I think the general consensus is, that if they’re that hard-core, they own the burden to make their software prevent it from happening. In complex production environments it’s unrealistic to never make an honest mistake. And they also don’t give us the tools to monitor ourselves so we can correct any mistake in a timely matter.
You might even win this in court if necessary, but you’re outgunned lawyer and cost wise.
I hope this thread is being read by at least some at ADSK who can take note.
Either way it’s a very disappointing showing. That’s where being a freelancer or small shop tilts the power balance in unfortunate ways. If they loose a few license from us over this, I doubt it will even register anywhere.
exactly what I am afraid of, mwe have maybe 6 licenses on 6 users, how am I supposed to check which license is active where on what user account?! there arent even any tools
it still lets me open the software twice on 2025.2 with the same user, now IDK if it might starts to look at unused-at-the-moment seats? that other users have been assigned?!
i’d hate to be in your position with the multi licence juggling act thats required.
For me, it was less of an issue (although still quite terrifying to get that letter). With two licences, two users and two mac pro’s (and my laptop) its very rare we are ever in a situation where we would be running two copies of a licence. For me, it happened on a Sunday night when a problem was flagged and i needed to urgently check if the issue was happening on both my copies of the project. Nothing sinister, no piracy, just an honest mistake trying to fix a problem before a deadline.
Fortunately the adsk rep understood and dropped it.
the only good thing is that we dont have to commit to flame at all anymore, no more giant investments, i can switch to resolve or whatever in about 10 minutes .
This shoudl give us leverage as clients to not deal with any of this BS but idk, they probably dont care .
Right. I’d be disappointing, but there are ready alternatives. Between Nuke, Resolve, and BorisFX we can make everything work. Not in as nice a package, and these apps have their own issues. But we’re not dependent on ADSK.
exactly my machines and my staff can run multiple different tools, I only hire specilists that only know 1 software as freelancers, I dont want my business to depend on some
other company especially not a super large one known to just drop support (rip xsi that still hangs deep)
tried to get answeres from adsk support but now I am even more confused than before
To avoid a license compliance issue, it’s important to understand how Autodesk licenses work. Here’s what you need to know:
If your subscription is described as “single-user,” “individual,” or “named user,” you can only assign the subscription to one Authorized User, who must be identified by a unique Autodesk ID.
The Authorized User can install the software on up to three electronic devices but is only permitted to use the software on one electronic device at a time.
For Autodesk Industry Collections, an Authorized User may concurrently use any Software titles in the Collection, but only on one Desktop Device and one Mobile Device at a time.
It’s crucial to manage the number of active seats according to the number of users. If a subscription expires, you need to either renew it or purchase additional seats to maintain compliance.
Always ensure that the number of users does not exceed the number of active licenses to prevent any disruption in access and to stay compliant with the licensing terms.
By following these guidelines, you can ensure that you are using the licenses correctly and avoid any compliance issues. Remember, each user should have their own Autodesk ID and should only be signed into the application on one machine at a time.
How would that even possible to have more users than active licenses ? what in the ?
This is one layer above what you are dealing with. It’s the association of your user count and it’s assignment to an e-mail/login. None of this addresses how you make sure that #2 is always true.
So you are allowed to install on three systems per email/login, but you only one can be actively used. That’s the whole crux.
If their software de-dupes that correctly - at it appears to do sometimes, but not always, then all is good. If not, well, it’s really their software that is at odds.
I wonder if this all works fine if there is a single email/login at play, which is why it works for me and a few others. I suspect there may be some corner cases when people with different emails/logins switch between machines, and it all gets confused, allows what it shouldn’t and then the alarms go off.
yea i asked for a call to clear this up as I quiet frankly dont get it.
we switch machines ALL the time , you have clients, you work in the suite, you work at home, you use the license at home, you are on set, you activate it on a macbook - i mean thats the IDEA behind all of this, isnt it?
all our local users accounts on the machines are named the same lol so if adsk looks at local users accounts all of our users are always logged in as replayboys because we dont have or want AD , we are way to “hybrid” for these kinda shenanigans
How many licenses do I need to buy to get flexLM? xD
As per License compliance you are allowed to use current plus previous five version only. Also, the user can access it from one device only at a time, if you are login in into one device you have to logout from the other one. The primary and secondary admin can’t do any changes in this and can’t control this.
License compliance at Autodesk refers to the adherence to software licensing agreements and the protection of Autodesk’s intellectual property rights.
soo do I read this right, we have to press the actual logout button in flame everytime we switch machines, and I have to have the USER take care of this??? is that serious? they cant be serious. that would be SO insane of a crutch that I would consider not using flame anymore given this hostile licensing. No other cloud-login-license-whatever tool works like this
It says you have to logout of the other one. It isn’t clear though if the software will refuse to login on the new one until you log out, or if you are required to do that on your own without assist in order to remain compliant.
And in our tests it seems sufficient to exit the app, not ‘logout’. But then again, it’s all muddy.
Somewhere around 2024-25 the licensing finally got smart enough to count its currently running allotments at startup and release them on exit.
It won’t startup if there isn’t a license available that’s currently not in use. You get warned and exiting a running instance of software is enough—you don’t need to log out of the license. That behavior mimics flexlm, rlm…
It was not always so and that is how folks got caught out. So best practice is, quit when you’re not using the kit.
That seems to be the case 99% of the time. There’s some anecdotal evidence that on occasions (some unknown corner case) this logic doesn’t work all the time. That’s the concern. But as said before, that would on ADSK to fix.
thats bascially EXACTLY what i want to hear from adsk.
Thei email really didnt say that at all , they say its my users responsibity to log out proactively.
Also in what way does a “install limit of 3 per user” even make ANY sense, I can deploy 200 flame project server installs and a 50000 machine burn farm and never license an single one .
I will have a call with them next week to figure this out because
If we have to log out and in I will go back to treating these licenses like “dongles” that only admins have access to to login and logout licenses on machines.
flame1@
flame2@
flame3@
then I license machines and not users which is safer… wtf .
@cnoellert - as always, another insightful idea, but judging from this thread it appears to be the responsibility of Autodesk to author and distribute this tool?
I would LOVE to give my users full access to the license → want to try a thing on your macbook while chilling on the couch? want to try something again to write a bugreport? blah blah blah
this includes freelancers, i mean WHY NOT i have 0 problems with someone using the license 24/7 thats what that is for, but with all this it feels very dangerous