FlexSim Knowledge Base
Announcements, articles, and guides to help you take your simulations to the next level.
Sort by:
Help->License Activation" />Open FlexSim Software. Click Help in the main menu. Choose License Activation. Click the Return tab. Each of your activated licenses will be listed in the dropdown selector. Select a license you want to return. Click the Return button. Please wait while your FlexSim Software communicates with the license server. The status text will update, and should end with an indication of success. Repeat to return any other Activation IDs that need to be returned. If you have any questions or problems, please search our Answers Community for possible solutions. There is a good chance someone else has already asked your question. Still not finding what you're looking for? Submit a new question and we'll check it out. If you're including any confidential information, such as license codes, be sure to mark your question as private! You can also contact your local FlexSim distributor for live phone, web, or email help.
View full article
First things first Sometimes the easiest method for fixing a standalone license is to simply activate the same license again. No need to return first. Just get the full activation ID for any broken licenses and activate them again. Look for the broken licenses within FlexSim by going to Help > License Activation > View Licenses tab and pressing the View Licenses button. Scan the license information for licenses that indicate they are **BROKEN**. For licenses that are broken, look up the full activation IDs in your online FlexSim Account. Using the full activation IDs for each broken license, activate the licenses normally within FlexSim by going to the Activate tab and pasting and activating each activation ID in turn. No need to return the licenses first. In case you need more detailed activation instructions, see: Standalone - Activation - Online Standalone - Activation - XML / Offline If you completed the 3 steps above but encountered error messages, it is time to manually repair your licenses. Okay, time to repair Standalone licensing does not have a method for repairing online. Here are the steps to manually repair your license. These instructions apply to FlexSim 2016 and later. If you are using an older version of FlexSim, please download FlexSim's latest version and follow these instructions. You can manage your older FlexSim licenses from the latest software - the License Activation window will still show your older licenses and you'll be able to complete all these steps for your broken pre-version-16.0 licenses. Open FlexSim as an administrator by right clicking the program icon and selecting Run as Administrator. From the main menu, go to Help > License Activation. Go to the Advanced tab, then the Repair tab. For each broken license listed in the License selector box, click the Generate XML Request button. Save each XML file to a convenient location on your computer. Log in to your FlexSim Account. From the top navigation header click the Licenses link, then choose Manual XML in the Licenses submenu. Upload your XML files by dragging them onto the drop zone. Your uploaded XML requests will be processed. Upon completion, you will be prompted to download each XML response. In FlexSim (your instance opened above in step 1 using Run as administrator), you should still be on the same License Activation > Advanced > Repair tab. Process each response by pressing the Process Response button and browsing to an XML response. FlexSim should successfully repair the license. After repair it should be usable and returnable. If you have any questions or problems, please search our Answers Community for possible solutions. There is a good chance someone else has already asked your question. Still not finding what you're looking for? Submit a new question and we'll check it out. If you're including any confidential information, such as license codes, be sure to mark your question as private! You can also contact your local FlexSim distributor for live phone, web, or email help.
View full article
These instructions are to be performed on a license server hosting FlexSim licenses. You will need the license server files. If you do not already have a copy of those linked files on your license server, download them to your license server then extract the entire archive to a convenient location. Run flexsimserveractutil.exe as an adminstrator by right-clicking the .exe and selecting Run as Administrator. Go to the main menu, Tools > View License Rights. Scroll through the displayed license information. Find any activated licenses that indicate they are broken. Find each broken license's Fulfillment ID (starts with FID_). Copy the Fulfillment ID to the clipboard (highlight including the FID_ prefix, through to the end of the line. Ctrl-C to copy). Go to the main menu. Select Tools > Manual Activation > Generate Request. Select the Repair option. Paste the Fulfillment ID into the field (Ctrl-V). Delete any spaces that may have been included before or after the pasted Fulfillment ID. Browse to a location where you will save the XML repair request. Choose a file name for the saved file. Press the Generate button. Repeat steps 4-10 for any broken licenses. Transfer the XML repair request files to an Internet connected computer. The files are plain text XML and can be manually examined in any text editor if necessary for security purposes. Be sure not to modify the files, including line endings. If the file is modified in any way, the various hashes in the file will register the change and the request will fail. Log in to your FlexSim Account. Click the Licenses link in the top navigation menu, then choose Manual XML in the Licenses submenu. Upload your XML files by dragging them onto the drop zone. Your uploaded XML requests will be processed. Upon completion, you will be prompted to download each XML response. Transfer the XML response files back to your license server. In flexsimserveractutil.exe (your instance opened above in step 1 using Run as administrator), from the main menu, choose Tools > Manual Activation > Process Response. Process each response by browsing to an XML response, then pressing the Process button. The license should be successfully repaired. After repair it should be usable and returnable. If you have any questions or problems, please search our Answers Community for possible solutions. There is a good chance someone else has already asked your question. Still not finding what you're looking for? Submit a new question and we'll check it out. If you're including any confidential information, such as license codes, be sure to mark your question as private! You can also contact your local FlexSim distributor for live phone, web, or email help.
