Learning Forum

[attiliodefalco]

I'm seeing a licenising error when attempting to use multiple cores with Ansys Maxwell - the error is:

 "Request name HFSS_PARALLEL does not exist in the licensing pool"

 His "licdebug.MAXWELLCOMENGINE.EXE.194.out" file is at the bottom of this email.  Please let me know if there other logs you need to see.

Our license contains the following hfss components:

 INCREMENT hfss_solve ansyslmd 9999.9999 31-jul-2020 110

INCREMENT hfss_transient_solve ansyslmd 9999.9999 31-jul-2020 110

INCREMENT hfsshpc ansyslmd 9999.9999 31-jul-2020 1824

INCREMENT hfsssbr_solve ansyslmd 9999.9999 31-jul-2020 110

 And the other "hpc" component:

 INCREMENT aa_r_hpc ansyslmd 9999.9999 31-jul-2020 64 F45C41A04228

 Please provide a License key to support this feature or direct this request to the support group that can help diagnose the issue.

 Thanks,

 Attilio De Falco

Cornell University Customer# 244252

 

His "licdebug.MAXWELLCOMENGINE.EXE.194.out" file is at the bottom of this email.  Please let me know if there other logs you need to see.

2019/07/08 164:21    CLIENT_CONNECT                                                                        3/3/3/3  

2019/07/08 164:21    NEW_CONNECTION      Connected to Licensing Client Proxy server: 35634@127.0.0.1.

2019/07/08 164:21    CHECKOUT            m3dfs_solve                     19.4 (2019.0227)             1/1/1/1                 3/3/3/3  

2019/07/08 164:21    CHECKOUT            CAP_M3DFS_SOLVE                 19.4 (2019.0227)             1/1/1/1                 3/3/3/3  

2019/07/08 164:21    DENIED              HFSS_PARALLEL                   19.4 (2019.0227)             6/0/0/0                 3/3/3/3  

Request name HFSS_PARALLEL does not exist in the licensing pool.

 

[tsiriaks]

We will reach out to you soon.

Thanks,

Win

[dyat]

No official answer, but for future reference this worked for us:

Open ansysedt (HFSS) and navigate to Tools > Options > HPC and Analysis Options... > Options > HPC Licensing.  Next to HPC License, change "Pack" to "Pool."

Our ANSYS campus academic license does include Electronics HPC, but not HPC Pack. (I have no idea how the HPC Pool is different than the HPC Pack.)

After doing that, it started using "hfsshpc" license feature which enabled the HFSS_PARALLEL checkout to succeed (this is based on the info in the directory ~/.ansys/licdebug.ENSCOMENGINE.EXE.194.out

Confusingly, the HFSS_PARALLEL error did not appear in the ansyslmd logs nor the flexlm ones.  It only appeared as a error message to the user and in the user's error file in the home directory. 

I think this is a bug; the errors should be written to the central log files.

[tsiriaks]

Thanks for the info. That's correct if user has hfsshpc licenses. Unlike Mechanical and Fluids products, Ansoft products require users to pre-defined the type of HPC license to be used. There are 4 main license features anshpc, anshpc_pack, hfsshpc, hfsshpc_pack. The last two are legacy Electronics HPC licenses and work only with Ansoft products, the first two can be used with all ANSYS flagship products. So, the tool has settings to specify Pack vs Pool as well as Legacy HPC vs current. Depends on what licenses you have, you will have to specify the settings accordingly.

Pack vs Pool is just different license package choices. When combining multiple seats of Pack, it exponentially increases the number of cores allowed , this is good (in term of investment) if users normally solve using a lot of cores (like 13 or more).

The uppercase license vs lowercase license names is quite advance and difficult to explain but this is not a bug. The upper vs lower is to differentiate between difference licensing mechanisms. The licensing mechanism for Ansoft has changed starting from 2019 R2. It used to be pure FlexNet (all lowercase licenses) ; however, it now introduces another layer similar to that being used by ANSYS (Mechanical/Fluids) products since version 12.x or 13.x I forgot. The difference between the current licensing mechanisms between Ansoft and ANSYS is that, for Ansoft, this additional layer is added only on the client side. So, the logs on the server would see uppercase licenses only from ANSYS products but not from Ansoft. Note: The ANSYS products licensing mechanism will be changed to be the exact same as that currently used by Ansoft. I still can't say when but it's soon.

Thanks,

Win

[dyat]

Thanks to Win for the insight into how the licensing works.

I am concerned about the last sentence you wrote, though.  I think it will make things harder for system administrators if license errors don't get reported in the license server log files and instead only show up in files in the users home directories!

Thanks, Doug

[tsiriaks]

You are welcome.

I understand your concern. You can however still see the actual 'license feature' (the lower case ones) that are being requested in 'license.log' on the license server. Note: The 'license feature(s)' are the ones on the INCREMENT lines of license files.  

The additional licensing layer is called Licensing Interconnect , LI . The Ansoft 2019R2, R3 (and newer) and ANSYS products request for 'license capability' (the upper case ones) . The request would go through LI to map the 'license capability' with 'license feature' , then LI talks with FlexNet (lmgrd) and Vendor Daemon (ansyslmd) to pull license features. The difference between current Ansoft version and ANSYS licensing mechanisms is the matter of where LI is located. For ANSYS products, it has both LI client side and LI server side and that is why you also have ansysli_server.log on the license server. For current Ansoft version and future ANSYS versions, the LI is only on the client side. In this case, all LI logs will be on clients, whereas the server will have FlexNet log ,license.log.

It's more complicated than this since license capability and license feature isn't 1-1 mapping. A license feature can provide 10's or 20's capabilities or just 1 capability. Also, different license features may share some common license capabilities. Additionally, this mapping would change depending on the version of LI but the change is mostly to add more capabilities to each feature (not removing it) , so most of the time, customers get more benefit by just updating License Manager version. By the way, this mapping tables are not available for customers in case you are wondering. There is a 'product to feature mapping table' but that has nothing to do with license capability that software is requesting. It's just a mapping between 'license package/bundle' to license features.

In any case, if you encounter licensing questions/issues, you can always seek help in this section.

Thanks,

Win