PIPENET VISION FLEXlm Troubleshooting
PIPENET VISION FLEXlm Troubleshooting
PIPENET VISION™
There are some issues that cannot be covered here, such as issues arising out of the customer's network
configuration, firewalls, multiple domains and TCP port restrictions for example. For these issues the
customer should refer to the FLEXlm end user guide supplied on the PIPENET Installation CD. Additional
information may be available from the Flexera website www.flexerasoftware.com.
In general Sunrise Systems will only recommend changing the licence file by editing the server name on the
SERVER line. Other changes are possible, for example changing port numbers, daemon names, etc. If other
changes are made then it may be difficult to resolve any issues arising, since Sunrise Systems is usually
unable to visit client premises. Therefore the additional information provided in this document should only
be used by distributors and clients with knowledge of Windows and network administration.
Since PIPENET is a Windows program it is naturally assumed that client computers are running some
version of a Windows operating system. The licence server should also be running a Windows operating
system.
Before proceeding further please ensure that you have the current version of the
PIPENET installation CD. Attempting to use an older version of this CD may result in
failures. The current the version number of the CD is SSL/MC/0015/16.
No part of FLEXlm requires root services and we would recommend that lmgrd.exe is run as a non-
privileged user.
There are four or five main components to the successful installation of a FLEXlm server:
1. An encrypted licence file supplied by Sunrise Systems. Instructions for obtaining this licence
file are provided in the installation guide.
2. The FLEXlm licence manager daemon program lmgrd.exe, supplied in the Licensing
directory on the PIPENET Installation CD. This program is common to all products that are
licensed using FLEXlm.
3. The Sunrise Systems vendor daemon sunrise.exe. This program is specific to PIPENET
licensed products.
4. An encrypt/decrypt key to be used by the lmgrd.exe program for decrypting the licence file.
5. Depending on the source of the encrypt/decrypt key to be used for decrypting the licence
file, a HASP security key and its associated drivers may be required. The source of the
encrypt/decrypt key will either be the Ethernet MAC address of the host computer or a
HASP USB security key supplied by Sunrise Systems.
FLEXlm will detect multiple Ethernet cards on the host computer, any of these may be used as the hostid,
preferably the first in the list of cards.
It is important to note that the HASP security key only exists to provide the
encrypt/decrypt key in place of a MAC address, it does not include any licensing
information.
Versions of PIPENET VISION older than version 1.9.0 will work with FLEXlm 11.14 installed
on the server,
PIPENET VISION 1.9.0 will not work with older versions of FLEXlm.
The server name and MAC address can be checked with that found on the first line of the licence file. If
they do not agree, then the server name can be changed but not the MAC address. If the MAC address is
If FLEXlm licensing is based on the use of a HASP security key then only the information that is relevant is
the server name and this can be inspected or changed as specified above. The licence file is generated
automatically by Sunrise Systems and it is extremely unlikely that the encrypt/decrypt key stored in the
security key differs from that used to produce the licence file.
Note that server names should not contain spaces or the '.' (stop) character, otherwise
the server name and host id on the SERVER line of the licence file will not be correctly
recognized.
The HASP security key drivers must be installed on the FLEXlm licence server machine. Installation of the
key drivers is achieved by running HASPUserSetup.exe found in the Licensing\keydriver directory of the
PIPENET Installation CD.
Documentation for the HASP key driver installer can be found in readme.html in the same directory.
2.9 Firewalls
If your site has an Internet firewall you should specify the TCP port number to be used by the program
sunrise.exe. This is the FLEXlm vendor daemon installed on the license server computer and used to
communicate with each PIPENET application. The port number can be any unused port number in the
range 1025 – 48000.
An alternative port number is specified in the licence file on the VENDOR line as
Please refer to the end-use guide for further information on port numbers and network issues.
A fully qualified host name is provided on the SERVER line of the license file.
All client computers, as well as the server node, are able to connect to the host – for
example by using 'telnet' to the fully-qualified host name.
The presence of this technology can create problems in that the vendor daemon (sunrise.exe) and the
FLEXlm daemon (lmgrd.exe) can cause DEP to activate and result in a failure as the service is loaded. The
way around this problem is to add lmgrd and sunrise to the list of DEP exceptions – see the performance
option settings below.
Typically, DEP related problems will manifest themselves as issues with invalid licence key messages (as
reported in the log file).
3. Client Computers
In addition to installing the PIPENET software on a client computer, the NetUtil utility must be run.
Each client computer must be configured so that it can find the licence file – this is
achieved using the NetUtil utility provided on the second Network CD.
Specify the host name or IP address of the FLEXlm licence server in the form shown above, and select OK.
The information is stored in the Windows System Registry at the locations:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sunrise – PIPENET\PIPENET\Settings-
Paths
Note the FLEXlm license directory field may not be blank. If the directory specified is incorrect then one of
the following will occur when an attempt is made to run a PIPENET module:
Note that the customer name field has no relevance to FLEXlm licensing.
