Creo 11 locked licensing issues with multiple MAC address on same machine

[TC_9543675]

Hi all,

So we are in the middle of changing our creo 4 to creo 11.0.2.0. I used Creo 4 for years on this machine, never had any issues with licensing (as the way it should be since it is a locked license for a certain MAC address). The machine in question is a workstation laptop, so it has multiple MAC addresses (one for LAN, one for wi-fi 2.4Ghz, one for wi-fi 5Ghz. Creo4 used the lan's MAC address). 

Now, as Creo 11 comes in the picture I face multiple issues:

- at the installation, it sees a different MAC address , so I moved the license to that address, so it allows me to complete the installation

- if I change from 2.4Ghz network to 5Ghz one, creo11 won't start ("Invalid host name")

- if I change from wifi network to lan, creo11 won't start ("Invalid host name")

- after installation, it only works with active internet connectivity

- even if creo11 starts, "license is lost" message appears every 3 minutes or so, if I click on retry, I can continue to work, "Regained floating license" message appears after, which is kinda wierd since it is a locked license

Our local support can't really help, they suggested to modify the power options of the network card so it cant go to "sleep", I looked for every possible options and turned off this function, but the problem remains.

What should be done to get creo11 to work as it worked with creo4?

Thanks in advance!

-Tibor

[TC_9543675]

Another clue that I found is that running the ptchostid.bat gives different results according to the following:

Running ptchostid.bat from creo 4: returns the same mac address regardless of network state

Running ptchostid.bat from creo 11: returns different mac addresses depending of network state (none of which is the same as what the creo 4 returns)

[Catalina]

Hi @TC_9543675 

Thank you for your question. 

Your post appears well documented but has not yet received any response. I am replying to raise awareness. Hopefully, another community member will be able to help.
 

Also, feel free to add any additional information you think might be relevant. It sometimes helps to have screenshots to better understand what you are trying to do.

Best regards,

[MartinHanak · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Q1: What Windows version do  you use?

Q2: Is your license locked or floating? Does license file contain SERVER and DAEMON lines?

Suggestions (related to my Windows 10):

1.] move license back to MAC address of Ethernet network card

2.] open Command prompt window as admin, run devmgmt.msc command and turn off the option highlighted on following picture

3.] open Command prompt window as admin and run following commands

netsh interface ipv4 set global dhcpmediasense=disabled

netsh interface ipv6 set global dhcpmediasense=disabled

4.] OPTIONAL STEP - open Command prompt window as admin and run regedit.exe

go to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkCards folder

it contains subfolders related to network cards ... see example below

in my case 2 folder belongs to WiFi and 3 folder belongs to Ethernet -AND- my license is "attached" to Ethernet card

You can rename folder names to set specific order of network cards.

[TC_9543675]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your detailed reply,

I did every step of your reply but the issue persists. I'll try my best to answer to your questions,:

1. Windows 11 23H2  build:22631.4460

2.License is locked, also there is no SERVER no DAEMON lines in the file, however the following line is present, so I suppose it is pretty much locked:

#################### LOCKED License #####################

To reply to your suggestions:

I moved the license back to Ethernet's MAC

By default, there is no "Power management" tab in Win11, so I followed this advice from a microsoft forum:

Disable Modern Standby (Forcing legacy standby S3)
reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power /v PlatformAoAcOverride /t REG_DWORD /d 0

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-is-the-power-management-tab-missing-i-have/037105bc-6c46-4c50-b02c-91d6468fdcb1

After this, the Power management tab appeared, so I was able to untick the suggested option, also I disabled "Energy efficient Ethernet" and "Link Speed Battery Saver" and "Ultra Low Power Mode" - all to no avail.

I ran the netsh commands.

I changed the folder names in the registry: it was 2 for WiFi and 3 for Ethernet, now I swapped them but no changes.

Also it is worth noting that after (and before) all these changes, Creo4 still operates perfectly, so I dont think the network card was unable to respond in any way from the beginning. Creo11 just simply changed the way it looks for a MAC address, so it depends the actual connectivity status of the machine: different for offline, WiFi, LAN, WiFi 5Ghz and it is driving me crazy... 🙂

Any other idea to fix this is much appriciated.

Thanks and Regards,

-Tibor

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

thank you for providing https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-is-the-power-management-tab-missing-i-have/037105bc-6c46-4c50-b02c-91d6468fdcb1 link.

I can use Creo 11.0.2.0 on my notebook without any problem (Windows 10 22H2 19045.5198). But my situation is different from yours, because I use floating license.

Please do following:

• unplug LAN cable from Ethernet socket
• restart computer

• open Command prompt window and run ipconfig /all command
  • look at Ethernet card
  • can you see Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected message ?

• open Command prompt window and run Creo 11.0.2.0\Parametric\bin\ptchostid.bat
  • what information does it display?
  • you can run the same bat in Creo 4.0 ...

