AutoCAD (inc. C3D) startup delay when LAN doesn't have active internet connection.

[Amy.taylor]

I currently have an intermittent WAN internet connection that is beyond my control, this causes me no issues except when launching Autodesk products.

Startup when internet is active takes less than 10 seconds, but when connected to a network with no active internet connection the startup process locks and takes minutes to decide that I'm "offline" before it reluctantly launches in offline mode (with the "30" next to my user name in top right).

I probably have to start /restart my software 5+ times a day to keep the software operating correctly, so adding 2 minutes waiting time to this process is frustrating and wastes my time.

The issue may involve the Webview2 process which runs in the background under the Autocad app, and presumably is responsible for loading the "start page" or licencing. It is often the only process running during these periods and I noticed that while stalling my launch process and using unreasonably large amounts of resources it is quite ironically running in "efficiency mode" .
I did investigate changing the webview2 process to run without "efficiency mode" but haven't been successful.

Have decent/recent PC running Win 11 Pro, AEC collection updated to latest everything. I am the account admin and the user with assigned seat on an annual subscription plan. Currently I have to "sign in" with email, password, and sometimes a code from authentication app or sms.

I'm looking for solutions or workarounds to prevent the extended startup times.
Ideally I would be able to specify an offline startup and bypass the licence check for 24 hours when not "online". I will be online again sometime within the next 24 hours so the required 30 days is irrelevant.
Perhaps a manual licence verification process at the start of the day?
I was wondering if I'm missing a trick with my sign on method. 
Can I store a token on my machine while the internet is active that can be used to validate my licence for the next 24 hours?
I have seen adverts for SSO single sign on, is that something I could use to avoid the constant licence checks?

Thanks 

[Simon_Weel]

Webview2 is part of MS Edge. When I start AutoCAD or Revit, I don't see it tied to any Autodesk program or service.

Did you install the most recent licensing update?

[Amy.taylor]

Hi Simon, thanks for your reply. 

Yes, all the latest updates are installed for windows and autodesk.

I have had a closer look into this and can confirm that Autodesk do in fact use webview in at least some of their apps. The webview function based on Edge and/or Chromium has been integrated into the windows OS over the last few years and opened up to developers to utilise in their own software.
To my inexpert eye it seems it may be used to split the actions of the software into separate processes which can run simultaneously across multiple cores, reducing the load on the main thread/core which has to run sequentially. This may be more pertinent to autocad based products as opposed to revit which was developed separately. (I may be getting much of the terminology incorrect here)

This is my task manager which shows the various functions listed under Webview2

It is the very last entry containing the url seems to be the one that causes the issue for me, although here it is not causing a problem because I currently have internet access.

This page explains a little more about Webview, and links other resources about it.

Introduction to Microsoft Edge WebView2

I also found this autodesk support page relates to webview2 interfering with AutoCAD. Although the solution seems to be to install the latest version of Webview2 and I have already done so. 
Several Microsoft Edge WebView2 instances interfere with AutoCAD 2023 versions 

This is the link to the MS Dev page but I can't access it today (error 500)
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/

This autodesk support article suggests as a last resort to uninstall and install webview2 from the original software package.

"Unable to run AutoCAD" when launching an AutoCAD 2023 product 

I've also tried to clip the text from the command line column but it's so long my software can't OCR the text.

[Simon_Weel]

I don't see all them Webview things running AutoCAD. You probably have to reach out to Autodesk support and create a service request...