I have messaged the owners of this group directly, and still haven't heard from anyone. Is it customary for questions to go unanswered because I don't have a support agreement?

Daniela Guanipa 

Trados Studio’s licensing system uses hardware and network identifiers to validate licences.  Installing NordVPN may have altered critical identifiers that the licensing system relies on, such as:

• MAC address (common for VPN services that implement virtual network adapters).
• Network Configuration (changes in DNS, IP address routing, or proxy settings).
• System Hostname Changes (some VPN tools modify these settings).

These changes can trigger the licensing system to think the software has been moved to a new machine, causing the licence to fail.

I think, if you return the licence before you turn on the VPN, and then reactivate once the VPN is running, you will most likely avoid the problem.

As you can probably imagine, after four months this is a moot point. However, in the interest of whomever may benefit from this exchange in the future, I will add that if your assumption were correct, then this issue would've been solved on its own when I completely uninstalled the VPN and connected from my home network. Sadly, it was not the case.

Daniela Guanipa 

Daniela Guanipa said:

As you can probably imagine, after four months this is a moot point.

Glad to hear it.

Daniela Guanipa said:

I will add that if your assumption were correct, then this issue would've been solved on its own when I completely uninstalled the VPN and connected from my home network.

I wouldn’t necessarily expect the licence to start working again automatically after uninstalling the VPN.  I don't know what you actually did but once the licensing system has detected a significant change in the system identifiers... such as MAC address, network configuration, or host information... it may have already invalidated the licence’s binding.  Even after removing the VPN, those altered identifiers might not revert to their original state and the support team might have had to reset it for you.

Daniela Guanipa 

Daniela Guanipa said:

As you can probably imagine, after four months this is a moot point.

Glad to hear it.

Daniela Guanipa said:

I will add that if your assumption were correct, then this issue would've been solved on its own when I completely uninstalled the VPN and connected from my home network.

I wouldn’t necessarily expect the licence to start working again automatically after uninstalling the VPN.  I don't know what you actually did but once the licensing system has detected a significant change in the system identifiers... such as MAC address, network configuration, or host information... it may have already invalidated the licence’s binding.  Even after removing the VPN, those altered identifiers might not revert to their original state and the support team might have had to reset it for you.