Problems with activation

[Shain]

Hello there,
I seem to have a weird issue, that whenever I open Maya and launch Craft Director Studio, it has to re-activate the license. This wouldn't be an issue if it wouldn't take ages to do so... Once I left it open for 30 minutes and it still didn't activate all the features.
As I haven't found any other posts with similar issues, I presume it's something wrong on my part, but does anyone know what it could be?
If I try and open up, let's say a 4-wheeler extended, before it activates everything, Maya freezes.

Cheers,
Shain

[Carl Buhre]

Was it working previously and now it's not working? Or are you just now trying out the tools and getting this problem?

Could it be due to your network connection? Slow network? Firewall? Are you behind a proxy? Are using a special DNS solution?

[Shain]

It was happening since I got the license, I just didn't have time for the past month or so to try it out due to another project.
I tried with disabled firewall and anti-virus but it was the same. No proxies or anything, I think my network connection is fine as I never had any connectivity issues before.
It's a student license, if that changes anything.

[Shain]

Also now I noticed, that even though it says 'Status: Active', the actual tools still have a license error for quite a while (The red square around the tool icon rather than green). Sometimes it also goes back to 'Freeware only' on the Status, then back to Active and so on.
I don't know if it matters, but also I never received a serial key to activate the product, only the license file.

[Carl Buhre]

Thank you for reporting this. We'll try to reproduce the error and see if we can find out what happened.

[Patrik Martin]

Also now I noticed, that even though it says 'Status: Active', the actual tools still have a license error for quite a while (The red square around the tool icon rather than green). Sometimes it also goes back to 'Freeware only' on the Status, then back to Active and so on.
I don't know if it matters, but also I never received a serial key to activate the product, only the license file.

Hi Shain,

This is a known issue with the red error showing around the licenses in the drop downs, even if you actually have a license active. If does not ask to activate when you create a 4-Wheeler Extended, right?

In the config for CDS is "verify licenses on startup" checked? If not please do so. This setting makes CDS check for the license on start and thus should show correct in license manager that you have a license.

[Shain]

'Verify licenses on startup' is checked.
When I click on the 4-Wheeler Extended when it's red, or any other tool, it will freeze/crash instantly (Maya 2018 and 2019).
Also if I open a scene with CDS rigs already in it, it will freeze when I press record.
I noticed that even though it might say that the license is Active, if I scroll down through the license manager, some of the tools won't have any status, expiry date or anything else. If I wait long enough, they will show up as active, then I can create or record anything without it freezing.

[Patrik Martin]

When I click on the 4-Wheeler Extended when it's red, or any other tool

So this is just a bug that is known. I would just ignore the red indicators for now and concentrate on crash/license manager for now.

'Verify licenses on startup' is checked.
When I click on the 4-Wheeler Extended when it's red, or any other tool, it will freeze/crash instantly (Maya 2018 and 2019).
Also if I open a scene with CDS rigs already in it, it will freeze when I press record.
I noticed that even though it might say that the license is Active, if I scroll down through the license manager, some of the tools won't have any status, expiry date or anything else. If I wait long enough, they will show up as active, then I can create or record anything without it freezing.

Sounding from this it either the MAC-address that is not matching or there is some other license that is interfering.

Ok lets try a couple of things.

License folder
Please make sure that you only have the following licenses in the license folder:

• 2wheelerfree.lic
• airplanefree.lic
• core.lic
• observercamfree.lic
• utilities.lic
• <your mac-address>.lic

If you have any other licenses in the folder, please remove.

MAC-address
The license is connected to a MAC-address. What is that MAC-address connected to? I ask this is sometimes these can be disabled by the system of not used and the best is to connect it to the Ethernet. It could also be that it is not matching. So, please open the license file in notepad and check if the MAC-address is correct and matching one on your system.

[Shain]

Yep, there's only those six licenses in the folder.
The MAC Address is indeed connected to Ethernet.

I noticed during the last two days that now it 'only' takes about 1-3 minutes to activate.
It's still doing this weird thing of Activating, then everything goes back to Freeware, and then after a while it goes back to Active and then indeed it is activated and I can start using the tools without it freezing when I click on them.
So I still have to wait, but at least it's not super long.

Could it also be the bandwidth?
It's 1Mbps upload and 16Mbps download, so it's definitely not the fastest

[Patrik Martin]

Hum.. odd.

Should not be the bandwidth at all. I will asked a colleague to join this conversation and see if he has any ideas why this might be.