Incorrect ‘No More Floating Licences’ Message

[Gareth Roberts]

Hi,

We have 8 floating licences. Currently we have 6 EA users running EA, which should mean that (at most) we are consuming 6 of our licences. Yet, I keep receiving the no more available licences available message.

Is it possible that we have keys erroneously booked out? Or is there a problem on the validation server? The latter seems likely since the Current Licence tab shows ‘Invalid character in a Base-64 string.‘. The licence key is a valid Base-64 string — I’ve checked.

My licence key is in profile.

Thanks

[eadocX Support]

What does the Admin application say? See the Help for how to run this diagnostic app.

[Gareth Roberts]

Thanks. I was unaware of that application. It fails to run. So looks like there is a problem there and the 64 bit message is a red herring. I’ll try and get it restarted and post back with success / failure.

Server Error in ‘/’ Application.
——————————————————————————–

The resource cannot be found.
Description: HTTP 404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies) could have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please review the following URL and make sure that it is spelled correctly.
Requested URL: /stats/stats/aspx

[Gareth Roberts]

We’ve restarted but have the same issue. When I enter the licence key on the stats/stats.aspx page and click [Get Activation Data], I get the message ‘Error: Root element is missing’ at the bottom of the page.

(As a side note I realise that earlier I was using the incorrect URL since I’d copied the example from the help PDF which has ‘/aspx’ instead of a ‘.aspx’)

• This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by Gareth Roberts.

[Gareth Roberts]

And… fixed.

By essentially reinstalling the licence key app as far as I can gather. (I didn’t do it myself.) Thanks for directing me to the admin app earlier.

[eadocX Support]

We have finally figured out where this ‘Invalid character in a base 64 String’ message comes from.
It is created – in error – by the Crypto routines which we use, and you should ignore it.
The REAL error code should just say simply ‘no more floating licences are available’.
Next code version (3.4.4) will hide this silly error, and just correctly say ‘no more licences’.

[Volkmar Gann]

I have a similar problem as described before.
When starting eaDocX I got the message ‘No more floating licences available’. The data in the eaDocX Licence Information GUI is empty and I have to re-enter the Licence key. After doing this I got the message ‘Ungültige Zeichen in einer Base-64-Zeichenfolge’.
The Licence Server Statistics Tool shows the licences correctly. They are all available. I used the same information (licence server ip address and port) but the validiation fails as described.

As we have to generate documents soon I am interested in having a solution as fast as possible.

Who has an idea how to preceed?

[eadocX Support]

Update to this: the error is incorrectly reported as ‘no more licences’. In fact, it’s a communication error between client and the LSA, usually caused by network changes.
Best solution is to create a new LSA for the SAME machine as where eaDocX is installed. Remember, each LSA is IP-address specific, so you will need to go to the eaDocX website and create new LSAs.
Once this works OK, then create a new LSA on a network machine, is possible, one where you have Admin rights, and can control network and firewall settings.
Once this works, carry on looking at your network settings.

We have also seen many problems where the LSA is running on a Virtual Server: it’s a high-security application, designed to prevent fraud, and we think that the application doesn’t really understand VSs and throws strange errors. Sorry about this, but it’s out of our control. So, we recommend LSAs run on real servers.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by eadocX Support.

[Volkmar Gann]

Thanks to eaDocX Support for the fast response.
Indeed, the virtual Server environment could cause problems. We moved the LSA to a real server and now we have access to licences and can work.

[Mark Elson]

We’ve not got much option but to run on a Virtual Server and I imagine that might become commonplace. Is there any possibility of changing your licensing approach? Other add-ins seem able to use the EA license manager (e.g. DOORS add-in).

[eadocX Support]

The Sparx Licence Manager is not an open API, so we can’t use it. In any case, we now have so many customers using the eaDocX floating licence mechanism that it would be very disruptive to change now.

[Jörg Witzel]

Hello,
we have the same “Ungültige Zeichen in einer Base-64-Zeichenfolge” Problem. However all our servers are virtual. The only physical machines are our Developer-Laptops. And i can’t install the LSA there naturally.

So i need a solutions without using a physical machine.

[Mike Lucas]

Update to this: the error is incorrectly reported as ‘no more licences’. In fact, it’s a communication error between client and the LSA, usually caused by network changes.
Best solution is to create a new LSA for the SAME machine as where eaDocX is installed. Remember, each LSA is IP-address specific, so you will need to go to the eaDocX website and create new LSAs.
Once this works OK, then create a new LSA on a network machine, is possible, one where you have Admin rights, and can control network and firewall settings.
Once this works, carry on looking at your network settings.

We have also seen many problems where the LSA is running on a Virtual Server: it’s a high-security application, designed to prevent fraud, and we think that the application doesn’t really understand VSs and throws strange errors. Sorry about this, but it’s out of our control. So, we recommend LSAs run on real servers.

We’re experiencing similar problems at the moment, getting an error message saying that there are no licences available even though none are checked out. Is the advice to recreate a new LSA still the right thing to do?

Thanks

[eadocX Support]

I’d still try the above steps, in case it really is a comms error.
Just as likely is that this is the systemic error in the LSA, which causes it to fail when maintenance is applied to the server it’s running on. Not the fault of the maintenance – crypto application just hasn’t kept up with changes to how Windows does things.
We’re seriously thinking of withdrawing floating licences altogether – they are >50% of the issues we see with eaDocX, which is really annoying, as we thought we were being smart in buying-in the crypto from someone else.
Plan B is to offer organisational licences instead, which is much simpler for users.
Plan C is to offer a free exchange of fixed licences instead of floating ones: 1:4.

[Mike Lucas]

Ok, we’ll try that. Thanks.

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