Category Archives: Licensing

DENIED: Licensed number of users already reached

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I’ve been asked several times about “Licensed number of users already reached” errors that appear in the LMTOOLS debug log file for render farm nodes that are running xsibatch.

If you have more than one render node running xsibatch, it is normal to see “Licensed number of users already reached” in the logs.

There are five Batch licenses (for brevity, I’ll call them B1, B2, B3, B4, and B5 because the real license names are like 79000SFTIMASIB1_F).
Each machine will take one of these Batch license.
xsibatch always tries to check out B1 first, then B2, then B3, and so on.

For example:

The machine “example1” starts xsibatch, and checks out the “B1” license.
The second machine “example2” starts xsibatch and tries to check out “B1” but cannot, because the B1 license is already in use.
So “example2” tries to check out the “B2” license.

This is what we see in the LMTOOLS debug log file:

14:47:29 (adskflex) OUT: "79000SFTIMASIB1_F" render@example1  
14:47:29 (adskflex) OUT: "85563SFTIMSIB1_2011_0F" render@example1  
14:48:19 (adskflex) DENIED: "79000SFTIMASIB1_F" render@example2  (Licensed number of users already reached. (-4,342))
14:48:19 (adskflex) DENIED: "85563SFTIMSIB1_2011_0F" render@example2  (Licensed number of users already reached. (-4,342))
14:49:00 (adskflex) OUT: "79100SFTIMASIB2_F" render@example2  
14:49:00 (adskflex) OUT: "85563SFTIMSIB2_2011_0F" render@example2

In “render@example1”, “render” is the name of the user, and “example1” is the name of the machine.

The case of the slow license checkout

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In this case, the customer had several different license servers set up in his company, and he noticed that one license server in particular was very slow. When he used that license server, all his Autodesk software took a long time to start up.

Also, there was another symptom: he had to use the IP address to specify the [slow] license server location. If he used the name of the license server, the software wouldn’t find the license server.

Ultimately, the problem was solved by installing the IPv6 update for the Autodesk Network License Manager.

Disabling IPv6 on the client may have also worked.

I don’t know that there is a general problem related to IPv6, but I did find a handful of other, similar support cases logged over the last couple of years. There were a couple about slow license checkouts, and a couple about having to use the IP address instead of the computer name.

Installing the Autodesk Network License Manager (aka LMTOOLS)

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You can use the Softimage Setup program to install the Autodesk Network License Manager (video). Just click Install Tools and Utilities.

Alternatively, if you don’t have the full Softimage Setup on your license server computer, then you can download a standalone installer for ADLM from http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS13737466

MatchMover or Composite looks for Maya licenses

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You can tell MatchMover and Composite what license to use by setting these environment variables:

  • ADSK_MATCHMOVER_LICENSE
  • ADSK_COMPOSITE_LICENSE

For example, to tell MatchMover to use a Softimage license instead of a Maya license, you can set the ADSK_MATCHMOVER_LICENSE environment variable to “Softimage”.

set ADSK_MATCHMOVER_LICENSE=Softimage

The possible values are Softimage, 3dsMax, and Maya. The values are case-insensitive.

If you don’t know how to set environment variables in Windows, see this video (note there’s no audio).

The serial number you entered is not valid…(Error 123)

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Most Softimage customers have network licenses. Unfortunately, by default Softimage installs in Standalone license mode, and often people get stuck trying to activate their licenses at startup, because they get this error:

The serial number you entered is not valid for the product you are trying to activate. Try again. (Error 123)

Activation at startup is for standalone licenses only. Error 123 almost always means that you have a network license, not a standalone license. And with a network license, you have to:

  • Install the Autodesk Network License Manager (LMTOOLS).
  • Go to autodesk.com/register to download your license file.
  • Install your license in LMTOOLS.
  • Switch Softimage to Network licensing mode.

