Ansys Licensing Issues: VPN Timeout Help

November 30, 2022 Dan Dart

Ansys Technical Support does not recommend running your Ansys licensing connections through a VPN or wi-fi.  The issue is in both gaining and losing connectivity with the License Server and occasionally Ansys users find that their unused license is stuck in a state of no return.  In other words, the license is stuck in a false status of being checked out and thus cannot be checked out and used. Further, the remedy is typically to either restart the License Manager software or restart the Server itself.  If you don’t currently have the option of getting a more direct network connection and must use a VPN, and/or wi-fi there are some settings that can help the computer get more time to avoid timeouts.

Ansys recommends adding the following environment variables and settings to your ansyslmd.ini file.  These can help, but it won’t work in all situations and won’t solve the root issue of intermittent connectivity.  For that, talk with your IT department about setting up a wired connection on the domain of the License Server.

The following settings can help if you are having trouble connecting to the License Server and checking out Ansys Licenses on your client Ansys installation.

For client license access issues

  • Set this timeout variable to overcome the delay reaching the license server over VPN:
    • FLEXLM_TIMEOUT =60000000 (under system environment variables)
  • Under ansyslmd.ini file in C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\licensing\
    • ANSYSLI_FNP_IP_ENV=1
    • ANSYSLI_TIMEOUT_FLEXLM=20
    • ANSYSLI_FLEXLM_TIMEOUT_ENV=2000000
    • ANSYSCL_TIMEOUT_CONNECT=60
    • ANSYSCL_TIMEOUT_RESPONSE=300

To Set an Environment Variable

Environment variables can be set by typing “env” at the start menu which brings up the “Edit the system environment variables” app. 

Click New…

Fill out the form:

Click ok 3 times to close the 3 dialog boxes.

To add the options to ansyslmd.ini

The location of the file may vary such as D:\Ansys2022R2\Ansys Inc\Shared Files\licensing\ for example if your administrator installed Ansys in the custom location D:\Ansys2022R2

For the Default installation, Navigate to C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\licensing\ (using File Explorer as shown below)

Copy the file ansyslmd.ini to the Desktop 

Right click on the file ansyslmd.ini now located on your Desktop

Copy and paste the below three options into the file as shown:

ANSYSLI_FNP_IP_ENV=1

ANSYSLI_TIMEOUT_FLEXLM=20

ANSYSLI_FLEXLM_TIMEOUT_ENV=2000000

Click File>Save

Now Copy the ansyslmd.ini file from the Desktop to replace the existing ansyslmd.ini located in the install location C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\licensing\  

When you drag and drop or copy and paste the new ansyslmd.ini file from the desktop into C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\licensing\ -- you may get this message:

Click on Replace the file in the destination

Restart ANSYS, and that’s it.

Pro Tip: As an alternative to the above procedure, you can run Notepad as Administrator and then edit the ansyslmd.ini file in place.

About the Author

Dan Dart

Senior Support Engineer

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