View full article
Introduction Several times per year we release a new feature-version of FlexSim Simulation Software. In order for client PCs to be able to run a licensed version of the upgraded software, you'll need to upgrade the activated license(s) on your license server. Licenses with a current maintenance subscription are eligible to be upgraded to the new version. If you don't understand how licensing works for different FlexSim versions, please review our Answers article FlexSim Version Numbering. Overview There are 5 main steps to upgrading the licenses hosted on your lmadmin or lmtools license server: Return the licenses you intend to upgrade Upgrade your licenses Activate the upgraded license Reread the license Upgrade client PCs Several of these steps have their own fully documented procedures. We'll link you to those resources below. 1. Return the licenses you intend to upgrade The steps to return a license-server-based license are fully documented. Choose the link below that best matches your needs, depending on whether your license server can connect to the Internet: License Server - Return - Online License Server - Return - XML / Offline Be sure to return ALL licenses you wish to upgrade. 2. Upgrade your licenses NOTE: Licenses with expired maintenance will not upgrade. Timed licenses do not upgrade. Only permanent (not timed) licenses under current maintenance can be upgraded. Log in to your FlexSim Account. If you were already logged in to your FlexSim Account, in the top navigation menu hover over your initials icon and choose Reload Account. Now in the top navigation menu, choose Licenses > List. Check that the available seat count is equal to the total. All of a license’s seats should be returned for it to upgrade. Click on the Upgrade Licenses button. If you have several licenses to upgrade and all are owned by or shared with your FlexSim Account, they will all be upgraded at once. Please be patient while the upgrade process works in the background. When the page refreshes, eligible licenses will have a new activation ID for the latest version of the software. Your license code indicates its version at the end of the code to help you know what versions your license will properly activate. Review license code format. 3. Activate the upgraded licenses The steps to activate a license-server-based license are fully documented. Choose the link below that best matches your needs, depending on whether your license server can connect to the Internet: License Server - Activation - Online License Server - Activation - XML / Offline 4. Reread the license Your license server needs to start serving up your newly activated licenses. You can either restart your license manager service, or use your license manager's option to reread your licenses. The steps to reread your licenses differ depending on which license manager you are using to host your licenses. Use these links to jump to instructions for the license manager you're using: lmadmin lmtools+lmgrd 5. Upgrade client PCs Finally, upgrade your PC with a version of FlexSim appropriate for your new license (learn how licenses work across versions). After installing a new version of FlexSim, you will need to configure it to get a license from your license server. There are two ways a client PC can be configured. Choose the method below that most closely matches the main use case for your client PC: Single-user client PCs - this method configures settings that are saved on a per-user basis. Multi-user client PCs - usually appropriate for a university computer lab or other shared-PC situation, where the configuration should be computer-based. Having trouble licensing your client PC? Verify client PC licensing to find out how to tell if your client PC is successfully getting a license from your new license server. If you have any questions or problems, please search our Answers Community for possible solutions. There is a good chance someone else has already asked your question. Still not finding what you're looking for? Submit a new question and we'll check it out. If you're including any confidential information, such as license codes, be sure to mark your question as private! You can also contact your local FlexSim distributor for live phone, web, or email help.
