License disappears?

bbrown
bbrown Member Posts: 3,268
edited 2011-02-28 in NAV/Navision Classic Client
I have a weird problem. This has occurred 3 times in the past several months. Everything will be fine, then it will happen. Users trying to login will start getting the standard "...does not permit more users..." message. Re-uploading the client license solves the issue. But now to isolate the cause. Any thoughts?

This is a 5.0 SP1 DB, with NAV 2009 SP1 clients, running on SQL 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
There are no bugs - only undocumented features.

Comments

  • ssingla
    ssingla Member Posts: 2,973
    Have you saved license in the database (File - Database - Alter-Integration-Save License in database)? If not then try.
    CA Sandeep Singla
    http://ssdynamics.co.in
  • bbrown
    bbrown Member Posts: 3,268
    Why?

    The license is in the standard location. The Master DB.

    That "Save in DB" option is really intended for ASP operations where several different company's databases may be hosted on a single SQL server. It allows each company's license to be loaded to its specific database.
    There are no bugs - only undocumented features.
  • bbrown
    bbrown Member Posts: 3,268
    I hesitate to put the license in the NAV database for a couple of reasons.

    1. With the license in the Master DB this limits the users that can delete it to a select few. Mainly those with SA right. Moving it to the NAV database expands that list to any users with DBO access. A somewhat larger pool.

    2. On the specific site, the NAV database is mirrored to a second server. A quick recover option is to simply force a failover and deal wiht the license issue on the primary later. If the license is in the NAV database, then any issues would likely get copied to the mirror, therfore negating this option.
    There are no bugs - only undocumented features.
  • jannestig
    jannestig Member Posts: 1,000
    I reloading the correct license works what license is it using incorrectly then ?

    Do the the clients access the client folder over RDP/citrix etc or do they they a local installation?

    Perhaps it is worth checking the local installations or server installations to see if there is a cronus license in the install directory?

    Could also be they have been acessing different database eG you have a cronus teting environment etc ?
  • bbrown
    bbrown Member Posts: 3,268
    jannestig wrote:
    I reloading the correct license works what license is it using incorrectly then ?

    Do the the clients access the client folder over RDP/citrix etc or do they they a local installation?

    Perhaps it is worth checking the local installations or server installations to see if there is a cronus license in the install directory?

    Could also be they have been acessing different database eG you have a cronus teting environment etc ?

    Thanks for the response. I'm sort of scratching my head over this one. It's happens so infrequently that it's been hard to isolate any sort of pattern.

    Yes, re-uploading the license solves the problem. If you check License - Information prior to fixing it will show CRONUS. Which is also what it shows if there is no license installed.

    Clients are a mix of local workstations and RDP access. It doesn't matter they all experience the problem.

    It's quite likely that there are CRONUS license files in all or many of the client installs. Since that file is part of the base client install. Anyways that would not make a difference since the license on the server is the one that is used.

    The license is in the Master database. It would not matter which database they connected to. But yes there at times may be a second (testing) database.

    One thing I did find was that one of the NAS services was using an account with SA privileges. I've changed this to a lower privileged account (like the other NAS sessions). But I can think of what NAS would possibly doing to cause this and have nothing to point to it as the issue.
    There are no bugs - only undocumented features.
  • bbrown
    bbrown Member Posts: 3,268
    Thinking some more on this, is it really the CRONUS license that it is reading and genarating this error. In my experience the CRONUS license wil usually generate the "this database is too big for this license" message. But I am getting the "...does not permit more users...". At the time of the error, there was 14 users logged in and working. But anyone else trying to login would get that error. More like the license forgets how many users it has. It has a lot more then 14 sessions.
    There are no bugs - only undocumented features.
  • jannestig
    jannestig Member Posts: 1,000
    Well unless you have an older license file somewhere it would probably be safer to delete all the Fin.flf files in clients install directories etc
  • bbrown
    bbrown Member Posts: 3,268
    jannestig wrote:
    Well unless you have an older license file somewhere it would probably be safer to delete all the Fin.flf files in clients install directories etc

    Why? Besides there aren't any. Only CRONUS.flf which is included in the client install.
    There are no bugs - only undocumented features.
  • jannestig
    jannestig Member Posts: 1,000
    opps meant cronus.flf and why, order of elimination for potential cause of errors would by a good start
  • David_Singleton
    David_Singleton Member Posts: 5,479
    To me this does not sound like a license issue. It seems more like a permissions error. Something like that one where they added the traceflag. Possibly re-uploading the license is not what fixes it, its the disconnect reconnect that is solving the issue.
    David Singleton
  • bbrown
    bbrown Member Posts: 3,268
    jannestig wrote:
    opps meant cronus.flf and why, order of elimination for potential cause of errors would by a good start

    I agree with with the "elimination for potential cause" part. But multi-user NAV does not use the local license.
    There are no bugs - only undocumented features.
  • bbrown
    bbrown Member Posts: 3,268
    David Singleton wrote:
    To me this does not sound like a license issue. It seems more like a permissions error. Something like that one where they added the traceflag. Possibly re-uploading the license is not what fixes it, its the disconnect reconnect that is solving the issue.

    Interesting theory. The times this has happened, I've connected by doing a "license change" to a local license. Then disconnected any users before uploading the license. But I never logged out after disconecting the other users. Maybe I should try that next time? Whenever that is.

    I've seen a similar situation with Window Server 2008 R2 Terminal Services. It will stop accepting new connections. Log everyone out and it's fine.

    Any thoughts on what maybe causing this? While the "fix" is not difficult, it always seems to happen at like 2 AM.
    There are no bugs - only undocumented features.
  • jannestig
    jannestig Member Posts: 1,000
    Who is still working at 2am in the same timezone :S what process is running then some backup to a server ?
  • bbrown
    bbrown Member Posts: 3,268
    jannestig wrote:
    Who is still working at 2am in the same timezone :S what process is running then some backup to a server ?

    Working at 2 AM? Practically every day. And this was Saturday morning.

    The full backup is done at 11:00 PM each evening and over by 11:30. Activity at 2:00 AM would have just been the 14 users that were logged in but with a fair amount of activity. There would have been a group of users closing out production order. Another group would have been picking and shipping sales order. And there may have been some salespeople entering newer orders. Nothing that doesn't happen every day.
    There are no bugs - only undocumented features.

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