Arnold 2022 license update - license server is up but clients still get watermarks via Batch Render in Maya 2022.3

[Vdrome]

Hi all,

Recently I was granted educational access to Arnold 2022. To update the licensing server I shut it down, removed the old .lic file and added the new one and made sure upon starting the server that it points to the new licensing file.

On the client side, our student machines connect to the licensing server via Arnold License Manager. Everything is green, but when they do a batch render the "Arnold" watermark still appears. I have never ran into this issue before as everything  seems to report normal functionality.

We checked the Maya + Arnold render settings too "Skip license check" is disable.

Here is the current server status. Server + Client sides (screenshots below) - One thing I noticed is that the server side reports 27000 as the port and client side port is configured for 2080. Would this make any difference? We're operating in a MacOS environment (server and client)

[natasha.l]

Hello @Vdrome, 

I am not sure which license type is available under your Educational account, but please keep in mind starting with Arnold 6 (aka Arnold 2020) introduced single-user licenses that do not use a Network License Server. 

If you have access to a multi-user license of Arnold, please review this post on the Arnold support site.  I recommend reaching out to the community or support team on that site if the documentation doesn't help. 

Please "Accept Solution" if a reply or replies have helped resolve the issue or answered your question, to help others in the community.

[Vdrome]

Hi Natasha,

Thanks for your reply. We are using Arnold 7 with a Single-Server Network license setup.

Will this not work for us in our environment?

*Will check the diagnostic logs on client end soon.

[Vdrome]

I pulled 2 Arnold License Manager logs from a client rendering using the local NLM server. I get two different errors on each log. Tried changing the ports of the second go around, but no difference.

While rendering, there are watermarks, and on the server when checking the server status - no licenses are being handed out while a render is in progress.

Here is what I am getting:

LOG 1:

==============================
lmutil - Copyright (c) 1989-2018 Flexera. All Rights Reserved.
Flexible License Manager status on Tue 4/26/2022 15:00

Error getting status: Invalid returned data from license server system. (-12,16)


rlmutil rlmhostid -q ether (0.01 sec)
==============================
e450ebbc08ab e450ebbc0c1b 985aebdfd638 88665a32b5d8 0242d3e34c09


FlexLM environment (0.00 sec)
==============================

ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE (local env) = 2080@xxxxxxx
ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE (global user env) =
Adlm FlexNET cache = 2080@xxxxxxx
Adlm FlexNET cache location = /Users/labuser/.flexlmrc

 LOG 2:

==============================
lmutil - Copyright (c) 1989-2018 Flexera. All Rights Reserved.
Flexible License Manager status on Tue 4/26/2022 15:04

License server status: 27000@xxxxxxx
License file(s) on DALserver: 27000@xxxxxxx:

lmgrd is not running: License server machine is down or not responding. (-96,7)


rlmutil rlmhostid -q ether (0.01 sec)
==============================
e450ebbc08ab e450ebbc0c1b 985aebdfd638 88665a32b5d8 0242d3e34c09


FlexLM environment (0.00 sec)
==============================

ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE (local env) =
ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE (global user env) =
Adlm FlexNET cache = @Anonymous

[natasha.l]

Hello @Vdrome, 

You are receiving both a network license error -12 & -96 they both indicate an issue with the license server. 

Make sure the Arnold version installed on the client machines matches up with the generated license file. Then, Follow the steps in the article under "Multi-user license (new install)".

*These steps apply to Arnold 7 as well. 

Related Article: "No valid Arnold license found" when activating Arnold license on macOS

Please "Accept Solution" if a reply or replies have helped resolve the issue or answered your question, to help others in the community.

[Vdrome]

I'm in contact with an Autodesk technician, configuration wise the Server and Client speak to each other. Versions of Maya 2022.3 and 2023 are rendering with  Arnold watermarks and do not grab licenses from the server, however Maya 2022 batch renders without issue. I tried clean installs of Maya 2022, and the NLM on both Client and Server, and no resolution yet.

The only work around so far is Render Sequence, which isn't ideal OR enable File output under the Diagnostic setting tab in the Arnold Render settings. For some reason this latter removes the watermark ( a bug maybe?)

Other than that we are hitting a roadblock.

The last advice from the technician was the following, which hasn't resolved our issue yet:

1. This is not a common or known issue, so there is no simple solution to this.

2. Even the PIT error is reported/noted only once (!), but also without a clear solution, but it's noted to be related to a delay/timeout

VendorID=6 [ADLMPIT]
VendorError=28 [Failed to encrypt the Product Information Table file]

Currently the assumption is that this is some sort of delay / timing issue and writing the log file is enough to make it work.

Here are 2 possible solutions that might help in the current case:

a) A problem related to using the default port 2080. If here is any conflict with any other application using this port or something similar this can lead to a license failure, so please try a different port.
Here is a related article:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/...

b) .flexlmrc is not found with a certain render action:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-forum/maya-...