How to make TVP find its license over network

[Animark]

Hi,

we had some trouble at our school to get all TVPaint license to work over network. Now all clients are working perfectly, except my laptop. When we installed the TVPaint on it we used one of our dongles local at that laptop. That worked fine.

Now we want that TVPaint to get its license over the network, but it only looks local to find it.
Is there a way to force this TVPaint installation to search its license over network?
We tried to reinstall TVPaint and the sentinel stuff, we tried to clean up the registry, but nothing helps.
Is there something more we could try except a complete reinstall of the hole system on that laptop. Its a Dell running Windows XP SP2.

Thanks for any suggestions.
Animark

[Fabrice]

Hi Animark,

I'm here ready to help.
Please can you send me your license informations (especially the dongle number) in PM ?

I'm pretty sure we will find a solution

Regards,
Fabrice.

[Animark]

Hi Fabrice,

I 've talked to my system admin a few minutes ago. He went crazy about the trouble we've had with the TVPaint installations here. It would be a good idea to add a manual for multiple client network installations to the TVPaint install CD in the future. His workaround (after hours of experimenting and helpful talking to your reseller) was to first plug one dongle (of two) in a server and register all 9 TVPaint clients to that dongle. Then he unplugged that dongle No. 1 and plugged in dongle No. 2 and registered all TVPaint clients to that. Then he plugged in both dongles and every client find its license.

Back to my laptop. Now he started to reinstall the hole system of my laptop and tries to run TVPaint again on a new clean machine. "No more experiments!" he says.
For the moment I hope that way works. I am the teacher who wants to show some students how to animate with TVPaint on next week.

So, I will come back in a few days if TVPaint will not start again. In that case I think I need your help surely.

Thank you from Animark.

[Peter Wassink]

Hi Fabrice,

I 've talked to my system admin a few minutes ago. He went crazy about the trouble we've had with the TVPaint installations here. It would be a good idea to add a manual for multiple client network installations to the TVPaint install CD in the future.

i can second that, i believe the HKU system admin also has had considerable difficulties with it.

And although the system is installed and working, it is not perfect.
part of my routine at HKU is providing students with the unlockcodes because after each crash (tvp crashes a lot because of not seeing its dongle over the network )
the students need to enter the unlockode,for some reason it has to be typed in everytime.
the students also loose their work at each crash i have urged them to constantly save, but its not ideal.

[Animark]

Hi Peter,

I am working intensivly with TVPaint since a few weeks on my own project at school. Also some students started to animate with it. I've never had a crash and never heard of crashing TVPaint from the students. I hope it will be also stable in the future. But there was one moment I was animating while my system admin unplugged the dongle in the server room. TVPaint ended up with a message that it didn't find its license. I've clicked OK - after the dongle was plugged again - and TV Paint closes. My work was lost.

TVPaint is a really great software and I was very happy that I could introduce it to the 2D departement of our school. The only thing I don't like yet is this dongle trouble thing ... and, maybe a little bit, the complicate camera movement workaround. Some of our students are working traditional at an animation stand under a digital camera with CutOuts, Oil, Sand etc. Now they have a digital tool to complement their animations. Before TVPaint they tried to animate and/or manipulate with Photoshop or Painter. Both are not made for animation.

Let`s see how it works next week. 10 students and 10 license simultaneously over some hours will be a good test

[Peter Wassink]

... I've never had a crash and never heard of crashing TVPaint from the students. I hope it will be also stable in the future. But there was one moment I was animating while my system admin unplugged the dongle in the server room. TVPaint ended up with a message that it didn't find its license. I've clicked OK - after the dongle was plugged again - and TV Paint closes. My work was lost.

Actually that was what i meant, for the rest tvp is pretty stable even on the schools slow imacs.

TVPaint is a really great software and I was very happy that I could introduce it to the 2D departement of our school. The only thing I don't like yet is this dongle trouble thing ... and, maybe a little bit, the complicate camera movement workaround. Some of our students are working traditional at an animation stand under a digital camera with CutOuts, Oil, Sand etc. Now they have a digital tool to complement their animations. Before TVPaint they tried to animate and/or manipulate with Photoshop or Painter. Both are not made for animation.

