License error - over and over again...

[palibebeh]

Hi people!

Lately I've been experiencing increasing amount of annoying problems with the v-ray license.

While rendering in DR, every second or third render attempt is halted with

could not obtain a license (0)' error.

It has happened before, but after installing SP2 the problem is more frequent:/

Not only that - sometimes, when cancelling the render all I get is

rendering frame at time 0
non-camera view
total frame time: 0.0 s

...about 10-15 times...

I suppose this has something to do with opened material editor, which is
totally locked, as well as 3dsmax itself.

Every render node is configured to seek for the license on my workstation -
192.168.1.3, since that's it's local IP.
I tried 127.1.1.1 as well as 192.169.1.3 on the workstation's vray, but still the problem remains.

In the 'license serve information' I sometimes get weird info - like 8 or 6 engaged DR licenses, while there are only 2 DR nodes.
There are even listed some unidentified sessions, with local IP numbers which are
non-existant in my office network - like 192.168.1.61.

It happens in scenes that are not so heavy, even without any textures.
Any ideas?
I'm pretty desperate to be honest...

The setup:
workstation: xp32, qx6700, max9/32, vray 1.5 sp2
nodes: 2x xp32, dual quad xeons, max9/32, vray 1.5 sp2


edit: ATM there are 4 DR licenses engaged, 1 interface license and 0 render licenses. The
render was halted with the aforementioned error, max is standing by but the licenses don't
seem to disengage...

[palibebeh]

update:
1 interface license engaged, vray authentication is the only thing vray that is active,
material editor is not working, and it has been like this for the past 10 minutes or so :/

I shut down max, the interface license was engaged for like 2 minutes or so.

Started max, tried to render a scene - all was fine until I cancelled the rendering.

rendering frame at time 0
non-camera view
total frame time: 0.0 s
...and going, and going....

render license was still engaged, interface license was free.

any ideas?

[vlado]

Did you update your license server from the latest installation of V-Ray as well?

Best regards,
Vlado

[palibebeh]

Hi Vlado!

I uninstalled the previous version of vray, and installed sp2.
If I understand correctly - the license server should also be uninstalled, and then
installed with the new version?
vrlservice.exe is 1105920 bytes, created 21 april - the day I installed sp2.

The error occurs in some scenes more frequently than in the others,
and if the scene is pretty simple - everything's OK.

Perhaps it would help if I send You the file - the scene is ATM 23 megs, but I'll remove some
of the models and try to make it smaller.

Did you update your license server from the latest installation of V-Ray as well?

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

So this is related to this specific scene only? Or it happens with any other scene? Have you tried moving the license server to a different machine?

Best regards,
Vlado

[palibebeh]

No, it's not related to this one specific scene. Although this scene seems to
trigger this error very often.
I tried about 4 of other scenes, and the error affect those more complicated...
I'm far from saying, that 2M polys is a complicated scene, but this is the polycount in
the one I wanted to send to You.

I'll try to move the dongle to another machine and see what happens.

[ngrava]

We have a very similar issue too. We just switched to the dongle from the old software based license system. We weren't having issues before. We have 10 licenses but now and then one of us will loose our license even though there are only 4 or 5 people working. When we look at the license server, we see that it says something like: 2 interface licenses, 2 render licenses checked out so I know it's not a issue with actually running out of licenses. I think there is just a bug in the license server. Unfortunately, I can't seem to figure out what it is that causes the problem so this isn't really much help. Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone.

[vlado]

First of all, make sure that you are using the latest license server. Next, if you are using SP2, on your workstation, you can try to go to the Control panel, System applet, Advanced section, Environment variables button, and create an environment variable "VRAY_CONNECT_TIMEOUT" without the quotes with a value if "50000" again without the quotes and see if it makes things any better.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ngrava]

Thanks Vlado! I'll give that a try.

[mcvltd]

Having the same issues here - just tried the "VRAY_CONNECT_TIMEOUT" thing but it has no effect.

Have also tried all the usb ports for the wibu key again, but again it's making no difference.

Is there any chance of obtaining a temporary software license? I seem to be wasting loads of time at the moment with this issue. Luckily I have no crazy deadlines right now, but it's only a matter of time!

[vlado]

Please email me to vlado@chaosgroup.com and we'll see what can be done to resolve the issue.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ngrava]

Yep. Same here. No difference. We are trying to track it down but to tell you the truth, there's not much we can do to see what's going on. The web interface to the license server simply shows that we have 10 licenses avalible. In fact, it's odd because we never see more then 2 licenses in use at a time.

One other thing I have noticed is that it seems to happen mostly in the evening when most of the workstations are are added to the farm. I have the feeling that the NET rendering is interferiing with the workstations getting licenses.

[vlado]

When this happens again, type "http://servername:30304/getlog" in your browser and send me to vlado@chaosgroup.com the resulting log file from the license server. It will typically contain information why the license was refused (assuming the machines actually manage to get a connection to the license server at all).

Another helper is to notice the license error code (the number in brackets immediately after the "Cannot obtain license" message).

Best regards,
Vlado

[Saulman]

Same thing happening to me too. Same problems as described.

I've just wiped my machine completely and reinstalled windows, MAX 2009 and the latest Vray SP2.

What's strange is that when I open the material editor, a random selection of the slots are not visible whilst some are. Then I shut it and re-open it or press 'x' and some will become visible, this without closing the model.

Also, the license seems will work sometimes and othertimes not, without exiting the model.

[iwilkinson]

I had a lot of these same problems when I tried to install this last month. With a deadline approaching, our render guys had to use another tool.

Now it is time to go try to make this work again. I will try Vlado's suggestions posted in this thread and report back an account of how that goes.