• open Command prompt window and run getmac
  • what information does it display?

[TC_9543675]

Hi Martin,

Yes, for the ethernet card line the "Media disconnected" message appears in ipconfig.

I already wrote how the ptchostid behaves in a previous reply, but I'll paste it here:

"...Another clue that I found is that running the ptchostid.bat gives different results according to the following:

Running ptchostid.bat from creo 4: returns the same mac address regardless of network state

Running ptchostid.bat from creo 11: returns different mac addresses depending of network state (none of which is the same as what the creo 4 returns)..."

So, based on this, I should have different license files for each MAC address depending on network state: offline, WiFi, LAN, WiFi 5Ghz.

Getmac command returns 5 different MAC addresses, see attached (first command run on Wi-Fi, second offline).

Thanks and Regards,

-Tibor

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

In the picture some information is hidden.

Q1: Is information in lines 2-6 identical?

Q2: What card is related to line 1? ... E2-* vs 8C-*

Q3: Did you turn off MAC address randomization for WiFi cards?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-random-hardware-addresses-in-windows-ac58de34-35fc-31ff-c650-823fc48eb1bc

Q4: Can you provide full output of ipconfig /all command? ... use ipconfig /all > ip.txt to get file

Q5: Can you provide full output of getmac /v /fo list command? ... use getmac /v /fo list > gm.txt to get file

[TC_9543675]

Hi Martin, thanks again for your effort.

Yes, I did not want to reveal my MAC addresses first, but if it is helpful in finding a solution, I'm attaching the needed files.

1. The MAC addresses given by the two getmac commands are identical

2. Card informations are in the attached file

3. I turned randomization off, also turned "Use random hardware addresses for a specific network" off for each known network. This way, ptchostid.bat gives the same MAC (starting with "A0-" called "Ethernet adapter Ethernet" in the attached ip.txt) - still no success..

After this, if I go to reconfigure creo license, it also gives the MAC address starting with "A0-", shows "Available" when I browse the license file as well. Only when I start Creo11 (without changing any network) after this, gives the "Invalid host id" error and then exits. Which is wierd since half a minute before reconfigure asked and accepted this address. So it seems to me that the new creo's way of getting the MAC address is not consistent through ptchostid.bat, reconfigure and creo starting.

4.-5. I attached the files.

Thanks and Regards,

-Tibor

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

1.] please upload parametric.psf file (Parametric\bin subdirectory)

2.] check the contents of working directory ... there should be a std.out file containing error messages ... please upload it

3.] please upload latest trail.txt.<n> file

4.] ip.txt file lists a couple of suspicious network cards

• please disable following cards temporarily
  • Tailscale
  • Helyi kapcsolat* 1
  • Helyi kapcsolat* 2
  • Talk2m-eCatcher
  • Ethernet 3
  • Bluetooth h l˘zati kapcsolat
• then repeat ipconfig /all ... the output must contain only 2 cards
  • Ethernet adapter Ethernet ... Intel(R) Ethernet Connection (14) I219-LM
  • Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi ... Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz
• then start Creo 11.0

5.] ip.txt file contains ... Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Peer-Peer

     Every time I do installation I can see ... Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

     I do not know if Peer-Peer setting can cause problems

[MartinHanak]

... additional note ...

It is better to add video as attachment. Pasting video inside the replay is not ideal.

[TC_9543675]

Martin, thanks for your detailed help troughout the process.

I can finally confirm that Creo 11 now runs. I managed to get it running on WiFi, LAN, and offline as well.

I skipped the steps in your last reply, so no disabling was taken place, since I did not want to loose any funcionality on other softwares.

What worked is that I moved the license back to another MAC address (starting with "8C-", called "Wireless LAN adapter Helyi Kapcsolat* 1" or "Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz") which Creo 4 was using at the first place.

It is still not the hostid that Creo 11 reconfigure asks for, but it accepts it and Creo11 runs with it. Also, there were no Power management modifications on this module, so that probably was not the issue. Still don't know what fixed it eventually., but so far so good. I think the mixture of your suggestions above helped, maybe netsh commands, not sure what to point out here...

Another interesting part of this whole story is that Creo 4 run out-of-the-box, flawlessly without any setup/disable/power management taking place and it shows a hostid that it later accepts, in contrast of Creo 11.

I changed it back to MAC address "A0-" (the one that reconfigure shows) to generate the files you required if it is still interesting to you.

(there is no option to upload *.out files so I renamed it to std.txt, which was also the case with video files, cant attach video filetype, only insert worked... next time I'll attach them zipped maybe)

Regards,

-Tibor

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

congratulations on your success!

Note: I did not find any valuable information in std.out and trail.txt. parametric.psf is OK,

INFO: Zipping a file is the right method how to upload unsupported "file extensions".