This article briefly describes a deployment error that can be easily avoided by simply ensuring that the portal's activation key is deployed before any plugins are deployed.
If an application is deployed prior to an activation key being registered, there will be a message in the log file saying, This application requires a valid Liferay Portal EE license.
Note: This issue does not occur when the Marketplace Plugin is deployed prior to an activation key being registered. The Marketplace plugin is still deployed even if an activation key has not be registered for the server.
Resolution
If plugins are deployed to a new Liferay bundle before the activation key file is deployed, those plugins will not work until the server is restarted or the plugin is reinstalled.
To avoid this issue, simply wait until a valid activation key file is successfully deployed to the new instance of Liferay before deploying plugins to that instance.