IT rebooted our engineering server over the weekend for patches. Monday morning View Studio ME V12 opens with the demo mode banner on it. I can open the project, edit displays, save, but Create Runtime Application is greyed out and the demo timer's ticking.
Activations live on that same server, FactoryTalk Activation Manager, node locked to the server's MAC. Last week it was fine and nothing's been reinstalled since.
So I opened Activation Manager and ran Find Available Activations, and it lists the View Studio activation as present and not expired, then restarted View Studio twice for good measure. No change. Someone on days said re-host it with Rockwell, which I'd rather not do for no reason.
Screenshot of the Activation Manager window attached, it looks normal to me. Activation Manager can see it and View Studio can't, so any ideas what sits between the two and needs pointing back at the server?
Which Activation Manager version, and does the banner say demo, or does it say it can't find an activation? Also, in Activation Manager, Manage Activations, does the View Studio line show Available or In Use?
If it shows Available and V12 still drops to demo, the software isn't asking the right place.
activation manager 4.06 or thereabouts. Line shows Available, not In Use. View Studio just says demo mode, no error about not finding it.
Before you touch the licence: services.msc on that server. Look for the FactoryTalk Activation helper service, the exact name has a version suffix on some installs. Is it running, and what's the startup type? Post the row.
Stopped. Startup type is Manual. There's a second FactoryTalk service next to it that's Running and Automatic.
Stopped and Manual, there you go. The activation files are on disk and Activation Manager reads them directly, so it tells you Available. View Studio asks the helper service instead, and that didn't come back with the reboot because it was on Manual, so View Studio finds nothing and drops to demo.
Right click the service, Start. View Studio should pick it up on the next launch. Then open the service properties and set Startup type to Automatic so the next patch cycle doesn't repeat this. If I remember right the installer sets it to Automatic, so someone changed it, maybe IT during hardening.
Nothing to re-host. The activations were never gone.
Longer version on the View Studio and activation side: https://plctr.com/introduction-to-hmi-human-machine-interface-in-plc-systems/
Started the service, launched V12, no banner, Create Runtime Application is back. Set the service to Automatic.
So the activations were sitting there the whole time and the helper service was on Manual, so nothing brought it back up after the reboot. Started it, set it to Automatic, and no re-host needed. I'd have been on the phone to Rockwell all morning otherwise.
Still don't know who set it to Manual in the first place. IT say not them. Thanks rsdave and northbay.
Nobody ever admits to hardening a server. Glad it was free.