk and just get on with it!  

If you want better answers ask better questions. Unfortunately that does not always work.

One thing I know for sure is if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

The last time I chose to use "online repair", it installed products that I did not want installed (MS Access, Vizio).  Is there a way to assign a custom configuration to the online repair?