Note that the location of the licence file may be on a shared drive, so that every client computer has read-
only access to the file. It is also possible for each client to have their own copy of the file, but doing this
could result in licence files becoming out of step.
Error message numbers are made up from a negative number followed by a positive number of the form -
mmm, nnn - we are only interested in the negative number.
4.3 Licence Manager Error -4: licensed number of users already reached
The maximum number of concurrent users for a particular feature (licence) has been reached. The user
should check with the appropriate authority to determine how many concurrent users are allowed for a
feature, and whether additional licences should be ordered.
A less likely alternative is that the customer has edited the licence file and inserted extra carriage returns –
the licence file should not contain blank lines.
If none of the product licences has expired check that the system time and data are correct.
This problem can also be due to the way in which the network has been set up and the solution may
depend on whether or not all client computers are experiencing this problem. If they are then than change
the server name on the SERVER line in the licence file to the fully qualified file name (e.g.
server.mycompany.com). If only some users are experiencing problems then it is probably an issue with the
TCP/IP hosts file.
This error can also occur when a lookup for the host name on the SERVER line in the license file failed. This
often happens when NIS (Sun's Network Information Services) or DNS or the hosts file is incorrect. This can
be confirmed by substituting the IP address of the FLEXlm server (e.g., 123.456.789.124) for the host name
on the SERVER line of the licence file.
4.10 Licence Manager Error -18: Licence server does not support this feature
The most likely cause is changing the licence file without re-starting the licence server. It is usual for the
single read-only licence file to be accessible from all clients. However, some FLEXlm environments may be
setup with each client having their own copy of the licence file. This is perfectly valid except that care must
be taken to ensure that customer copies are updated at the same time.
If this error occurs on any other release of PIPENET Vision then please notify Sunrise Systems via email to
support@sunrise-sys.com. Please attach a copy of the FLEXlm log file (as specified in LMTOOLS) and any
other supporting information that may assist in locating the problem.
In general, this error could occur if there is a compatibility issue between the version of FLEXlm being used
and the PIPENET version.
A more serious situation can arise when the clock is inadvertently set to a date in advance of the current
date and subsequently the administrator detects the error and sets the system clock back to the correct
time. If the FLEXlm server has not been started in the period between setting the clock forward and setting
it back, then again there should be no problem when the FLEXlm server is started.
For both of the above situations, if you are still getting this error then the next thing to
try is to restart the host computer and try again, before considering the following
possibility.
If you set the clock in advance of the correct time, start the FLEXlm server and then set the clock back to
the correct time then this is a serious error and it may require a major effort to recover. Never do this:
Always check, double check and re-check the system date and time before starting the
FLEXlm server.
1. Use the Windows Explorer Search facility to locate all of the files on the host computer with
the incorrect time/date stamp that is one in advance of the correct date.
2. Identify all the files that may be related to FLEXlm in some way, licence file, log file, files in
the FLEXlm directory, etc.
3. Copy the files to a new directory - this will give the copied versions a correct date
4. Replace the original files with the coped versions
5. Try again.
4.14 Licence Manager Error -92: Feature removed during lmreread, or wrong
server line hostid
Lmreread, which is executed on the licence server, either directly or via the LMTOOLS Start/Stop Reread
tab, has re-read the licence file and discovered that a feature (licence) was removed, but the client
computer is still referencing an old version of the licence file. Check:
That the licence file is installed on the server correctly and has not been corrupted, re-
install if necessary.
Check that the client computer is referencing the same licence file by running the NetUtil
utility.
An alternative cause of this error is that the SERVER line in the licence file has been changed for a different
host and all licences have therefore been removed.
4.15 Licence Manager Error -96: Checkout failed Server node is down or not
responding
May simply be that the FLEXlm server is not running, check for lmgrd.exe active on server. Another
possibility is that there is a conflict with the host name or port – check that the host server name is the
same as that specified on the SERVER line of the licence file.
Indicates that the FLEXlm daemon lmgrd.exe is running but not the vendor daemon sunrise.exe. This could
be because the vendor daemon is running from a previous attempt to start the licence manager:
If this doesn't work try re-booting the host computer, if this still doesn't work it could be a problem with
the vendor daemon attempting to use an occupied port. By default the vendor daemon will use a port in
the range 27000 to 27009, try using another port (see section 2.9), for example one in the range 1700 to
1711.
The following sub-sections provide information on some of the error messages in the log file. Many other
messages may appear in this file, but these are mainly informative messages indication that a licence has
been checked out/in, a licence has expired, server has been restarted, etc.
It can also mean that the port number is in use by another program, but this is much less likely.
5.2 License manager: can't initialize: Error -1: Cannot find license file
This means you've specified a non-existent file when using LMTOOLS Setup Config.
5.5 Cannot find SERVER hostname in the network database Error -14?
This may be a problem with DNS – see section 4.9 for further information.