We need to talk about bringing dongles back....

[Fridayvfx]

Hello,
only when something is gone you suddenly realize how important it was to you.
The recent downtime of online licensing and license borrowing did show exactly what I've feared the moment we switched away from dongles: "What if the server is down?"

Dongles can break too, yes, but in the past we've always had multiple dongles with half/half of our licenses so we could at least render with half our licenses in case the dongle breaks.

The period for license borrowing is a maximum of two weeks am I right? I mean, I guess one could do that. Yes..

But would it not be possible to bring dongles back? If only for larger companies with >50 licenses or so?


I'm really hoping you're getting it fixed soon. :/
-Robert

[vlado]

Very good point, yes. It's definitely something that we need to discuss.

Best regards,
Vlado

[racoonart]

Not just for larger companies please I'm as screwed as everyone else if my 1 license doesn't work anymore. I still have my vray dongle laying around - so if that could be used as a fallback thingy I'd be happy for now.

[Fridayvfx]

On the status Page it says now that the outage was about 16 minutes. Here it was definitely more than that. I don't want to rant or anything but I would not have started this discussion if it would have been only 16 minutes.

[svetlozar.draganov]

On the status Page it says now that the outage was about 16 minutes. Here it was definitely more than that. I don't want to rant or anything but I would not have started this discussion if it would have been only 16 minutes.

Thanks for the feedback - I can confirm that, it is definitely longer than 16minutes.
I'll forward the information to our Licensing Team!

[svetlozar.draganov]

The information into the log file is generated automatically, our Licensing Team will calculate the actual time a bit later and will post it.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

I like the online licensing system as I can switch machines easily (even though I usually don't). I think two weeks offline licenses are a bit short.
but what scared me today was the fact that my offline licenses were also not recognized and I couldn't do anything as everything was down.
Support helped.me quickly via Teamviewer but what if this happens during hours where support is not available?
I personally hated using the dongle and sending data.to support back and forth to get upgrades...but I also don't know any other solution that is fail proof. Or somewhat close to.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Hello,
The period for license borrowing is a maximum of two weeks am I right? I mean, I guess one could do that. Yes..

Borrowing offline licenses is broken in the latest license server 5.2.2
It is just not possible... If any of you guys can do that please let me know
Going offline then online again, it just breaks and you get licensing errors
You will need 5.1.2 version for offline licensing to work

[Muhammed_Hamed]

I wasted a lot of time trying to get it to work..Then gave up and relied on online licensing for months, until someone told me about this issue
I don't care if dongles are back or not, but having offline licensing broken in the latest verison of license server (that install with many products) is meh
I'm pretty sure that vast majority of users don't even know that offline licensing is not possible in 5.2.2

[Muhammed_Hamed]

On the status Page it says now that the outage was about 16 minutes. Here it was definitely more than that. I don't want to rant or anything but I would not have started this discussion if it would have been only 16 minutes.

It clearly was not 16 minutes, it was saying 16 minutes where the outage was still present

[Muhammed_Hamed]

I think two weeks offline licenses are a bit short.

You can set it to auto-renew, which works nicely
but as I said above, you need license server 5.1.2

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

I do, but... wasn't there some trouble a while ago where auto renew didn't work?

The system in general seemz a little unstable. Since it's introduction I had to reinstall the license server and restart max quite a few times.

just saying...

[Muhammed_Hamed]

I do, but... wasn't there some trouble a while ago where auto renew didn't work?

Auto Renew was removed in 5.2.2, where offline licensing is broken
5.1.2 Auto Renew works without issues

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

In what way is it broken with the newest version?
support told me yesterday that auto renew works as expected in 5.2 2...

[Muhammed_Hamed]

support told me yesterday that auto renew works as expected in 5.2 2...

The Auto-renew switch was removed in 5.2.2
They say it should be on by default now, but offline licensing is actually broken
Here is how,
borrow your offline licenses >> disconnect your Wifi or network cable >> Open Max and do a test render, it should render fine
Now connect your Wifi/cable , then disconnect >> Now try to render in Max, you will get licensing errors
I tried this on few machines, I never got offline licensing to work with 5.2.2

Let me know if this worked for you
This also explains why your offline licenses didn't work yesterday during the outage