topic Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files) in Fusion Support Forum

Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 16:13:29 GMT

When we do our class we ask them to register for the free hobbyist license, but many times the students get the educational or trial license. When they try to load their file in the center to try and print their model we get the error as depicted in the attached screen capture. The models are simple. If we can somehow just import them into the free version it would be fine.

Prompts to update fusion 360 - yet we are using the app streaming version. See attached Capture.PNG

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

jhackney1972 — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 17:04:40 GMT

Go to this website, scroll down to the charts and there you will see the breakdown of the capabilities of the different license types.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

lance.carocci — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 17:14:25 GMT

@Anonymous based on that screenshot and the layout of the UI, your application is about a year out of date, and needs to be updated to the latest version. You cannot open the files since they have been modified in a newer release that older versions cannot process.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:20:42 GMT

This appears to be a streaming app. How is it possible to update this app? I have zero experience with this product.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

lance.carocci — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:31:35 GMT

If you do not see any notification to update within the application, the safest route is probably to uninstall your current version, and reinstall the latest from your Autodesk account page. My guess is that the application version installed is too old to tell that updates are available.

To be safe, you might also consider using the Clean uninstall utility - sometimes cached files are left behind to facilitate re-installation, but if the versions differ too greatly, it might cause more harm than good as file structure and definitions have changed over time.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:55:05 GMT

Thank you for replying and your time.

The workstation has no app installed other than the autodesk streaming client. So uninstalling the streaming client is what you are advising? I have already uninstalled/installed the streaming client a few times. My intuition is telling me the streaming app is totally different than the full blown app which I think is running in some data center off campus?

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:56:15 GMT

Thank you.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

TheCADWhisperer — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 20:05:09 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
When they try to load their file in the center to try and print their model ...

My guess is that you have the institutional license that doesn’t automatically update.
I will explain later how to force update. I’m not at my computer at the moment.

I assume that you are referring to 3D printing.

Can’t you simply have the students Export in stl format and this issue becomes moot.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

lance.carocci — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 21:48:15 GMT

The streaming installer is the full version, and what most users install as it updates automatically. If you have uninstalled and reinstalled and are still getting the same legacy version, it might be worth grabbing a new installer, or you might be using an Admin installation.

Admin installs are intended for mass deployment and management by IT admins, and as such do not automatically update - instead, admins are notified of a new update and must deploy it themselves.

In the latter case, your IT admin will need to grab the latest release and push it to your devices.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 13:31:56 GMT

The streaming client is very small, not sure how that can be the full blown app. I literally get the impression the application runs in a remote location and the streaming client literally presents an interactive video to the user? I really do not have a good understanding on how this works. In any case, the latest streaming clients were downloaded multiple times and installed machine wide multiple times and the issue was not resolved. I'm wondering if the streaming client is an installer that installs the product per user? In their Windows account profile? Now maybe the workstation has various versions of the application running from different profiles? If that's the case , what a mess...

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

TheCADWhisperer — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:26:26 GMT

Are you the site admin for your location?

Are you running on Windows OS or are you running on Mac OS?

If Windows OS, do you have Fusion 360 Client Downloader*.exe on your machine?

(Show screen capture image including the file size in the image.)

I used the incorrect term in previous response, but I work in edu environment and am aware if the issue you see and I can explain how I get around it.

Does your site have some sort of protection on school lab computers like Faronic Deep Freeze?

What do you see if you click here?

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

lance.carocci — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 17:09:40 GMT

"Streaming/Streamer" refers to the fact that the installer downloads/streams the latest data directly from our server during installation, and therefore it cannot be used offline. It installs to the user's profile.

The admin installer is the full application installer (it is unrelated to admin account privileges), and can be used offline, the idea being that mass deployments probably don't want to waste bandwidth on downloading the same data 30+ times. It also does not update automatically, since admins generally want to schedule updates during downtime. This version installs independently of user profiles, since it is generally used in shared user environments. The average Fusion 360 user does not have access to [nor do they need] the Admin installer as a result, because it's more trouble than its worth for a personal device or small deployments, and because not keeping the client up to date can result in issues similar to what you are describing.

Another aspect of the admin installers is that they can be installed alongside each other as well as alongside the streamer installs, and must be uninstalled from the command line rather than the traditional Windows Uninstall A Program dialog.

Since you said you have downloaded the latest installer several times, and see no change, my guess is that you are still launching the Admin-installer version rather than a streamer install. Your IT admin will need to remove the version, and either replace it with the latest, or defer to users using the streaming installer.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

randyT9V9C — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 21:23:57 GMT

This error is common if your students are working at home on the latested, auto-updated, version of Fusion 360 and your lab at school doesn't auto-update or it hasn't updated yet. As a work around you can download the file from your online hub and re-import it. Alternatively, you can promote an older version of the file, provided you haven't made significant changes.

The lab version of Fusion 360, installed on my school laptop, hasn't been updated since May. Yesterday I opened a few files on my personal laptop, running the latest auto-updated release, and just the act of opening them updated the versions and prevented me from re-opening them on my school laptop.

I would definitely start by comparing Fusion 360 version numbers and make sure you don't have an outdated copy in the mix. Click on the question mark in the top right, select About, and you'll find the version number.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 15:52:58 GMT

My instructor rephrased a question regarding this issue. "How to open a simple model opened in the Ultimate version in the standard version?" Please advise.

Re: Free hobbyist license vs educational or trial license (importing files)

TheCADWhisperer — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 16:20:23 GMT

No difference.