Let`s see how it works next week. 10 students and 10 license simultaneously over some hours will be a good test

I agree, the camera definately needs improvement but i also agree that TVP is really a great software!
Good luck with your students, i'm sure once they 'get it' they will love it

[A_L]

It would be a good idea to add a manual for multiple client network installations to the TVPaint install CD in the future. His workaround (after hours of experimenting and helpful talking to your reseller) was to first plug one dongle (of two) in a server and register all 9 TVPaint clients to that dongle. Then he unplugged that dongle No. 1 and plugged in dongle No. 2 and registered all TVPaint clients to that. Then he plugged in both dongles and every client find its license.

Hi, we also have these problems with multiple dongles. I agree that there should be something about this in the manual... or at least here

We have three dongles, five licenses each. And let's say we have 15 workstations, I'll refer to them as A1-A5, B1-B5 and C1-C5.
It seems the order in which the license registrations are done, matters. If we register the machines A1-A5 first, then B1-B5 and lastly the C1-C5 and leave the registered TVP's running during this process, that's the order TVP's must be started everytime, otherwise it occurs that the license key is not found. Always the five "A" machines first, then the "B" machines and then the "C" machines. Needless to say, this startup order would be very difficult to achieve during normal use. As system admin, I also have given the unlock codes for the teacher, so the students can use the codes every time the license is not found.
So it seems the first dongle indeed handles the first five machines and so on... from what I've read here now, the workaround would be to... register all 15 machines to all the three dongles? That would be a complex task to do. First, activate all with the first dongle (1 to 5 TVP's running at the same time)... then with the second (6 to 10 running...)... eh, I'm getting a little lost here
Ok, a kind of easier solution without that much arrangements would indeed be plugging only one of the three dongles at a time and register all the 15 to that, then the same process with the other two. But the dongles are already inside a locked pc case (the teacher's workstation) so I think I'd still rather use this other method... *lazy*
Anyway, can you people from TVPaint confirm this really is the current behavior and will there be instructions / workarounds / hotfixes..?

Thanks,
A.

[Fabrice]

Hi Fabrice,

I 've talked to my system admin a few minutes ago. He went crazy about the trouble we've had with the TVPaint installations here. It would be a good idea to add a manual for multiple client network installations to the TVPaint install CD in the future. His workaround (after hours of experimenting and helpful talking to your reseller) was to first plug one dongle (of two) in a server and register all 9 TVPaint clients to that dongle. Then he unplugged that dongle No. 1 and plugged in dongle No. 2 and registered all TVPaint clients to that. Then he plugged in both dongles and every client find its license.

Back to my laptop. Now he started to reinstall the hole system of my laptop and tries to run TVPaint again on a new clean machine. "No more experiments!" he says.
For the moment I hope that way works. I am the teacher who wants to show some students how to animate with TVPaint on next week.

So, I will come back in a few days if TVPaint will not start again. In that case I think I need your help surely.

Thank you from Animark.

ok, I agree on the fact that we have to write a special manual about the Network installation. We will do it in as soon as possible.
I will post here as soon as it is done, we will add something in our FAQ section and add a few words in our next coming newsletter.

But the very first problem on our side is that we can't identify you through your pseudonym or email adress.
As a consequence, I just don't now which kind of license you have (Network, Lab, Single, STD, Mirage, ... ?) because I can't find you or your school in the database ...
Could you please told us here the name of your school and/or your dongle number (in PM) ?

i can second that, i believe the HKU system admin also has had considerable difficulties with it.

And although the system is installed and working, it is not perfect.
part of my routine at HKU is providing students with the unlockcodes because after each crash (tvp crashes a lot because of not seeing its dongle over the network )
the students need to enter the unlockode,for some reason it has to be typed in everytime.
the students also loose their work at each crash i have urged them to constantly save, but its not ideal.

Roderique should have sent me an email about this issue ... I was just unaware of this problem.
There is a tip to make TVP search the dongle on a specific server, by giving the IP of the computer holding the keys. It should avoid the dongle to search in all the network in order to find a key. (once it does not find the key => Crash)
I also think that Hervé may help on this problem with a new build. (we can ask the program to check for the dongle less often)

So it seems the first dongle indeed handles the first five machines and so on... from what I've read here now, the workaround would be to... register all 15 machines to all the three dongles? That would be a complex task to do. First, activate all with the first dongle (1 to 5 TVP's running at the same time)... then with the second (6 to 10 running...)... eh, I'm getting a little lost here
Ok, a kind of easier solution without that much arrangements would indeed be plugging only one of the three dongles at a time and register all the 15 to that, then the same process with the other two. But the dongles are already inside a locked pc case (the teacher's workstation) so I think I'd still rather use this other method... *lazy*
Anyway, can you people from TVPaint confirm this really is the current behavior and will there be instructions / workarounds / hotfixes..?

ah, our Finnish school

I confirm : there is a way to register all computers at the same time very quickly. I will send you and Animark the full explanations tomorrow.
There will also probably be an update to download for the Network version because of the problem that Peter has mentionned.