View full article
The instructions below are for offline/Manual XML licensing. If your server successfully connects to the Internet and to FlexSim's main license server, you can try our simpler online license return instructions. Assumed configurations All steps below assume that you followed the installation instructions as described in our license server installation instructions, and that all FlexSim's license server files were extracted to the location C:\FlexSim_LMTOOLS. Throughout these instructions we will reference files inside that folder. Find your fulfillment ID On your license server, run the flexsimserveractutil.exe program (C:\FlexSim_LMTOOLS\flexsimserveractutil\flexsimserveractutil.exe) by right-clicking and selecting Run as Administrator. In the FlexSim ServerActUtil program, go to Tools > View License Rights. Copy the Fulfillment ID for the Activation ID you are returning/upgrading by highlighting the Fulfillment ID and pressing Ctrl+C. Generate return request If your license server cannot connect to the Internet, you need to return manually. In the FlexSim ServerActUtil program, select Tools > Manual Activation > Generate Request. Choose the Return option. Paste the Fulfillment ID into the field using Ctrl+V. Browse to select a location and file name for your XML return request. Press the Generate button. Repeat for all licenses you wish to upgrade. This creates a return request XML file for each license you are upgrading. Copy the XML return request files to a location with Internet access. Log in to your FlexSim Account. Use the top page navigation to select your Licenses page, then choose Manual XML in the Licenses submenu: Drag your XML requests onto the dropzone (alternatively you can click the dropzone and browse to a file to upload). Your XML request will be uploaded and processed. If there are any errors, you will get more information about the problem which you can use in contacting your local FlexSim representative for help. If the XML request is successfully processed, you will be prompted to download the response XML file. Download your XML responses and transfer them back to your license server. Process each response XML file by opening flexsimserveractutil.exe and going to Tools > Manual Activation > Process Response. Browse to each response XML file and Process. Your licenses should be successfully returned. If you have any questions or problems, please search our Answers Community for possible solutions. There is a good chance someone else has already asked your question. Still not finding what you're looking for? Submit a new question and we'll check it out. If you're including any confidential information, such as license codes, be sure to mark your question as private! You can also contact your local FlexSim distributor for live phone, web, or email help.
View full article
FlexSim licenses can either be standalone or network-based. Each license model has its pros and cons. Learn more about these two different license models. You're here because you've chosen network licensing and you're ready to get started. A license manager by any other name FlexSim is licensed using technology from Revenera's FlexNet. FlexNet is one of the top software licensing technologies and is used by many large software companies, including several others in the engineering software space. FlexNet offers two different license managers: lmtools and lmadmin. You decide which platform will work best for your organization's needs. (Spoiler alert: we like lmtools best). lmtools Hosting your FlexSim licenses with lmtools lmtools is a simple utility for creating and managing the licensing service that will serve your FlexSim licenses to your organization's client PCs. This basic utility isn't installed - it is a simple executable. It has no 3rd party dependencies. For maximum security, compatibility, and simplicity, FlexSim recommends using lmtools. Many organizations that add FlexSim to their toolkit already use lmtools for managing their license hosting services for other software, so using lmtools to manage your FlexSim licenses just makes sense. Even if your FlexSim purchase marks the first time your org has set up a license manager, lmtools is a great way to go, and is our recommended license manager. Visit Hosting your FlexSim licenses with lmtools for a complete reference on configuring your license server using lmtools. lmadmin Hosting your FlexSim licenses with lmadmin lmadmin is FlexNet's newer, shinier license manager. It includes a web-based front end, so all the administration is done from your web browser. It is more complex than lmtools, serving both the licensing service and a management front end, and lmadmin relies on Java, which you will need keep up to date with patches and security updates. FlexSim usually does not recommend lmadmin, mainly because of the more complex configuration needed to host and manage the web front end (including additional firewall considerations, an extra username and password, etc.), its reliance on Java, and the fact that many FlexSim users already host other software licenses using lmtools. Visit Hosting your FlexSim licenses with lmadmin for a complete reference on configuring your license server using lmadmin.
