[Imported] Client Licensing random failure

[sbeadle]

>>Message imported from previous forum - Category:ClearSCADA Software<<
User: geoffpatton, originally posted: 2019-08-13 20:11:39 Id:484
I am contacting support but just wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem.
A customer has ViewX Clients installed on Windows 7 and randomly their licensing fails.
The only fix they have found is to uninstall and then reinstall ClearSCADA 201179 R2 June release.
They have a license file, the path is correct and works fine after reinstall.

[sbeadle · Accepted solution]

>>Responses imported from previous forum

Reply From User: adamwoodland, posted: 2019-08-14 02:26:11
Assuming you're using client licences on the ViewX, check if the ClearSCADA Licence Server is stopping at the client. If that isn't running then ViewX can't get a client licence and so falls back to server-side licences (which I'm guessing there are none available so it fails).

On re-install that service will be started. Quite possible someone (or more likely something) is stopping the service not knowing what it is.

Reply From User: geoffpatton, posted: 2019-08-14 13:29:37
They already reinstalled but I think (fuzzy memory) the first time this happened the license service would Stop right after it was started. I sent the ViewX and License Server logs to support.

Reply From User: adamwoodland, posted: 2019-08-14 22:14:57
Ah, that typically happens if the virtual service account doesn't have a log on as service token (see gpedit.msc - Computer Configuration - Windows Settings - Security Settings - Local Policies - User Rights Assignment) which seems to be quite a common situation.

Simple fix is to change the service logon to be "System" (as per the old days) but that will get reverted on upgrade, etc.

Better longer term fix is to add Local Service (I think that's the beast) to those with the log on as service policy (and ensure its not in the corresponding deny policy)

Reply From User: andrewscott, posted: 2019-08-15 09:08:40
The correct way to fix Virtual Service Accounts is to add the "NT SERVICE\\ALL SERVICES" user group to the "Log on as a service" local security policy. Windows does this automatically if you manually configure a service to run using a VSA.

Reply From User: geoffpatton, posted: 2019-08-15 17:48:13
Well I had it happen while I was on it last night and the Machine ID was random Chinese characters. Restarting the license server corrected it, this time anyway.

Before this I only helped with the first time they had a problem with the license, since the initial installation of 2017 R2. That was like 6 months or more ago, and I cannot remember how involved I was in that one. So I cannot say what actually happened and what was tried before Uninstall/Reinstall was and it fixing it. I find it hard to believe I did not have them try restarting the License Server, but if I was working hard at something else, I might have forgot that step.

All the other times they just uninstalled/reinstalled without even letting me know.

I'll pass this information on to their Network Windows Administrator.

At least their servers and most other Clients are behaving.

Interestingly this problem never happened when those computers were running 2014R1.1

Reply From User: adamwoodland, posted: 2019-08-15 22:14:02
I believe it was changed from system to the virtual service account in one of the 2015 released which may explain that. If your machines are part of a domain that may also explain why the policy setting isn't being retained allowing them to start for a short time, GPOs can manage those policies and get re-applied periodically (~hourly) removing any changes ClearSCADA or humans make.

Thanks Andrew for the correct entry name!

Reply From User: geoffpatton, posted: 2019-08-16 14:52:55
"NT SERVICE\\ALL SERVICES" was all ready set for "Log on as a service" so that is not the problem.

Reply From User: tfranklin, posted: 2019-09-04 13:38:26
For what it's worth, we've encountered a number of issues with recent new installations of ClearSCADA. A repair always seems to clean them up, but until the repair is performed things just aren't clicking.

Client licensing is one of them, and to tack onto the client licensing issue - for whatever the reason some of the client licenses we've gotten issued lately have 0 ViewX clients, which prompts us to request a new license. I think something is fuzzy.

We've also noticed issues with new client machines related to navigation using app._______ navigation functions until a repair is done. It seems like something isn't getting registered during the normal install.

The above issues have not happened during an upgrade and have only occurred on new installations, however there is 1 annoying issue that we've encountered with upgrades. That is, certain DLLs aren't getting updated during the upgrade. The repair fixes this. A colleague of mine has raised this with support already.