Vray randomly loosing license from the license server

[vraypixel]

Dear community, chaos team,

Our office is experiencing a strange problem of spontaneously and randomly using the vray license under 3ds max 2016, previously also 3ds max design 2014.
All the software is upgraded to last versions and on recommendation of ChaosGroup help desk we installed the last driver for WIBU and the last license manager.
This seemed like it helped but after a while the problem returned and it happens now about 10-15 times a week spread across 10 workstations.
A curious thing is when acceding the license server through http://192.168.11.11:30304/getstatus from the station that lost the license or any other one, there are plenty of GUI and DR licenses are available shown.
So it seems the license server is working with no issues only the communication between the license server and the licensing part of the workstation looses connection somehow.
The only way is to turn off 3ds Max, than disable the Network adapter, use troubleshooting to activate it again. After that Start up 3ds max and the license is back.
Also it happens that one has 2 instances of 3ds max with the license available and the third instance doesn't have the license. Closing any of the previous ones or all of them, than starting a new one doesn't help to get the license back.

Our setup is as follows:

11 workstations, 3ds max 2016 SP2
14 render farm PC's, (Sometimes we get errors of Vray loosing a license as a reason for a Job crash, er. 1006) but notice it here much less frequently because nobody works behind those pc's
1 Server Windows Server 2012 running as a virtual machine accesing the 4 dongles through a USB port emulator

V-Ray for 3ds Max 3.0 licenses list GUI Expires
Dongle SN: 100xxxxx 4 Never
Dongle SN: 100xxxxx 2 Never
Dongle SN: 100xxxxx 2 Never
Dongle SN: 100xxxxx 2 Never


V-Ray Render Node 3.0 licenses list RENDER Expires
Dongle SN: 100xxxxx 9 Never
Dongle SN: 100xxxxx 7 Never
Dongle SN: 100xxxxx 8 Never
Dongle SN: 100xxxxx 8 Never

We can provide additional details if and when required,
Thank you in advance.
VP

[svetlozar.draganov]

On which machine the V-Ray License Server is launched? If it is on Windows Server which is running as a virtual machine would it be possible to move it along the dongles to a physical machine and see if the issue is still there?

Does the machine that holds the dongles participate in the rendering somehow? If it's CPU/Network usage is fully utilized it is possible to not be able to handle all license requests?

Have you got any firewall/antivirus software running on the machines? If yes would it be possible to disable it temporarily and see if the issue is still there?

Please let us know if you also opened a ticket on that matter so we could avoid multiple people to work on the same case without knowing it.

[vraypixel]

Hi Svetlozar,

The Vray License Server Runs on the virtual machine Win Server 2012, this is a dedicated server and does very little computing so no rendering or anything like this going on. Also the weird thing is that the license server sees the dongles and licenses as checked on the server itself and on a workstation through the "http://192.168.11.11:30304/getstatus" interface. There is the standard windows firewall which is on by default in the Win Server with the proper exceptions. The licensing works normally to all the pc's 98% of the time. Only from time to time when a new 3ds max instance is run it doesn't have a license although there is another instance of 3ds max on the same machine at the same time with a license. It is very confusing. To fix this the above mentioned method of disabling the network adapter than using the troubleshooting to re-enable it fixes the problem for the moment. Moving the dongles to a non virtual machine is not possible in the short therm. We can test that eventually but a the moment it would be too much interfering with the projects we are doing at the moment. I have opened a thicket on the matter before when i was advised to update the License manager software as well as the Wibu drivers which we did. We don't have a support ticket issued at the moment.

Kind regards

[Zdravko.Keremidchiev]

There is a big chance the issue is due to old WIBU drivers. Which version of the WIBUKey driver do you use? If its not 6.32 please proceed with a clean install.
If that doesn't help please send us log file (which you can generate with: http://localhost:30304/getlog) from the machine which holds the dongle.

[vraypixel]

Hi Zdravko,

We already installed the new License server and updated the drivers per advice of ChaosGroup a while ago.
I have just generated the Log file. We had A license lost this today at about 1:15AM to (Workstation-121 IP Address 192.168.11.121).
I don't know how long back the log goes but we keep, more of less a record of times when the license is lost on various machines.
Where do I send it so you guys know where its from?

Kind Regards,

[vlado]

You can send it to support@chaosgroup.com

Best regards,
Vlado

[Zdravko.Keremidchiev]

You can send is to support@chaosgroup.com . Just make sure to mention this thread in your e-mail.

[vraypixel]

Thank you Vlado and Zdravko,

I sent an email with the attached log file and mentioned this thread at the bottom of the mail.
Thank you in advance.

Kind regards

[vraypixel]

OK for anyone interested,
Adding the IP address of the server as secondary license server seems to be working.
DR, Back-burner and normal 3ds max operation doesn't manifest the issues for 2 working days plus the weekend of rendering.
Lets call it closed case! If the problem reapers I will reactivate the conversation.
Chaos thanks for pointing us in the right direction (this being a network problem).
I figured that the DNS is loosing the link to the IP periodically.
We have to discuss this with our system admin as soon as he is back from his holidays.

Update:
31-03-2016
A week later and the licensing issue doesn't occur any more. Thank you Chaos.