2017 Products unable to find license server

[cwilliams]

Hi, I have an open support case for my issues but just wondering if anyone has encountered any issues with licensing in a 2017 single network license server environment?

We have set up a Linux machine running Flexm (lmutil v11.13.1.2) with a copy of our 2017 license. We are however unable to open 2017 products on all workstations (50+) without setting the Environmental Variable FLEXLM_TIMEOUT=10000000. 

2015 / 2016 versions are working fine on same license server

I've been advised by Autodesk that default timeout is 0.1 seconds. A simple ping to our license server (same subnet) returns a response time of 0.25ms typically, so 0.00025 seconds which is well below the default value and even accounting for some overhead its hard to see why 2017 products are causing this issue. We done some packet traces and all timings look fine but the actual content of the packet traces and determining which message is the server rejecting a client needs some input from Autodesk really

Anyone encountered anything similar or have any useful input. We really aren't keen on adding this EV to all our workstations for something that looks like a bug to me

Thanks

[Mark.Lancaster]

@cwilliams

Welcome to the community..

I personally have not seen an issue like this before..  Meaning if you have slow response on your network, then all license are impacted, not a given version.  However I will tag @Darin.Green and @TravisNave for their inputs.   They are the network license "gods" on this forum..  

Update: The only other thing I can think of, is how your license file was generated and how its structured.

[TravisNave]

It's hard to say because Autodesk's support for the NLM on Linux is fairly new still for the AutoCAD line.  I'd almost be willing to bet it is a problem with the actual software itself since the other products seem to work without the FLEXLM_TIMEOUT variable.  Since the variable is working for you, that's probably your best bet at the moment, vs just moving to a Windows Server for the NLM altogether. 

[Darin.Green]

@TravisNave is correct, you should use the ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to force the Autodesk applications to a specified server.

That being said, lets backup to the original issue, "We are however unable to open 2017 products on all workstations (50+) without setting the Environmental Variable FLEXLM_TIMEOUT=10000000." 

If you have to set the timeout to 10 million, then I would say the issue is within the registry which is used in conjunction with the ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE variable. Using the registry editor, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\FLEXlm License Manager location and take note of the key ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE value...

This registry key will contain all methods ever used for requesting a Autodesk license from the server. What does this mean, you ask? If the environment variable was set to a different server in the past, it would be in this key's value, as well as the paths to the licpath.lic file within the application folders. 

The registry key can only contain so many characters so it could be getting cut off. That being said, replace the entire contents of that key with @SERVERNAME <-- Server name being the actual server name, then drop the FLEXLM_TIMEOUT value down to Default (100 thousand).

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Darin.Green

The user @cwilliams has a Linux machine so would the registry info be the same or something different?

[Darin.Green]

Being a linux person, I'm assuming he can find the value of the environment variable using the printenv ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE from shell... Sorry @cwilliams, but I don't have a linux box or vm to walk you through this process.

UPDATE:

I forgot to mention that linux doesn't have a registry, but instead files within the /etc directory for managing the system configuration. That said, I don't know what file needed to read for acquiring the values of ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE

[cwilliams]

Sorry I should have said all client are Windows and this is a change client side in registry?That said, why would it only affect 2017 products (and it is all of them we own, max, maya, mudbox, motionbuilder) same client pointing at same server working fine on 2014-2016 version. Will take a look at registry values though

[cwilliams]

Unfortunately no luck with registry value. On the machine I'm testing on the 

ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE

Looks like @hostname; @fqdn; 

I will create a duplicate license tomorrow and set up the license manager on a windows server to confirm whether this is related to the OS of Flexlm server

[cwilliams · Accepted solution]

@Mark.Lancaster
@Darin.Green
@TravisNave

Hi all, thanks for all your help and just to let you know I've manged to resolve this to a satisfactory state

I modified the server license to use the first port 27000 and now everything works fine without any client side changes. It was previously starting on 27001 and setting it to anything else in the 27001-27005 range does not work with 2017 products without the timeout value changing client side for us. This could be a linux license server specific problem as I've not had the chance to try windows and I'm not inclined to spend any more time on it

In case someone from Autodesk wants to read the case and try and repo the issue (I personally think this is a bug or some bad code causing 2017 products to take too long to look for ports) then CaseNo:12148829

Thanks