[Nvironment]

Every few days, and there seems to be no cadence to it, my SKP Plugin throws the error:

"Unable to obtain license for MXS export. Please open Maxwell Render, validate your license, and restart Sketchup"

Typically I have reinstall plugin or reactivate Maxwell Render to get back to normal. Is there a fix for this?

[Mihai]

What type of license do you have? Other reports we've had about this was due to antivirus/firewalls, but I can't say for sure.

[Nvironment]

Node locked version with Sketchup plugin. I don't have antivirus on my render station so that can't be it. Reboot sometimes works.

[Mihai]

If you have a node locked license of Maxwell, then the plugin simply looks for a maxwell_suite_nodelocked.lic file in:

Windows
C:\ProgramData\Next Limit\Maxwell\licenses

OSX
/Users/<username>/Maxwell

So I'm really not sure what could be going wrong. Please ask this in the SU forum. Did you also try the latest SU plugin beta from www.maxwellrender.com/betas ?

[Nvironment]

That's strange...I'm on Windows and don't have that folder. I will try to reinstall everything and go from there. Thanks!

[JDHill]

If you ever run the plugin, and it is successfully licensed, then you should have that folder, with the explanation likely being that C:\ProgramData is hidden by default. As far as figuring out what is going on, the plugin has two very separate parts, each of which needs to check the license. The first is the UI, which uses the license to figure out how to build itself. So, inside SketchUp, which toolbar do you see?

• Standalone:
  
  

• Render Suite:
  
  

If it is the second, then when you click Plugins > Maxwell > About (or the last button in the toolbar), the About box should indicate that you have a Commercial license, for Maxwell for SketchUp (Render Suite). If not, then it would appear your license is never being properly recognized.

The other part of the plugin which checks the license is the C++ exporter, which is either called by the plugin UI, when you click one of the render/export toolbar buttons in a properly-licensed Render Suite plugin UI, or by choosing the MXS format in the SketchUp Export > 3D Model dialog (this last is an artifact of how the plugin is built, and should usually not be used).

So for further diagnosis, please review this information and let us know what you are seeing there, and which action you have just executed prior to seeing the not-licensed notification dialog. Just reading between the lines of your description, I guess that the plugin UI is coming up properly, and that you see the not-licensed dialog when clicking on the Render (or Export to Studio, Network, or MXS) button.

[Nvironment]

We have the render suite and the toolbar comes in correctly...I hit the "About" button and it does indicate a "Commercial" license. The error comes up when I hit the "Render" or the "Export MXS" buttons. All other buttons and functionality works...it's only when I try to send to Maxwell Render that the issues start.

[JDHill]

That's what I thought, and it makes no sense; I have a log that I write to when the UI part checks the license, but not when the exporter does, since it shouldn't be possible for the two to return a different result. But apparently here, that is exactly what is happening, so I guess I'll have to put in logging for the exporter part, too.

[Nvironment]

Yes, it makes no sense at all...the license file is there...the plugin says it is registered, but then suddenly stops working. Should there be a registry entry for the license file location? I noticed there is one for network licensing. I'm grasping at straws here, but worth the question

[JDHill]

About all we can do at this point is have you run a special build (I'm working on that) which will hopefully tell us something useful about why the licensing calls are failing.

[Nvironment]

OK thanks!... we really need to figure this out. We are spending hours reinstalling, rebooting, etc, and the weird thing is that it isn't predictable. I did just notice and error message in he installation screen it reads "Microsoft VC ++ 8.0 SP1 installation failed"

[JDHill]

I don't see how any of those things (reinstalling, re-activating the license, rebooting) would have any effect. There is not a license server running, so there is nothing to "remember" any previous state -- there is just the plugin, and the license file. The best I can guess is that the license file would become locked, and inaccessible to the plugin, and that you'd be getting around that by rebooting. Anyway, please give me your email so I can send you a special plugin to test, once it's ready.

[Nvironment]

I agree with you, though it seems to be the only thing that works. I'll check the file status and see if that is an issue. My email is [removed]
Thanks for the help!

[JDHill]

Thanks, I'll let you know when I have something ready to test (also, I am going to edit your post to avoid spambots picking up your email address).

[Nvironment]

Any updates? ... we have a new batch of renderings coming up in a few days.

Best,
Nvironment