Can't get a license from SNL server?
Here is a call I took this week from a customer who was not able to get a license from his SNL server. I will go through the steps to troubleshoot this type of problem, and let you know how we resolved it.
1) Verify that the client PC is pointing to the correct license server
You can verify this by launching the SolidNetwork License Administrator and checking the Server List tab make sure you are pointing to the correct server and port (more on this later). This is also a good time to ping the server and make sure you can connect to it. The customer was able to connect to the server and had the correct port and server name.
2) From the SNL server verify that the server is giving out licenses
The next step is to go to the server and run the SolidNetwork License Administrator. Check to see if you have licenses available from License Usage tab. In this case he was getting a message "Could not get information from server" and had zero licenses available.
3) Check the log file for clues
So we can't get a license on the server. The dongle was in and the license file was read (did i forget to tell you to verify that part?) but we still can't get a license. On the Server Administration tab pick the View Log button, and look at the end of the log to see what's wrong. Here is what his log said.
14:04:14 (lmgrd) pid 8664
14:04:29 (lmgrd) The TCP port number in the license, 25734, is already in use.
14:04:29 (lmgrd) Possible causes:
14:04:29 (lmgrd) 1) The license server manager (lmgrd) is already running for this license.
14:04:29 (lmgrd) 2) The OS has not "cleared" this port since lmgrd died.
14:04:29 (lmgrd) 3) Another process is using this port number (unlikely).
14:04:29 (lmgrd) Solutions:
14:04:29 (lmgrd) 1) Make sure lmgrd and all vendor daemons for this
14:04:29 (lmgrd) license are not running.
14:04:29 (lmgrd) 2) You may have to wait for the OS to clear this port.
14:04:29 (lmgrd) Retrying for about 5 more minutes
14:04:47 (lmgrd) Still trying...
14:05:05 (lmgrd) Still trying...
So it looks like it can't start LMGRD (one of the processes needed to make this whole thing work). I also looked for the last time it worked in the log file.
17:20:45 (lmgrd) Shutting down SW_D pid=1848 because of signal 15
17:20:46 ((lmgrd)) Loop info: MT:0 VD_HB:20 reset:0clients:0fd's:0
17:20:46 (lmgrd) SW_D exited with status 58 ()
17:20:46 (lmgrd) Since this is an unknown status, license server
17:20:46 (lmgrd) manager (lmgrd) will attempt to re-start the vendor daemon.
17:20:46 (lmgrd) Starting vendor daemon at port 25735
17:20:46 (lmgrd) Using vendor daemon port 25735 specified in license file
17:20:46 (lmgrd) Can't connect to the license server system. Shutdown SW_D failed.
So we have "error 58" -- what is that all about? I talked to SolidWorks and this they told me that this is a odd error and very uncomon. The error is most likely because of Windows DEP (Data Excution Prevention) on the server. This is some mysterious program from Microsoft to protect itself from bad evil programs. So this program is most likely killing the SW_D process needed to run the SNL Manager. What do we do to fix this? Take a deep breath -- we're just about done.
- Stop the SNL server from the Server Administration tab.
- Launch the DEP program from Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance Settings -> Data Excution Prevention.
- Add an exception for the two programs LRGRD.exe and SW_D.exe in the install directory for SolidNetWork License Administrator.
- Check to see if either processess is still running in the Task Manager, and if it is, end the process.
- Restart the service for the SNL manager and see if you have licenses.
Well, after all that, it worked. So DEP was killing a process and causing the licenses manager to stop working. We prevented it from hapening again, and got everything back up and running. Your case may be different, but these few steps will help you diganose the issue. If you get stumped, you can always call for help too.
Comments