Here’s a video walkthrough. Unfortunately I forgot explain how to install LMTOOLS (run the Setup and choose Install Tools & Utilities). I forgot because I had to re-record the video (the first time the volume on my microphone was way too low).

JALSR: Just another licensing service request

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Phone call from a customer who upgraded to Windows 7 and now gets “no interactive network license”.

  1. Ask whether license manager was reinstalled, and whether the license was installed. Yes.
  2. This is Softimage 2010 on Windows 7, so edit setenv.bat and change _ADSK_LicServers to @127.0.0.1 (Softimage 2011 automatically falls back on 127.0.0.1, so for 2011 I wouldn’t have to bother with this).
  3. Still can’t start Softimage. Disable firewall to quickly test whether ports are being blocked (telnet not installed on Windows 7 by default, so it’s quicker to just disable the firewall temporarily).
  4. Still cannot start, but it doesn’t appear to be a network connectivity issue. So check SoftimageLicense.log: it says “cannot connect to server”. So, server is probably not running.
  5. Start LMTOOLS and do a Perform Status Enquiry. Yup, server not running.
  6. Start Server, click Perform Status Enquiry to double-check
  7. Start Softimage. It works!
  8. Check that Start Server at Power Up is enabled. It’s not. Neither is “Run as Service”. Very strange. The server shouldn’t have started!!! Oh well. Select both check boxes.
  9. All done, except for the paperwork (case notes, final email, …)

Softimage 2011 always falls back to 127.0.0.1 for network licensing

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I’d forgotten about this until the other day when I tried to break my licensing for testing purposes.

I spent 20 minutes trying to get Softimage 2011 to not start! No matter what I did it kept starting up, and to make matters worse, my ProductInformation.pit file has some minor corruption that crashes Softimage when I try to use Help > About Softimage > Product License Information. So I couldn’t check where Softimage was getting its license.

I eventually resorted to using Process Monitor to watch the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\FLEXlm License Manager\ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE registry value, and I saw that xsi.exe was sticking 127.0.0.1 into the registry every time I started Softimage. So all I had to do was stop my local license server.

Installing your Softimage 2011 network license

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To get your 2011 license, get your 2011 serial number and then go to http://registeronce.autodesk.com.

  1. Save your 2011 license file in C:\Program Files\Autodesk Network License Manager.
  2. Start LMTOOLS.
  3. On the Start/Stop/Reread tab, click Stop Server.
  4. On the Config Services tab, change the Path to license file to point to the 2011 license file.
  5. Click Save Service.
  6. On the Start/Stop/Reread tab, click Start Server.
  7. Now double-check that the 2011 license is installed. On the Server Status tab, click Perform Status Enquiry.

    First, check that LMTOOLS is using the new license file. Look for this info:

    License server status: 27000@MTL-EXAMPLE
License file(s) on MTL-EXAMPLE: C:\Program Files\Autodesk Network License Manager\SFTIM_2011.lic:

    Under “Feature usage info”, you should see a list of features like 85563SFTIM_2011_0F, 84000SFTIM_2010_0F, and 78600SFTIM_7_5F.
    The features with B1, B2, B3, B4, and B5 are your batch licenses.

Tip – If LMTOOLS is still using your 2010 license:

– Go to the Start/Stop/Reread tab.
– Select the “Force Server Shutdown” check box.
– Click Stop Server.
– Click Start Server.

Combining multiple Softimage 2011 serial numbers

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If you had a combination of Softimage 2010 and Softimage Advanced 2010 licenses, you will be getting two separate serial numbers for Softimage 2011.

You’ll get one Softimage 2011 serial number for your Softimage 2010 license, and another Softimage 2011 serial number for your Softimage Advanced 2010 license.

Unfortunately, you cannot combine the two Softimage 2011 licenses into a single license (.lic) file.
Softimage and Softimage Advanced were separate products, that is why it was possible to combine the two licenses.

What to do? Contact your reseller or the Business Center and ask them to combine your two serial numbers into one master serial number for all your Softimage 2011 seats.