[JamesColeman]

Hi guys, I think I know the answer to this but I need to check with the experts.

My university recently got some Maxwell licenses from a 3rd party distributor, and they're installed on the machines but even though they were activated when they were installed by the IT guys, they come up as "unregistered" when any student tries to use them.

I think the issue is that the standard license is per user, not per machine. But how is it supposed to work in education? Is there a separate license the university was supposed to get or do we have to pick the most worthy students for Maxwell and the rest miss out?

Thanks
James

[brodie_geers]

Not sure I understand the issue exactly. As I understand it when you hit render Maxwell checks your network to see how many licenses are currently running (ie. how many other computers on the network are currently rendering). If there are more licenses than renderings running then you'll be able to render. If not it'll cause some havoc.

When/where exactly is it saying Unregistered? It sounds to me like maybe the licenses are installed incorrectly but I'm no license expert.

-Brodie

[JamesColeman]

As I wasn't the one to install the licenses I can't say for sure if they've been done correctly but I have it on good authority that each license was installed and tested as working on each machine by the IT department.

It says UNREGISTERED on the splash screen when Studio starts, screen cap is possible if necessary, and Maxwell runs in demo mode (watermarked render, render capped at 800 x 600 etc), in Maxwell > License Info, nothing shows.

Something massive I forgot to mention (Thank for reminding me Brodie):

As far as I know, these licenses are not installed on the server as floating licenses, they are installed on each machine individually. I think the reason is either we couldn't install them on the network because it would have required installing on the server (no easy feat on a server for thousands for a few Maxwell seats), or possibly it was the request of course leaders that only certain machines have access to it. I do not have detailed information on this.

[brodie_geers]

Yeah, that definitely sounds like an installation issue to me. I don't know if educational licenses are different (entirely possible since the license rile would be easy to steal) but my licenses are on the individual computers (ie. not the server).

I believe the proper location is here. That might be a good place to start. In v1 the license went in a different location

C:\Users\[username]\Documents\Maxwell

-Brodie

[JamesColeman]

In theory if we move the license files to a public location (c:\users\public\public documents) would that work? The problem at the moment might be that students don't have admin access so the license file isn't being detected.

[dariolanza]

Hello JamesColeman,

This issue can happen when having several users account on the same computer.

When you license Maxwell and you run it (i.e. as Administrator), Maxwell takes your license file from the Maxwell application folder (and removes it from there) and pastes it to the User account (User\My Documents\Maxwell).

It is fine for computers where only one user is allowed to run Maxwell (which is common).

In your case, when you license Maxwell and run it, it takes the license file and stores in that User account. Next time another student runs Maxwell on that computer with another user account, Maxwell can not find the license file neither in this User account, neither in the Maxwell application folder (where it was moved from in the previous step).

The way to solve it is to store you license.txt file in the Maxwell application folder and set it as a "Read Only". This way, next time you run Maxwell, it will copy this license file in the User folder and try to remove it from the Maxwell folder. As it can not be removed (as it is set as "Read Only") it won't be removed, and it will stay there for the next user that repeats the process.
And about the network issue: it is really strange as the performance on one computer doesn't depend on other computers connected to that network. Please double check that setup to check that there is no other processes running.

Let me know if this solves the issue.

Greetings

Dario

[JamesColeman]

Hello JamesColeman,

This issue can happen when having several users account on the same computer.

When you license Maxwell and you run it (i.e. as Administrator), Maxwell takes your license file from the Maxwell application folder (and removes it from there) and pastes it to the User account (User\My Documents\Maxwell).

It is fine for computers where only one user is allowed to run Maxwell (which is common).

In your case, when you license Maxwell and run it, it takes the license file and stores in that User account. Next time another student runs Maxwell on that computer with another user account, Maxwell can not find the license file neither in this User account, neither in the Maxwell application folder (where it was moved from in the previous step).

The way to solve it is to store you license.txt file in the Maxwell application folder and set it as a "Read Only". This way, next time you run Maxwell, it will copy this license file in the User folder and try to remove it from the Maxwell folder. As it can not be removed (as it is set as "Read Only") it won't be removed, and it will stay there for the next user that repeats the process.
And about the network issue: it is really strange as the performance on one computer doesn't depend on other computers connected to that network. Please double check that setup to check that there is no other processes running.

Let me know if this solves the issue.

Greetings

Dario

Thank you Dario, that does indeed solve the issue. (And I'm not sure what you meant by "the network issue", I don't think I mentioned a network issue).

[dmeyer]

One thing to remember is that when Maxwell checks the user dir for the license file, if it finds one, it uses it. It does not go on to check the application dir unless the user dir is empty.

This can become a problem if you update the licese.txt when you buy additional licenses. If that occurs, you must delete the license.txt from every users directory on every machine to force it to grab the new license.txt from the installation dir.

[JamesColeman]

One thing to remember is that when Maxwell checks the user dir for the license file, if it finds one, it uses it. It does not go on to check the application dir unless the user dir is empty.

This can become a problem if you update the licese.txt when you buy additional licenses. If that occurs, you must delete the license.txt from every users directory on every machine to force it to grab the new license.txt from the installation dir.

Thanks for the heads-up dmeyer, I'll try to remember that.