Revit 2010 license borrow

[Anonymous]

I have a strange issue with revit 2010. When i borrow a license i can't open revit offline. I've verified that the license has been checked out throught NLM but can't figure out why it won't see that i've got the license checked out. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Did you use a portable ?

Franck Hervet

[Anonymous]

Sorry, i'm not sure what you mean by portable. I used the license borrowing process built into revit.

[TravisNave]

A portable computer, notebook, laptop, tablet, etch-a-sketch, etc?

[christopher.bradt]

I have a user having the same issue.  He is using a laptop and grabbing a license off of our network.  It says that the license has been successfully checked out and verified it on the LM as well and it has his name attached to the license.

Any ideas?

[TravisNave · Accepted solution]

This issue often exists with laptops for a couple of reasons.  The most common is if the laptop has a docking station.  When docked, the laptop has a different hardware ethernet MAC address.  The borrowed license is attached to this connection.  When undocked, the hardware address is changed to the internal NIC and thus the license becomes invalid.  This also happens if the user borrows while on the LAN NIC and then disables and goes WiFi (or vice versa.)  In rare cases, like my laptop for example, my NLM is tied to the BluTooth device.  So when it is disabled, my licenses are invalid.  In addition, the borrowed license is also attached to the user account.  So even in events where the license is tied to the correct NIC, the user may login as a domain user while on the LAN and then login as a local account while offline. This can cause the same problematic result.  To solve the problem, you need to determine what changes with the laptop when the user borrows the license and then leaves the network.  Your solution will exist there. 

[christopher.bradt]

Thank you for your reply!

[Anonymous]

The docking station should not have a different MAC address. It should act as a pass through or port replicator. If you run the IPCONFIG /ALL either with/without docking station the MAC should remain the same for all your network adapters. Be sure your laptop is not turning off the network adapters when undocked or running on battery to save power.

[TravisNave]

Many docking stations do have their own individual NICs with a unique MAC address.  A port replicator would be different than a true docking station in this regard.  However, you are correct in the fact that a disabled NIC due to power settings can cause this issue.