When you launch a network version of Autodesk programs, how does it know what server to look to for its license? Well, when you install as a network version it asks you for the server name, then when you install it creates the licpath.lic file. You may have other settings on the client in the registry and in the Windows Environment variables (ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE) that can point to the license manager machine as well. I've seen a machine with the Environment variable, 6 registry settings and the licpath.lic file. So where does it look first? What is the order of precedence?
The "typical" order of precedence of Autodesk programs is:
- ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE
- registry
- LM_LICENSE_FILE
- licpath.lic
If the Autodesk program is unable to communicate with the license server after going through the above list, then the License Finder dialog box is displayed.
That being said, there have been many times with Revit 2010 and higher that it just flat ignores the order of precedence *sometimes*. Yesterday, I found that the Autodesk AutoCAD add-ons Advanced Concrete 2015.1 and Advanced Steel 2015.1 also seem to ignore the typical order of precedence.
AutoCAD would run and obtain a network license, however, when clicking an Advanced Steel or Concrete ribbon button it would think for about 15-30 seconds then give us the license finder dialog.
We set the ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE to the servers IP address using 2080 in front of the @ for a quicker connection. Then we cleaned up the registry and verified that the licpath.lic had the correct server name in it. We were unable to obtain that license until we fixed the Licpath.lic so it had the servers IP address too.
I've bumped into this many times with Revit, so now I guess I'll continue to look sideways at the Advanced Steel and Advanced Concrete now too.
We probably could have just deleted the licpath.lic and forced it to use the Environment variable too. Just a thought as we didn't try it.
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