LabVIEW FPGA - Xilinx License Expired?

[laramiem]

We have registered both LabVIEW and LabVIEW FPGA on one PC, but after 30 days we get this error message during the compile step:

ERROR:Xst:1531 - The evaluation period for this evaluation software has expired.
   Per the guidelines of the Evaluation Agreement, which was shipped to you
   along with the Evaluation CDs, this software will no longer operate.
   We are eager to assist you as you conclude your evaluation of the Xilinx
   solution. Your local Field Applications Engineer or salesperson is available
   to answer any questions or to assist you in the purchase of an annual
   software license. You may also contact Xilinx directly at eval@xilinx.com
   Thank you for evaluating the Xilinx solution. We appreciate your interest in
   Xilinx and we look forward to earning your confidence and your business.
ERROR:Xflow - Program xst returned error code 1. Aborting flow execution...

I read through and followed the recommendataions for this thread:

  http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&thread.id=366934

and this knowledge base document:

  http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/C7C831B228F0D4F1862575400054E747

Unfortunately, those steps did not fix the problem.  Uninstalling and reinstalling the FPGA module just gave us another 30 day temporary license:

WARNING:Xst:1530 - You are using an evaluation version of Xilinx Software. In 30
   days, this program will not operate. For more information about this product,
   please refer to the Evaluation Agreement, which was shipped to you along with
   the Evaluation CDs.
   To purchase an annual license for this software, please contact your local
   Field Applications Engineer (FAE) or salesperson. If you have any questions,
   or if we can assist in any way, please send an email to: eval@xilinx.com
   Thank You!

If I move the clock forward on the PC, I get the same Xst: 1531 expiration message as before.  The license files in:

  C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\License Manager\Licenses

all look okay.  The NI License Manager reports all licenses as registered with no expiration date, and I even ran the Xilinx license diagnostics "C:\NIFPGA86\Xilinx\bin\nt\lmutil lmdiag" which looks okay to me:

-----------------------------------------------------
License file: C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\License Manager\Licenses\LabVIEW_FPGA_PKG_080600.lic
-----------------------------------------------------
"LabVIEW_FPGA" v8.0600, vendor: nilm uncounted nodelocked license, locked to Disk serial number "DISK_SERIAL_NUM=xxxxxxxx" no expiration date

  TS_OK: Checkout permitted when client is using terminal client

This is the correct node for this node-locked license
-----------------------------------------------------

Initially I thought this was due to the dual network adapters in the PC.  The licenses were originally bound to the MAC addresses, and it looked like LabVIEW picked one network adapter while Xilinx picked the other one.  However, since I deregistered and reregistered both the LabVIEW and LabVIEW FPGA modules, they are both bound to the hard drive now "DISK_SERIAL_NUM=xxxxxxxx".  The problem may still be related to this because when the licenses were bound to the network ports, I could see temporary licenses being generated in C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\License Manager\Licenses.  That's not happening anymore, and maybe that's where Xilinx is looking for the license.

Has anyone else run into this problem and found a permanent solution?  I don't want to have to reinstall the FPGA module every 30 days!

Thanks,

Mike

[Ipshita_C]

Hi Mike,

Error 1531 is indeed caused due to licensing and sometimes reinstalling the FPGA module and the compile server does fix the problem. However, as you have mentioned the two network adapters in your PC, it might be worth giving a thought to that. So if I understood correctly, the temporary license files were being generated when LabVIEW FPGA and the Xilinx Compile Server were bound to different network ports? Did you delete the temporary license files when you undid the installation of LabVIEW FPGA and the Xilinx Compile server? In addition, the components that get installed with LabVIEW FPGA include LabVIEW FPGA Module, Compile Server and Xilinx Tools. There is no direct dependency between the Compile Server and Xilinx. Therefore, repairing LabVIEW FPGA Module alone will not repair the Xilinx component. To completely repair LabVIEW FPGA along with Xilinx,

1. Run LabVIEW FPGA module installer with Xilinx feature removed and then run the installer again with Xilinx included.
2. Uninstall the Compile Server in Add/Remove program and reinstall LabVIEW FPGA with the option to install both the Compile Server and Xilinx.
3. Run all the Xilinx MSI manually from the installation disk

Before you follow the above steps, I would answer the questions that I have asked before as I would be curious to know the root cause of the problem.

Ipshita C.

[laramiem]

Hi Ipshita,

No, the temporary license files appeared to be generated whenever the licenses were bound to any network adapter (HOSTID=<mac_addr> in the license file) since I was seeing temporary licenses for both LabVIEW and the FPGA module.  The temporary licenses were being created/deleted automatically whenever LabVIEW was open/closed.  In our original 8.6 installation, both the LabVIEW and FPGA module licenses were bound to HOSTID=mac_addr1.

The Xilinx licensing all happens under the covers so I'm not sure where it looks for the license, but when I ran lmtools it reported the ethernet address as mac_addr2.  So I deactivated LabVIEW and the FPGA module, disabled one of the network adapters, removed the FPGA module, removed the compile server, reinstalled the FPGA module, and finally reactivated LabVIEW and the FPGA module (the last step over wrote the original license files).  After reactivating, both license files were bound to the hard drive (HOSTID="DISK_SERIAL_NUM=<disk_vol>" ). This should have removed the network cards as an issue, but the Xilinx tools still couldn't find the license during the compile step (lmtools does report the ethernet address as mac_addr1 now).  That's why I thought Xilinx may actually be looking for the temporary license (originally on the wrong adapter and now completely missing), but I don't know how to force the license file to bind to a network adapter to test out the theory.

We also opened a support request, and their working theory is that there's a file permission problem.  We install/activate the software with an administrator account, but run as a user for daily use.  Please let me know if there's anything else we should try before another uninstall/reinstall experiment.

Thanks,

Mike

Message Edited by laramiem on 03-18-2009 04:50 AM

[Ipshita_C]

HI Mike,

Thank you for the information. I have already spoken to the applications engineer handling your service request and he will correspond with you from now on as he would be able to communicate with you on a more regular basis and hopefully, get your issue resolved faster. I will close out this forum and in the meantime, good luck with your application!

Ipshita C.

[dbtestcon]

Help!!!

[laramiem]

Sorry, I should have updated this thread earlier.  I was able to give the AE enough information to duplicate the problem, and a new KnowledgeBase article was created with a fix for the problem.  This was also mentioned in the other thread on this topic.