Why does FlexSim wants a feature when it does not have the license for it?

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Steven Hamoen asked Mar 24, '23 Phil BoBo edited Mar 24, '23

Why does FlexSim wants a feature when it does not have the license for it?

We run a license server and a client is taking a license from it. That works great but in the log file I see the following line:

10:25:41 (flexsim) UNSUPPORTED: "emulation" (PORT_AT_HOST_PLUS ) xxxxx@xxxxx (No such feature exists. (-5,346:10054 ""))

I think this means that FlexSim wants to check out that feature but the standard license doesn't contain that feature so I haven't specified it in my opt file. So is this a problem, a bug or should we just leave it like this? @Ben Wilson

Software Version:

FlexSim 23.0.5

emulation features network license

Answer 1 · 2023-03-24T10:14:03Z

Ben Wilson answered Mar 24, '23 Phil BoBo edited Mar 24, '23

What you're seeing now in your log file regarding Emulation is normal and fine. Mine is the same. You can safely ignore it.

Beginning in version 23.0 FlexSim includes a new Emulation Tool. From the documentation:

Modbus and OPC DA connections are freely available. The other connection types require an Emulation license.

So this is just the software asking for that additional license feature, but your server not having it.

I don't know why this implementation is different than an OptQuest license, for instance. Perhaps the Emulation feature is requested right at startup since your model may use Emulation as a matter of course, whereas running an optimization actually spawns background FlexSim processes, so checking for the OptQuest feature isn't done until that time? I'm just speculating here. Dev would need to weigh in on the specifics, though ultimately it doesn't much matter other than for curiosity.

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Phil BoBo ♦♦ commented · Mar 24, 2023 at 03:52 PM

I'm not sure why you are getting the UNSUPPORTED message for the emulation feature, but not other features that FlexSim tries to checkout that may be missing on the license server, such as optquest, modeltree, and optqueststudent.

My only guess is that it may be related to how the FlexNet Licensing Service handles batching repeated calls to lc_checkout(). The emulation feature is checked out when the Emulation module dll is loaded, whereas the other features are checked out as FlexSim starts up and initializes the licensing system. On our end, the calls into FlexNet look identical except for the timing of when they happen during startup.

If the messages bother you, they can be suppressed by adding a NOLOG UNSUPPORTED line to your options file on the server. See the FlexNet License Administration Guide for more details.

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