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HOW TO - Release a Stuck License

Authored by Nick Heberle March 21st, 2022 3475 views 2 likes KB1072674

Description

When network connectivity to the license server is interrupted or a client application crashes, any checked out license increment can remain falsely checked out.

When a license increment gets stuck, it can be stuck in either the FlexLM component or the Ansys Licensing Interconnect.

Related - ERROR - Cannot return a borrowed license‍ 

Solution

Option 1 - Restart the Ansys License Manager (Fastest)

If possible, the fastest resolution for stuck licenses is to restart the Ansys License Manager

Delete

Warning for Multi-User Environments

When restarting the server in a multi-user environment, the checkout/reservation status of all licenses will be reset on the server.  Clients running the software at the time of the restart will attempt checkout a license again on their next heartbeat interval (~5-10min depending on the product). This means all license reservations will be lost and a user can potentially "cut in line".

Worst Case Scenario:

Engineer A is performing a long solve > the license server is restarted > 1min later Engineer B opens the software and pulls the same license that Engineer A was using > 2min later Engineer A's software attempts to checkout a license during the software's heartbeat interval (every ~5min) but can't, because it's already reserved by Engineer B > Engineer A's software runs for approximately 55min (attempting every ~5min to grab a license) until it finally closes and the solve stops.

Note - you can reserve licenses for users via an options file if necessary, but this takes some additional consideration and time to setup - HOW TO - Set User License Privileges via an Options File‍  

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Option 2 - Wait for License Timeout

When a license increment is stuck, the license server is no longer receiving a client heartbeat for that license increment check out. After approximately two hours, the missed heartbeat threshold will be met, and the license increment will be checked in and made available in the license pool. If this does not occur, which has been seen in the past, you will need to use a different method to remove the license.

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Option 3 - Manually Remove Stuck Increment from FlexLM via Command Line

  1. Verify the license increments currently checked out via FlexLM
    1. On the license server, open a command prompt
    2. Change directory to the folder with the licensing utilities:
      cd C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\Licensing\winx64
    3. Use lmstat to query the license serverfor currently checked out increments:
      lmutil.exe lmstat -a -c 1055@localhost
    4. The output will display all license increments on the server and any user checkouts of those license increments.
  2. Remove the stuck increment
    1. Use the lmremove command to remove the stuck increment:
      lmutil.exe lmremove [-c license_file_list] feature user user_host display

Example:

Our user, Nick, uses Ansys 2020 R2 on his office computer, DESKTOP-PC.  Ansys has crashed, and the licenses are still checked out on the license server.

When our license server administrator runs the lmstat command, they receive the following output from the command, indicating that Nick has the "ansys" license increment checked out while the software is not running:

C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\licensing\winx64>lmutil.exe lmstat -a -c 1055@localhost

Users of ansys:  (Total of 1 license issued;  Total of 1 license in use)

  "ansys" v9999.9999, vendor: ansyslmd, expiry: 28-feb-2022
  floating license

    Nick DESKTOP-PC DESKTOP-PC 5796 (v2021.0512) (WinDev2108Eval/1055 101), start Tue 10/12 8:43

In order to remove the stuck "ansys" increment, the license administrator would need to run the lmremove command

lmutil.exe lmremove [-c license_file_list] feature user user_host display

Where:

  • [-c license_file_list] indicates the license server/file to use, in this case port 1055 on our local server - 1055@localhost
  • feature is the license increment to remove, in this case "ansys"
  • user is the username of the affected user, in this case Nick
  • user_host is the workstation of the affected user, in this case DESKTOP-PC (the first instance in the output)
  • display is the display where the user is working, typically the same as the workstation name, in this case DESKTOP-PC (the second instance in the output)

For this user's scenario, the administrator would run the following command to remove the license increment:

lmutil.exe lmremove -c 1055@localhost ansys Nick DESKTOP-PC DESKTOP-PC

The lmremove command does not return an output, so the administrator would need to run lmstat again to confirm the increment has been removed.

Delete

Option 4 - Manually Remove Stuck Increment from Ansys Licensing Interconnect via Command Line

Delete

Info

In client versions 2021 R1 and later, the Ansys Licensing Interconnect is no longer utilized.

  1. Verify the increments checked out in the Ansys Licensing Interconnect
    1. On the license server, open a command prompt
    2. Change directory to the folder with the licensing utilities:
      cd C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\Licensing\winx64
    3. Run the licensing interconnect usage command:
      ansysli_util.exe -liusage
    4. The output will display all license increments currently checked out in the licensing interconnect.
  2. Remove the stuck increment
    1. Run the licensing interconnect remove command:
      ansysli_util.exe -liremove <[user]@[host][:pid]>
      where <[user]@[host][:pid]> corresponds to the information output by the -liusage command
    2. The ansysli_util.exe -liremove will return an output listing the increments removed

Example:

Our user, Nick, uses Ansys 2020 R2 on his office computer, DESKTOP-PC.  Ansys has crashed, and the licenses are still checked out on the license server.

When our license server administrator runs the -liusage command, they receive the following output from the command, indicating that Nick has the "ansys" license increment checked out while the software is not running:

C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\Licensing\winx64>ansysli_util.exe -liusage


USER@HOST:PID            TIMESTAMP                NAME            USED    VERSION                APP        SERVER
Nick@DESKTOP-PC:6172    2021/10/12 10:05:29        MECH_STRUCT        1        20.2 (2020.0507)    MECH
Nick@DESKTOP-PC:6172    2021/10/12 10:05:29        ansys            1        20.2 (2020.0507)    MECH    1055@172.29.64.81
USER@HOST:PID            TIMESTAMP                NAME            USED    VERSION                APP        SERVER
To remove the "ansys" license increment, the administrator would remove all checkouts related to the user, their workstation, and the Process ID (PID) using the -liremove command:
C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\Licensing\winx64>ansysli_util.exe -liremove Nick@DESKTOP-PC:6172
After running the command, the administrator output will indicate all the increments removed:
C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\Licensing\winx64>ansysli_util.exe -liremove Nick@DESKTOP-PC:6172
The following jobs have been removed:


USER@HOST:PID            TIMESTAMP                NAME            USED    VERSION                APP        SERVER
Nick@DESKTOP-PC:6172    2021/10/12 10:05:29        MECH_STRUCT        1        20.2 (2020.0507)    MECH
Nick@DESKTOP-PC:6172    2021/10/12 10:05:29        ansys            1        20.2 (2020.0507)    MECH    1055@172.29.64.81
USER@HOST:PID            TIMESTAMP                NAME            USED    VERSION                APP        SERVER
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