Up and Ready

Maya on Linux hangs and cannot be restarted after force quit

Some users have reported that Maya licensing hangs after it has been force quit. Trying to relaunch Maya results in Maya just hanging.

This appears due to Maya's process keeping the adlmmutex file locked (AdlmMutex::Lock). To get around this issue, we can set up the following system variable:

MAYA_DISABLE_CASCADING=1

Usually a variable can be setup at system level. But Maya is particularly helpful in letting us set up Maya-specific variables directly in the Maya.env file, to avoid cluttering the system settings with customised variables. Location of Maya.env changes depending on our system. On Linux, it usually is located in either one of these paths:

• ~/maya/version
• ~/maya/

More information on how to work with/edit Maya.env file can be found here: Setting environment variables using Maya.env

This workaround can be also found on the Autodesk Knowledge Network

Maya on Mac + Sonnect Echo Express Chassis = Maya quit unexpectedly

This is one tough error to solve on Maya on the Mac:

In this case, a bit of luck was needed to find out the solution.  Please check it out here:

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Using-Maya-with-Sonnect-Thunderbolt-Sonnect-Echo-Express-Chassis-causes-crash.html

Thanks to Gary Jaeger for confirming that this solution worked and Jeffry Asbury for his tenacious troubleshooting skills.

Maya 2015 + Error: Source file not found: 93437458-FD45-41D9-8F2E-8B4F60CF9356.dll

We recently got this error when installing Maya 2015:

Source file not found: 93437458-FD45-41D9-8F2E-8B4F60CF9356.dll.  Verify that the file exists and that you can access it.

Please check out this AKN article for the solution:

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Error-Source-file-not-found-93437458-FD45-41D9-8F2E-8B4F60CF9356-dll.html

This is a best practices blog post that we use when installing our products:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/04/quick-start-general-installation-workflow.html

Thanks to Rick Falck for confirming this solution worked.

License Manager 11.12 and The Foundry License Tools

We are receiving few cases where customers have problems running our 2015 network versions and The Foundry software (e.g. Nuke).
If you have installed License Manager 11.12 for the 2015 products (e.g. Maya) on a server that is already hosting the license server for The Foundry products, you may also experience these issues.
The Foundry products currently use a different version of the License Manager (10.8). In some cases, launching both services prevents one of them to run correctly and therefore licenses for that services are not available.

The cause we identified in collaboration with The Foundry Support Team (thanks Jake) is likely because both services use by default the same TCP port that is 27000.
This can generate a conflict and results in one of the services to shut down or not start at all.

It is possible to avoid or prevent this to happen simply changing the default port used by one of the services. You can do this adding the port to the first line of the license file:

SERVER <SERVER_HOSTNAME> <ETHERNET ADDRESS> <PORT>

Example:
SERVER MyServer 000000000000 27001

Note: if on any clients you are using pointers to specify the license server, you may need to also change or add the port there.

See Also    
FLEXnet: don’t like 27000 or 2080 port numbers? Change them
http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/05/flexnet-dont-like-27000-or-2080-port-numbers-change-them.html
 

Distributed Licenses for Autodesk products

I just did a remote session using Teamviewer and I just found out that you can create distributed licenses easily!

For example, if you have 100 licenses of AutoCAD 2014 and if your license server goes down, your entire company will not be able to run AutoCAD.  You can split up your pool of licenses by using a distributed setup so that you have 2 license servers.

ON THE SERVERS...

If the license count on the first server is 50 licenses and the second server has the other 50 licenses. This means that if one of your license servers goes down, your end users will still be able to work because you still have access to the other 50 licenses.

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2014/ENU/Autodesk-Licensing/files/GUID-ED5DFF5C-4812-4837-9831-CF1ADC702469-htm.html

When you go into here to get your license:

http://www.autodesk.com/register

Choose the Distributed server option and choose the # of servers to generate the license file.

This is the where you can choose the ratio of licenses to be divided up.  In our example, we need to make sure that it adds up to 100 licenses of AutoCAD. 

ON THE CLIENTS...

You can modify the deployment and change the deployment type to Distributed [Name of deployment > Tools > Create & modify a deployment] or you can add an environment variable to include the 2 license servers.

If the software is already installed, you will need to add an environment variable to your computer for the 2 servers.

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-to-specify-license-servers-using-the-ADSKFLEX-LICENSE-FILE-environment-variable-s.html

Reference

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/11/quick-start-setting-up-a-license-server.html

Parallels + Fusion + Boot camp + Autodesk Products

We have been getting a lot of questions on Parallels + Fusion + Boot Camp + Autodesk Products. I have created an infographic that will explain everything, I hope...

1.  The default setup of Parallels or Fusion on a Mac is supported. Please note that the performance of your Autodesk product will be slow because you are basically running Mac OS to run a Windows OS that is running an Autodesk product.

2.  This default setup of Boot Camp is also supported.  When you use Boot Camp on your Mac, you are partitioning your drive. One part is the Mac OS and the other part is the Windows OS.  You will have the best performance when running your Autodesk software because you are running Windows OS.  The only disadvantage is that you can't switch back to the Mac OS without rebooting the computer.

3.  The last setup is an 'Advanced' setup of Parallels or Fusion and is not supported and this will cause problems with your Autodesk product.  You are using Parallels or Fusion to 'point' to a Windows Boot Camp partition.

If you run your Autodesk software in native Windows mode (Boot Camp) and Parallels/Fusion, the licensing will break and fail. Basically, the Autodesk software doesn't know if it was licensed on the Mac OS "System ID" or Windows OS "System ID".

If you don't want to reinstall the Windows operating system on the Boot Camp partition, you may try the following workflow to get your Autodesk product running again.  After fixing it, you should not use Parallels or Fusion to point to a Boot Camp Windows partition to run an Autodesk product.

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/05/general-systems-parallels-on-the-mac-and-standalone-licensing-issues.html

Epilogue

There is really no need to use Parallels or Fusion because technically, you can license and run your AutoCAD on the natively on the MAC or Windows.  Just remember to use the correct Product Key when installing it.

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/03/cross-platform-licensing-of-autocad-mac-windows.html

Reference

http://usa.autodesk.com/products/mac-compatible-products

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/07/autocad-for-mac-how-is-it-different-from-autocad.html

Network Licensing: Networking Error: Failed to obtain the IP address of the machine

Networking Error: Failed to obtain the IP address of the machine

Please verify that license server name is correct in LICPATH.LIC.  Please note that if there is DNS name resolution issue with your license server name, you can use your license server IP address instead of the server computer name in LICAPTH.lic.

LICPATH.LIC is the client license file and typically can be found in the program installation folder, let's take AutoCAD 2013 and Autodesk Maya 2013 for example.

AutoCAD 2013 its path is “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2013\LICPATH.LIC”

Autodesk Maya 2013 its path based on the supported oparating system is:

On Windows: “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2013\LICPATH.LIC”
On Mac:  /var/flexlm/maya.lic
On Linux: /var/flexlm/maya.lic

Please note that you can open LICPATH.LIC in Notepad (on a Mac or Linux use your plane Text Editor) and if needed modify/correct the license server name.

Here is the sample content of LICPATH.LIC file

SERVER licenseServerSystemName 000000000000
USE_SERVER

Please also verify that your license server service is running.

Setting up a license server on Windows

Setting up a license server on Mac

Setting up a licensing server on Linux

 

New Blogger on Up and Ready

Welcome Avto Chachava to the Up and Ready blog. With his vast experience with Autodesk Products, he will be sharing some cool tips with the community.