Thank you all for posting about those issues. Your feedbacks help us to improve the software and we will do our best to give you solutions as soon as possible. (later this week).
TVPaint use and still want to be close to its customers. It's something I'm really careful.

If any of you (or any school that use TVPaint) has a problem with its Network, please post here ! This thread is the one where we will give you solutions !


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@ the TVP team only : S'il vous plaît, faites un effort pour répondre les jours où je ne suis pas là !
Nos utilisateurs en ont besoin !

[Fabrice]

Hi there, I will send you some files via email tomorrow in the morning.

It will help to solve the problems for all of you

[Animark]

Yipee,

we solved my laptop-don't-find-its-license problem.
It was very easy in the end, but it was a hard way to get an idea of a possible solution.

My laptop has two network-connections. One for LAN and one for WLAN. WLAN was activated, but not connected to any network. The problem was, that TVPaint only looked at that connection and didn't got any response from the license server. TVPaint endet up in that didn't-find-license message. Now we deactivatet WLAN and TVPaint looked at the LAN connection and found its license. On one hand I am happy to work now with TVPaint on my laptop - on the other hand its still a crazy thing to deactivate the WLAN while I want to work with TVPaint. However.

I will save Fabrice files for future use, while hoping not to occupy our system admin for the next months whith TVPaint related problems.

Thanks for all from Animark

[Fabrice]

Hi there :

For those using TVP Animation 9 on PC :
Please download and unzip the attached files. Then edit them with notepad. you will have :

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\TVPaint Developpement\first lock-code here]
"user"="Your school name here"
"org"="- - -"
"code"="first unlock-code here"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\TVPaint Developpement\second lock-code here]
"user"="Your school name here"
"org"="- - -"
"code"="second unlock-code here"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\TVPaint Developpement\third lock-code here]
"user"="Your school name here"
"org"="- - -"
"code"="third unlock-code here"

For each dongle you have ordered, please fill-in the corresponding spaces with your lock and unlock code.
Then, install the .reg file by double clicking on it on each computer of the Network.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\TVPaint Developpement\keys]
"IPServer"="99.999.99.999"

If needed, and only if needed, those two last lines allows to specify the IP of the computer holding the dongles.
It will avoid the software to search for the dongle over all the network and TVP Animation 9 should not stop anymore because it does not find the dongle. (this should fix Peter's bug)
If you don't need to fix this bug : don't use those two lines in the reg file.

- - - - - - - - - -

For those using TVP Animation 8 on PC :

The file to edit is called program.key you can find it in the following directory :
C:\Program Files\TVPaint Developpement\TVPaint Animation Pro\Data

Please edit the program.key file with notepad with those informations :

[Keys]

IPServer=99.999.99.999

Your-lock-code #1code=unlock-code #1
Your-lock-code #1org=your company
Your-lock-code #1user=your name

Your-lock-code #2code=unlock-code #2
Your-lock-code #2org=your company
Your-lock-code #2user=your name

etc ...

demo=empty
init=empty
upgrade=empty

So you can manage several dongles and also specify if needed an IP for the computer holding those dongles.

- - - - - - - - - -

For those using TVP Animation 8 and TVP Animation 9 on PC :

To avoid any conflict between the different software versions and dongles, you have to put the TVP Animation 8 dongles and the TVP Animation 9 dongles on two different computers.
The use of the IP Server command is necessary to avoid TVP Animation 9 to use TVP Animation 8 's dongle or the reverse.

[slowtiger]

Not that I have any problem, but just out of curiousity: how would a Mac behave in that situation?

[Peter Wassink]

It will avoid the software to search for the dongle over all the network and TVP Animation 9 should not stop anymore because it does not find the dongle. (this should fix Peter's bug)

were it not that both server and client machines are macs.

[Fabrice]

ok, MAC answers will come asap

[A_L]

Excellent, license problems solved here with that regfile.

Thanks

A.