I am getting a message, each time I render, that Apprentice needs to be reauthorized. I have only been using it for 3 weeks, and already. In any case. How is this done? It was automatically done when I installed off the CD.

Dave R

Can't anything be simple and straightforward in Houdini. Its like guys at SideFX went out of their way to create as technically complex and confusing implementation of even common items.
This time, I can't get authorization to work. Though Houdini reports that I have 10 days remainning on the Apprentice licence.

I went to link provided and it asked for Licence Server Host and Server Code. Which I entered
My Licence Server host is david_rindner
The server code 75dbb081

The system provided me with following;

SERVER david_rindner 75dbb081 266019c76af88cc1cca049f4d52d37a5a5716ff9b3af52

LICENSE Generic Houdini-Master-NonCommercial 5.5 1 27-aug-2002 +.+.+.+ david_rindner 081c4f86 4aef5faa7ecaa8e9dff6d19c5569066085d742a59a1ed

LICENSE Generic Render-NonCommercial 5.5 1 27-aug-2002 +.+.+.+ david_rindner 5ce1423b c8325eda7e8887c5916e0549fcd02c4c1e9724a33f94

So I tried pasting the info into Manual Key Installation without success
First I pasted the 1st line starting with SERVER into 1st field.
Then each of the LICENCE portions into successive fields.
Uppon pressing ACCEPT I get the following error messages'

Key 1:
ERROR: Key installation failed.
This SERVER key may not have installed properly becouse you already have a SERVER key installed

Key 2:
Install Error: Licence has already been installed
ERROR: Key installation failed

Key 3:
Install Error: Licence has already been installed
ERROR: Key installation failed

OK so where did I make a mistake? Meanwhile Houdini launches and states that I have 10 days remaining. Also everytime a render is launched I get that warning which is annoying. Is the Apprentice program only good for one month? That is not nearly enough time to learn this beast. I would like to see SideEffects to look at the ergonomics of the package. This app is quite confusing and unapproachable at times, requiring unneccesarily complex machination to do simple things.

Dave Rindner

I'm just guessing here but could it be so that you have to uninstall the old licenses first and only then install the new ones?
Give it a try.

Also! Upon installation Houdini creates folder called “keys” and places it in
C:\WINNT (that is if you are running Windows2000+Houdini5.0) The keys are placed in there. If you have trouble uninstalling old licenses you can try deleting contents of “keys” folder.

The reauthorization warning is harmless. It's just notifying you that your non-commercial licenses will need to be reactivated soon. They don't need to be reactivated right away, though. Two weeks before non-commercial licenses are about to expire, houdini and mantra will warn you. Once they've expired, you only need to reactivate them once, and they'll be valid for another 30 days.

If you try to activate a license and a non-commercial license already exists for your computer, the same license keys will be returned. So, when you tried to install licenses manually, you were installing the same licenses that were already installed, as the error messages implied.

Removing the licenses file and reinstalling the licenses won't get rid of the messages, because the
licenses you're installing will expire in less than 14 days.

Sorry about the annoying messages.

OK. So I should wait for the current licences to expire and then get new codes? Right. As far as messages, upon launch of session is fine. But why have them pop-up every time a render is launched. Seems an annoying overkill. The apprentice codes are good for four weeks, and new ones cannot be installed until old ones expire, which means that an Apprentice user goes two weeks with messeages, two weeks without them.

Dave R