Chaos group installer error

This FAQ addresses common issues with installation and licensing.

Basic License Check

---

I’m not sure V-Ray is correctly installed. How can I tell?

One of the easiest ways to tell whether V-Ray is running correctly is to check the Render Setup dialog. Assign V-Ray for Production Rendering Mode, then click the V-Ray tab.

If your Render Setup dialog resembles the image on the left, V-Ray is correctly installed, licensed and ready to use. If the message «Could not obtain a license» appears, then either V-Ray has no access to the license server (if -200 appears at the end of the message) or no license is available (if -98 appears). This issue will need to be resolved before you can use V-Ray. See the License Errors section below for information on how to solve the issue.

License Errors

---

After I install V-Ray and try to run it, I get the message «Could not obtain a license».

This message means V-Ray is unable to obtain a license for your current session. There are a few possible reasons:

• No access to the license server. Your machine cannot connect to the machine where the license server is running in your local network for any one of a number of reasons. This could be a connection problem with your network.
• License server authentication issue. You have not logged in with your Chaos Group account into the License Server application or a dongle is not connected to the machine where the License Server is running. See the License Setup and Troubleshooting pages for more information.
• No license(s) available. You have access to the license server, but there are no licenses currently available. If your organization has several licenses, they are all currently in use. It may be that your dongle or online license is only for the academic version of V-Ray and you attempt to run the commercial version. In this case, V-Ray will tell you that it can’t obtain a license. Another scenario is that your license is only for V-Ray for Maya and you are attempting to run V-Ray for 3ds Max.

The error number that appears at the end of the error statement, and the place where the error message appears, can tell you about the nature of the error. After looking up the cause of the error in the table below, see the Licensing Issues section below for information on how to solve the issue.

When I start V-Ray GPU, a frame buffer window pops up and then disappears.

No access to the License Server or no available license on the License Server. When this error occurs, no error message appears in the V-Ray console. See the Licensing Issues section below.

«Render Completed, render host is not responding» message appears on the V-Ray DR Spawner:

Check the vraylog.txt file for the specific error number. Error -98 indicates no license is available, while error 10061 indicates no access to the license server. See the Licensing Issues section below.

Licensing Issues

---

How to solve «No access to license server» error

1. Restart the machine with the License Server installed.
2. If you’re using dongle licenses, unplug the dongle and plug it into a different USB port, preferably a USB 2.0 port. Make sure that Windows properly recognizes the dongle and doesn’t show an error message. See the Dongle Issues section for more information. 
3. If the License Server is registered as a service, it will start automatically. To verify that, open the License Server’s web interface page — from Windows Start menu > Programs > Chaos Group > Chaos License Server > Manage Chaos License Server or by directly opening the link http://localhost:30304 in a web browser. If the License Server is not running as a service, you’ll need to manually start it from Windows Start menu > Programs > Chaos Group > Chaos License Server > Start Chaos License Server.
4. If the License Server is running on another machine on your local network, accessing the License Server’s interface requires typing in the IP address of that machine, instead of «localhost», for example: 10.0.0.100:30304.
   

If the HOME page does not load, then there is a network problem preventing the connection to the License Server. If you have any firewall or antivirus software running on your machines, make sure they are not blocking the application’s access to the network or blocking the communication on TCP/IP port 30304. Please contact your system administrator for more information.

How to solve «No license available» error

After you have addressed the issue of «no license server», you can perform the following steps to check on available licenses.

1. On the same machine where the License Server is running, open the link http://localhost:30304.
2. Next, you will need to look for your licenses. Please see the License Server Status section on the Set Up Your V-Ray License page for more information on the type of licenses you need to look for.
3. If you do not see your V-Ray licenses, this means that you have not logged in with your Chaos Group account into the License Server application or your dongle has to be reprogrammed as described in the Dongle Reprogramming section of the  Set Up Your V-Ray License page.
4. If you don’t see any free licenses, this means that all available licenses are in use and you can’t have more concurrent users.

You can also check the V-Ray license settings:

On the machine where you want to use V-Ray, run the V-Ray license client configuration utility from Windows Start menu > Programs > Chaos Group > V-Ray for 3ds Max… > Licensing > Administration > Change V-Ray client license settings. In the dialog that appears, make sure that the IP address in the License server field at the Primary license server tab is entered correctly and that the connection port is 30304. If you modify any of these settings, you will need to restart 3ds Max.

Note: If the License Server is running on the same machine as V-Ray, you can use localhost or 127.0.0.1 in the License server field.

The License Server icon isn’t appearing in the Windows System Tray.

The icon is hidden by the Auto-hide unused icons option of the Windows System Tray or the License Server is registered as a Windows service.

If you have the Auto-hide unused icons option of the Windows System Tray, click on the double-arrow icon to expand the full list of icons.

If you still do not see the V-Ray licensing service icon, that means that the V-Ray licensing service is started as a Windows service and in that case it cannot show any graphical user interface. There is currently no resolution for this; you need to manage the V-Ray license service from the Windows Control Panel > Administrative tools > Services applet.

Dongle Issues

---

The License Server can’t find the dongle.

This error message appears when the License Server cannot find a dongle attached to the machine.