View full article
This article is used to aggregate all other licensing articles under one heading. You can use the navigation panel in Answers' right column to navigate between the various licensing articles in this tree. Sharing your licenses License Models Licensing Procedures Licensing Errors FlexSim Feature Limitations by License Type License server - feature pools - only checkout features for license type FlexSim Version Numbering, including how licensing works for a given version number In addition, the following links contain some general licensing tips. These will likely be added to a future article. A few of the items are outdated, but in general the advice is still good. General licensing tips (Mar 9, 2018) License Q&A (Jul 17, 2017)
View full article
Have you received this licensing error? Operations error: 7466 The return of the fulfillment is denied by the return policy because max return exceeded. This error indicates that returns are disabled for your license. Your license is configured for one-time activation onto a computer. If you believe your license should be able to transfer from one computer to another, please contact your local distributor to discuss the situation.
View full article
Have you received this licensing error? Operations error: 7131 Server activation is not allowed to activate entitlement line item: Make sure the license model is a server license model. You may encounter this error if you attempt to activate a standalone license using flexsimserveractutil.exe on a license server. A standalone license is intended to be activated directly within FlexSim Simulation Software installed on a client PC. Please see our instructions for standalone licensing for the procedures to use with your standalone FlexSim licenses.
View full article
Have you received this licensing error? An error occurred in the activation request Operations error: 7189 Client activation is not allowed to activate: Check the license model to make sure a client can activate. You may encounter this error if you attempt to activate a network license directly within FlexSim software. A network license is intended to be installed on a license server using a FlexNet license manager - either lmtools or lmadmin. Please see our instructions for installing a license server, which also include directions for connecting your client software to the license server to obtain a license.
View full article
Failed to connect to the license server Have you ever encountered this error? ERROR: flxActAppActivationSend - (50041, 41143, 34) "Failed to connect to the license server or Operations server. Recover: check connection and that server is operational." This error indicates that your computer is not able to communicate with FlexSim's license server. If your computer is purposely air-gapped, please use the Manual XML licensing methods listed at the bottom of this article. Protocols, ports, and addresses A license activation or return will attempt to make HTTP (port 80) and HTTPS (port 443) connections, currently with the following servers: license.flexsim.com www.flexsim.com sw.flexsim.com sw1.flexsim.com Make sure these communications are allowed on your network. To make sure you maintain compatibility with any possible future changes to our server configurations, consider configuring your network to allow communication with any *.flexsim.com subdomain. Troubleshooting Any of the following could prevent your FlexSim software from communicating with FlexSim's license servers: Your computer is air-gapped or otherwise blocked from communicating over the Internet. The FlexSim software is not allowed to communicate over the Internet. FlexSim's above-listed addresses are blocked on your network or computer. Your network communicates through a proxy service but you haven't configured the proxy server settings inside FlexSim. FlexSim's license server may be down due to some outage or maintenance. Let's look at solutions for each possibility: 1. No communication / connection issues If your computer is disconnected from the Internet, you will need to connect in order to activate or return a license online. If this is not possible, please use the Manual XML licensing methods listed at the bottom of this article. You may also see this error if you're on a flaky wi-fi connection, or a slow network connection. The communication must be solid enough that it does not time-out, where the client software is able to receive a response in a timely manner. If you are connected to the Internet but on a slow or unreliable connection, you can fall back to the Manual XML licensing methods, or you can retry the online activation multiple times - it may eventually complete successfully after several attempts. 2. FlexSim's communications are blocked If your computer is connected and you can visit other sites, but FlexSim's licensing actions are still blocked, it could be due to an anti-virus solution or other security measure preventing FlexSim's communications. Work with your IT team to disable such measures and test if FlexSim is allowed to communicate. If so, configure your security measures to allow FlexSim to communicate for licensing purposes, or if that is not possible, use the Manual XML licensing methods listed at the bottom of this article. 3. FlexSim's license server is blocked Perhaps one or more of FlexSim's license server addresses (listed above) is blocked on your network. This could be a deliberate blocking of a specific address, or more likely a general block of a wider range of sites or IP addresses. Work with your IT team to determine if this is the case and if the block can be removed. If that is not possible, use the Manual XML licensing methods listed at the bottom of this article. 