Works without my Dongle now?! Why?

[Digital Magic]

I've been using V-ray 3.4 for a while now. I inserted my dongle and clicked the little V-ray icon to start the license server and then used 3ds Max and rendered. Been working fine. And when I needed to work on my laptop instead then I did the same procedure on it.

I upgraded to V-ray 3.7 last week and now it seems my dongle isn't needed. I started 3ds Max and did a render and it worked without my dongle?!
Is it doing some online check in the background?
This concerns me because sometimes I work with no internet. Will it work then?
How about if I'm doing 3 week long render and I lose internet connection for a few hours or days?
I like the old way of using the dongle on whichever machine I needed to use at the time.
How can I go back to using the dongle? I never intentionally moved away from dongle use.
If I run the install for V-ray 3.6 will that revert back to being able to use my Dongle?

One more thing I need to add: I soon plan to set up a small render farm of 3-4 computers. I bought render 3 nodes for 3 node machines, and plan on having either my desktop or laptop be the main workstation with the full V-ray running. Whichever machine I use could change from render job to job. So having said that am I better off with whatever online acitivation it seems to be doing or should I try to somehow go back to using my dongle.
Any help is grealy appreciated as I am not skilled in any of this but I do love the results I've been getting with v-ray through the years.

[ivan.slavchev]

I've been using V-ray 3.4 for a while now. I inserted my dongle and clicked the little V-ray icon to start the license server and then used 3ds Max and rendered. Been working fine. And when I needed to work on my laptop instead then I did the same procedure on it.

The new license server versions run as a service, so you won't need to start it manually every time.

I upgraded to V-ray 3.7 last week and now it seems my dongle isn't needed. I started 3ds Max and did a render and it worked without my dongle?!
Is it doing some online check in the background?

All V-Ray 3.x versions use the same license, so it doesn't matter if you use V-Ray 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 or 3.7

I bought render 3 nodes for 3 node machines and plan on having either my desktop or laptop be the main workstation with the full V-ray running.

The additional render nodes are not on the dongle, they are associated with your online account. That's also the reason why you were able to render without a dongle.

This concerns me because sometimes I work with no internet. Will it work then?
How about if I'm doing 3 week long render and I lose internet connection for a few hours or days?

Install the latest license server. You can borrow the licenses for offline use to protect yourself against internet outages. The setup logically is similar to having a dongle - you have a license server computer with your licenses reserved on it and other computers obtain licenses from there.

I like the old way of using the dongle on whichever machine I needed to use at the time.

If you have your license online you can just log in with the same account once on your computers and they'll work without having to switch a dongle between them.

How can I go back to using the dongle? I never intentionally moved away from dongle use.

We don't sell new licenses on dongles.

If I run the install for V-ray 3.6 will that revert back to being able to use my Dongle?

No. Additionally the license carrier (e.g. a dongle or and account) is not tied to a V-Ray version.

Whichever machine I use could change from render job to job. So having said that am I better off with whatever online activation it seems to be doing or should I try to somehow go back to using my dongle.

If you need advice on best setup practices - message us at support@chaosgrou.com - you can describe your environment and how you use it - e.g. "I have 5 machines and a dedicated license server machine" or something else and we'll recommend a setup that suits your needs.
Example setups with online licensing can be found here - https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...d+Installation

[Digital Magic]

Thank you very much. I will contact with my specific environment