Description

Depending on your workflow, Ansys software, and network connection conditions, you may experience situations where a license becomes abandoned and temporarily consumes additional licenses.  While there are several options to manually release an abandoned license (See: HOW TO - Release a Stuck License ), you can also configure the timeout settings on your License Server to return these abandoned licenses faster (1-1.5hr vs the default ~2-2.5hr period)

Abandoned License - a term used to describe a license that is reserved by a client that has disconnected and then reconnected under a new client ID.  When this occurs, the client does not resume the previous license reservation and must check out an additional license.  (The original reservation will be released as normal after ~2-2.5hrs). This situation can be caused by several things:

• A client reconnects from a new network adapter such as going from Ethernet to WiFi.
• A client reconnects after going from the office network to a home network using a VPN.
• A client is using a VPN and it disconnect and reconnects.  Even this establishes a new client ID. 

Solution

Start by reviewing section 4.5.1 (pg 42) of the Ansys License Management Guide.  You will then need to obtain an updated license file containing the Ansys Idle Timeout license increment from your SimuTech Account Manager.  Currently, the following Ansys products utilize the idle timeout option:

• Mechanical
• Fluent
• CFX
• Electronics

Idle timeout is set via the options file. If the options file does not exist, you will need to create the options file.  After creating the options file, add either of the following settings to the file and then restart the License Server:

# TIMEOUTALL Example (All products will time out in seconds)
TIMEOUTALL 3600

# FEATURE TIMEOUT Example (time in seconds for just ansys (Mechanical) feature to timeout)
TIMEOUT ansys 3600

Once this option is added, any participating application will return its license after approximately 900 seconds (15 minutes) plus the defined idle timeout seconds of inactivity. In the case of our example, approximately 900 + 3600 = 4500 seconds (75 minutes) of inactivity.

Note: The minimum value for the idle timeout is 3600 seconds (1 hour).

After a client application license has timed out, others will be able to use that license. When the idle application becomes active again, it will attempt to check out the license increment immediately.