Licensing Troubleshooting

Please make sure there are no Firewalls blocking access to maxwell.exe, licenseactivator.exe (from Maxwell installation folder) and/or rlm.exe (from Next Limit/rlm/ folder) applications and that you are connected to the internet.

In some cases, connection errors could appear if the connection is set through a proxy. In the License Activator application you will find the option for administrating proxy settings.  If you have any questions about what to enter into the required fields, please contact your IT department.

This problem could also be temporary (our servers could be down for a short time for some reason), so maybe trying a bit later could solve the problem. If you try again and still are having the same problem, you can always activate the license manually from the Customer Portal. It can be done from My Products section; then set the Host ID using the orange button next to the license key and then use the green button to download the license file.

If you want to learn how to find the host ID, please take a look at this section, entry #7: Licensing Troubleshooting

You then have to copy it in one of these folders depending on your operating system:

Open

Another option is that some security program in your computer is blocking the download of the license file. In this case, you will be able to find your license file in your account at the portal.

What you can do is download it manually and place it in the right folder. In order to do that, you can go to the portal (Next Limit - Portal ), get into your account, then go to My Products > Purchased / assigned products and locate a green button to the right of your product item. A zip will be downloaded to your computer; just unzip it and a .lic file will be extracted. Copy and paste it into one of these folders depending on your OS: 

• Node-locked licenses:

  • Windows: C:\ProgramData\Next Limit\Maxwell\licenses\v5

  • OSX: Users/<username>/Maxwell/v5

  • Linux: $HOME/Maxwell/v5

• Floating licenses:

  • Windows: C:\ProgramData\Next Limit\Maxwell\licenses/v5

  • OSX: maxwell_product.lic: Users/Shared/NextLimit/rlm_nl/Licenses

  • Linux: $HOME/Maxwell/v5

Then restart Maxwell if needed and it should be licensed.

This can generally mean a few things:

• That the RLM License Server is not running. You can check if it's running by opening an internet browser window (on the computer where the RLM License Server is installed) and typing in the address: http://localhost:5054. If nothing appears then the RLM License Server is not running. Usually, a reboot fixes this problem as the server is made to start up with the computer.

• If this computer is trying to connect to a license server running on another computer on your network, please check that any Firewalls or routers are not blocking communications for Maxwell and rlm executables.

• You already had another RLM License Server running which is used by another application, and this server is already using port 5053. You can, in this case, change the port that Maxwell should use:

  • Locate the maxwell_suite_floating.lic file in the computer that's running the RLM License Server and open it in a text editor. For the location of this file, please see the Licensing page.

  • Edit the first line of the license to change the 5053 port to something else, such as 5055. Save and close the .lic file.

  • In case you also have a maxwell_license.lic file in this folder, open and edit the port nr in this file as well.

  • Reboot your computer for the RLM License Server to pick up the changes.

  • Now Maxwell should connect to the server using this new port.

  • You need to open the maxwell_license.lic file on all the computers that are running Maxwell and also edit the port nr in these files.

Solution 1: On some systems, we have noticed it's necessary to restart the computer in order for the RLM License Server to run properly. Please reboot your system and start Maxwell again.

Solution 2: It might happen that the RLM License Server needs to reread the license files. In order to do so open a web browser and type http://localhost:5054 in the navigation bar, you will see something like this:

Open

If you see the message "NO ISV servers running"  as in the image above it means that there are no licenses running in the license server. Go to the left panel, press the third button "Reread/Restart Servers" and then, in the center frame, press the "REREAD/RESTART" button.

Finally, press again "Status" in the left panel to check that there is an ISV server line with nextlimit as one of the active entries.

Solution 3 [mainly on OSX]: After trying Solution 2 and still getting "NO ISV servers running" and checking the firewall is not blocking the communications (in OSX go to System Preferences > Security and Privacy > Firewall to disable it), then it could be a hostname conflict.

In order to figure out if this is the case, just go to a terminal and type: hostname

And with whatever hostname you get, type: ping <what hostName returned>

If it returns:

    a)  cannot resolve hostname: Unknown host 

Then you have a hostname conflict: the hostname you have configured is not good, and you must go to "System Preferences"->"Sharing". There under the "Computer Name" you will see a string that says:

"Computers on your local network can access your computer at: <computer_Name>.local"

So, go to Terminal and type: sudo scutil --set HostName <computer_Name>.local

After that, you can restart or go to re-read. It should work. If it doesn't work, we will need deeper information from your system so click on the button "Diagnostics" in the RLM interface (in the button area below "REREAD"). Please contact us and send us the file.

    b) if, instead, you get something similar to:

PING myname.local (192.168.0.69): 56 data bytes 264 bytes from 192.168.0.69: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.060 ms 364 bytes from 192.168.0.69: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.073 ms 464 bytes from 192.168.0.69: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.107 ms 5... 6(you should stop it with Ctrl+C)

In this case, we will also need the information in the Diagnostics button on the RLM interface (in the button area below "REREAD"). Please contact us and send us the file.

Solution: This means the license activator does not have sufficient permissions to write the license file to disk. On Windows, please go to the Maxwell Render install folder (usually C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell Render 5), right-click the licenseactivator.exe application and choose "Run as Administrator". Then follow the licensing procedure as usual. In general, the license will need to be saved in:

Windows

C:/ProgramData/Next Limit/Maxwell/licenses/v5

OSX

/Users/<username>/Maxwell/v5 (node locked and Learning license)
/Users/Shared/NextLimit/rlm_nl/licenses (floating license)

Linux

$HOME/Maxwell/v5

This means the "maxwell_license.lic" file contains a computer name or IP that is wrong. In this case, find this .lic file on your computer and change the single line in it, to correctly mention the computer name or IP of the computer that's running the RLM License Manager. If this is the same computer, you're getting this error on, enter the computer name or IP of this computer.

For example, the line should say HOST 10.0.1.1 ANY 5053 (if 10.0.1.1 is the IP of the computer where RLM is running).

The location of this .lic file is:

• On Windows: C:\ProgramData\Next Limit\Maxwell\licenses\v5

• On OSX: /Users/Shared/NextLimit/rlm_nl/licenses

• On Linux: $HOME/Maxwell/v5