1. Make sure the dongle is not plugged in.
2. Uninstall the WIBU-KEY driver from the Windows Control Panel.
3. Update your USB drivers to the latest version.
4. Restart your machine.
5. Download and install the latest WIBU-KEY drivers from http://wibu.com/download_user.php.
6. Attach the dongle to a different USB port, preferably to USB 2.0. Make sure that Windows recognizes the dongle and doesn’t show error messages.
7. To verify that dongle is properly installed, go to the Windows Control Panel > System applet. Choose the Hardware tab and then click on the Device manager button. Expand the Universal serial bus controllers list and check for a WIBU-BOX/RU entry there:

If you do not find this entry, try plugging the dongle into a different USB port.

Windows gives an error message when I plug in the dongle or run the license server.

If you get one of the following errors when you plug in the dongle or try to run the License Server, the problem is with a Windows update.

These errors are caused by the recently added Microsoft Update KB3004394 (added in December 2014 for Windows Root Certificate Program). Affected operating systems are Windows 7 and higher. This update breaks the WIBU-KEY driver.
To fix this problem, you can run Windows Update and update your operating system to the latest version.

Alternatively you can install the Microsoft fix for this issue, available from this page. You will need to download the appropriate package for your particular OS and install it.

After you complete the steps given by Microsoft, follow the instructions below in order to repair your WIBU-KEY driver:

1. Unplug all WIBU-KEY dongles from the PC.

2. Go to Start > Control Panel > Programs and Features and uninstall the WIBU-KEY drivers by double-clicking on WibuKey Setup (WibuKey Remove).

3. Follow the instructions given by the Uninstaller.

4. Open a Windows Explorer window, and in the address bar enter %systemroot%inf.

5. Find the file wibukeyPCMCIA.inf and delete it.

6. Search for a file named oem*.inf that contains the term WIBU. To do this, enter WIBU in the search bar, and when the search is complete click the File Contents button:

7. The search might take a while, but in the end it should find a file named oem*.inf. Delete that file and the file that has the same name with the extension .pnf. For example, if you found a file named oem123.inf, delete that file and also delete oem123.pnf.

8. In Windows Explorer, in the address bar enter %systemroot%system32drivers.

9. Find and delete all WibuKey*.sys files.

10. Click Windows > Start and in the search field type regedit. Run the regedit program found.

11. This will open the Registry Editor. Find and delete the following keys:

In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServices if any of the following folders exist, delete them:

WIBUKEY

WibuKey2

WibuKey2_64

In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE find and delete the folder WIBU-SYSTEMS.

12. Restart the computer.

13. After reboot, download the latest driver form the official WIBU Systems site under the WibuKey for Users section. Do not install it before following the next instructions.

14. Ensure that you have administrative rights, and make sure the dongle is NOT plugged in.

15. Now, double-click on the installation file and follow the instructions.

16. After the installation has finished, plug in the dongle. The New hardware found window will appear and install the new hardware automatically.

When I install or uninstall the WIBU-KEY driver, I get an error.

If you see one of the following errors when installing or uninstalling the driver, the error is caused by a Microsoft update. See  Windows gives an error message when I plug in the dongle or run the license server  for the solution.

WIBU-KEY drivers are properly installed, but double-clicking on the .rtu file doesn’t update the dongle.

This happens because the .rtu file is not associated properly with the WIBU-KEY drivers.

First, try the steps from The License Server can’t find the dongle.  If that doesn’t help, proceed with the steps below:

1 . Make sure that the dongle is plugged in.

2. In the Windows Control Panel locate the WibuKey management tool and run it. You will need to start it in Advanced Mode from the system menu by clicking on the system icon in title bar (shown in red in the screenshot below).

3. Go to the WibuBox Update tab.

4. Click Browse, specify the .rtu file, and click Apply.

The dongle works for extended periods, but once in a while it seems to disconnect.

You might find that the dongle works perfectly for extended periods of time, but that it periodically «disappears» and is no longer detected by Windows as a USB device. This could cause the License Server to fail or V-Ray licenses to be refused. There can be a number of reasons related to the hardware configuration and Windows settings, such as power options.

Check your Windows power options to see what happens when the machine is idle, and make sure your USB devices are not powered off.

Try plugging the dongle into a different USB port on the same machine, preferably USB 2.0, and restart the License Server.

If you still experience problems, try installing the dongle on a different machine.

V-Ray GPU Issues

---

V-Ray GPU crashes when rendering on CUDA/OpenCL.

If V-Ray GPU crashes when rendering on CUDA/OpenCL without showing a specific error message, the scene you are trying to render is too large and the graphics card memory is insufficient.

You can try to reduce the scene size by reducing the polygon count or by using lower resolution textures. Also, you can use the Resize textures option in the Textures settings to automatically resize textures during rendering on the GPU.

Alternately, you can upgrade your hardware to include a graphics device with more memory.

V-Ray GPU won’t render in OpenCL mode.

• Running OpenCL on incompatible devices. V-Ray GPU running in OpenCL mode works only on Windows and Linux at the moment. It also requires AMD hardware to run. Alternatively, a CPU device can be used to run OpenCL by installing the appropriate OpenCL runtime. See the Set Up V-Ray GPU for more information.
• Device driver cannot compile the OpenCL code. If it takes too long for the render to begin and too much of your machine’s memory is being in use by V-Ray, then your GPU drivers are unable to compile the OpenCL code needed to render the scene with your video card. Switch to CUDA if you have NVIDIA hardware installed instead of AMD. Alternatively, you can try and find drivers for your graphics device that are capable of compiling the OpenCL code needed to run V-Ray GPU on GPU. However, the latest drivers are not always appropriate. This means that you might need to experiment until you find the correct drivers.