First of all, good day everyone. First post here; I'm a graphic design student that's been dabbling with some 3D apps lately and have been trying out different educational packages (Lightwave DE, Softimage XSI EXP, Maya PLE). So I learned of Houdini's Apprentice program and decided to try it out as well, but I'm having some odd problems running it. I believe they may be related to getting a license key, but I'm not sure.

The first thing that happens is that whenever I try to run a Houdini application I get a quick Fatal Error Message that says “FATAL ERROR: Usage: /Side <title> <pid>”. Then I also get an error that says it can't find its .exe file (if I run Houdini Select for instance I get the message that says “hselect.exe load failed: no such file or directory” even though I'm already confronted with the interface). I also get an “Invalid Command Line Option” error popping from the License Administrator when I run a program.

I thought that may all be related to not having the proper keys to run the programs, but I noticed the readme file states that the program should run you through the steps necessary to acquire them but it never did in my case. I also searched around in the board and one of the posts I found sent me to a page to obtain license keys. I went there and started getting the key for Master at first and I got another error with those. The first, second, and fourth keys installed fine but the 3rd and the 5th one didn't. I just copy-pasted them from the information I got in that page so I'm not sure what can be happening. The error says:

“Key 3:
Invalid Command Token.
The command token should be one of:
SERVER, LICENSE, UPGRADE, INCREMENT, EXTEND, REPLACE, REMOVE, or CHANGEIP.”

I get that same error for Key 5. On the positive side, the red orb that used to read Invalid Server Key is now green and reads Valid Server Key .

Diagnostic Information from within the License Administrator:

Diagnostic Output:
==================
If you are having licensing problems, please save this information and email it
to support@sidefx.com.

License Administrator output:
=============================
Generated on: Fri Oct 24 11:44:34 2003
Local host name: SILVERTHORNNE
Local server code: b9156e80
Local ip address: 127.0.0.1
License server name: silverthornne
License server server code: b9156e80
Server ip address: 127.0.0.1
License server is running: Yes
Has SERVER license: Yes
License server version: 6.1.149
May modify server from this machine: Yes
License Administrator version: 6.1.149
Http proxy host: (none)
Using standalone mode: Yes
Can retrieve http://license.sidefx.com/index.php: [license.sidefx.com] Yes

Installed licenses:
LicID Platform Product Ver Avail Expiry
—– ——– ——- — —– ——

sesictrl -i output:
===================
—– SERVER silverthornne ——–



hserver -l output:
==================
Hostname: SILVERTHORNNE
Uptime: 0:44:51
License Server: silverthornne
Server Version: sesinetd6.1.149
Version: Houdini6.1.149
ReadAccess: +.+.+.*
WriteAccess: +.+.+.*

649 of 1023 Mb available
CPU Usage: 4% load
0 active tasks (1 slots)



licenses file:
==============
## Side Effects Software License File
#
# For license information, please contact:
# Side Effects Software Inc.
# 477 Richmond St. West, Suite 1001
# Toronto, Ontario, Canada
# M5V 3E7
# licensemanager@sidefx.com
# http://www.sidefx.com [sidefx.com]
#
# NOTE: This file may be modified by the licensee
#

# Key installed 11:20:23 10/24/03
SERVER silverthornne b9156e80 0045ed712027c485c0d536879d6947e81fcfcae62b648

Glad I stopped by the 3D Buzz forum. My problem was that I had Houdini installed to the default folder (Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini). Installing it to a plain Houdini folder fixed it. Didn't expect the software to have trouble handling path names with spaces in it.