4. Proxy is not configured If your network settings require that FlexSim communicates through a proxy server, you'll need to configure the software to do so. For FlexSim version 23.0 and higher you'll do this directly in the software. From FlexSim's main menu, navigate to Help > License Activation > Advanced > Proxy Details. Fill in your proxy server information and click the Apply button. If you're using an older version of FlexSim, you can download this attached model. This is an older model file compatible with FlexSim version 5.0 and up. It has a Model Control GUI that is an extension to the License Activation window that includes this extra tab where you can put proxy details. proxy-details-v5.fsm 5. License is already activated but fulfillment is broken The license you're trying to activate may already be activated on your computer, but in a broken or unusable state. Follow the instructions for your license hosting situation to remove the broken fulfillments: Standalone - Delete fulfillment License Server - Delete fulfillment 6. License server offline There are circumstances when FlexSim's main license server can go offline. Most commonly this is due to regular updates or patches being applied. In this case the server will return to normal operation shortly. Please be patient and try again in a few minutes. In cases where longer maintenance is planned you will find a notification at the top of this community indicating the purpose, date/time, and expected duration of such maintenance. This notification will be given as early as possible to help you plan around such downtime. In rare circumstances an outage could be caused by a failure in one or more of the license server's databases, operating system, server hardware, networking, or data center. When such an outage occurs, we will post a notice at the top of this community and work to restore service as quickly as possible. Help! I need support! If none of the above suggestions work for you, please start a new question and include as many details as possible about what you've already tried and what you see happening. Please be aware that if FlexSim's license server is online and other clients are able to activate and return their licenses successfully, that the issue is within your organization's network or on your computer. The proper place to turn to for support will be to your own internal IT teams. The above information, including the protocols, ports, and addresses and the different troubleshooting suggestions should be enough information to solve the issue. Manual XML licensing If you are not able to allow FlexSim to communicate over the Internet, please use our manual XML activation/return methods for offline systems: Standalone - Activation - XML / Offline Standalone - Return - XML / Offline License Server - Activation - XML / Offline License Server - Return - XML / Offline
View full article
When you try to activate offline, the following error might appear in the console: ERROR: flxActSvrActivationRespProcess - (50019, 42107, 10246) "Failure to process response for an unspecified reason. This error may be returned when a valid failure response is received, for example when the activation server denies a request. Recovery: check parameters used for the request." License Server Manual XML Activation error example: Standalone Manual XML Activation error example: If you encounter this error, check the response.xml file you are attempting to process. If it includes the text SERVER_CONFIG or CLIENT_CONFIG, but your Trusted Storage is already configured, you may receive this error. With Trusted Storage already successfully configured, you must generate a brand new activation request. Upload the new request to your FlexSim Account for processing. If the license is available you will be able to download the XML response. This response should process and successfully activate your license. Full instructions for performing manual XML licensing for license servers can be found in our license server installation instructions document. ===== Here are some other items to keep in mind with manual XML licensing on your license server: Download the response XML files and transfer them to their license server without modification. Modifying the XML files in any way will "break" them. This includes line endings and other white space. The files include checksums and if the files change they will not work. The destination license server needs to be the same system where the request was generated. The FlexNet Licensing Service 64 needs to be installed, be a high enough version, and be running properly as a Windows service. Checking these items is covered in our license server installation instructions starting on page 6 with 3. FlexNet Licensing Service. flexsimserveractutil.exe may need admin privileges to write to the proper places on the system. Be sure to right-click the application and choose Run as Administrator.
View full article
If you have colleagues who should also have visibility to your license codes, you can "share" your licenses with their account. Licenses should only be shared in accordance with FlexSim's end user license agreement. When you share your licenses with another FlexSim Account, they are able to view all of your activation IDs in full, as well as the activation histories of those licenses. To share your licenses with another FlexSim Account, do the following: Log in to your FlexSim Account at https://flexs.im/account. In the navigation header, click the Licenses link, then choose Sharing from the submenu: Follow the instructions to add one or more FlexSim Accounts to share your licenses with. The FlexSim Accounts must already exist. Press the Add button to submit the accounts. When you submit, if you are navigated away from the Share page, simply revisit the Sharing link as described in step 2 above. You should see the results of your share attempt. You will also see a list of the accounts you're sharing with, as well as any accounts that are sharing with you: Your licenses will now be listed in your colleague's FlexSim Account. They will see your licenses listed on their Licenses page the next time they log in. If they were currently logged in to their account while you shared your licenses, they should log out, then log back it to note the change.
View full article
Top Contributors