ArcGIS Pro stuck at configure licensing window

[HamishMills]

Hello,

Attempting to deploy enterprise based ArcGIS Pro licensing from our own portal installation. Everything seems to have worked smoothly (received and activated .llc file with License manager and successfully generated and applied json license file to our portal) until the very last step of logging into ArcGIS Pro. Installs of ArcGIS Pro directly on the licensing/portal VM seem to launch with licensing working correctly, launching on any other machine either on the same sub network and/or outside of the sub network do not work. Hence seems very likely that it is networking related but is beyond my skills to prove this beyond a doubt.

Using 10.6 Server/portal infrastructure and License Server Manager 2018.0. On Cloud VM windows 2016 servers. Tried both ArcGIS Pro 2.1 and 2.2 to connect to licensing.

Application Behavior is:  Launch ArcGIS Pro --> Pro splash screen appears loading --> configure licensing window pops-up --> fill in correct portal details and then enter login credentials --> splash screen shows loading again --> configure licenses window pops-up again as if in a loop.

Have allowed port 27000 inbound on all machines/servers. Have even added license manager and ArcGIS Pro as application exceptions. 

Have attempted to edit the 'service.txt' file in ArcGIS Licensing Bin directory but am unable to start licensing server again after editing this file in any way. However without edits file does contain our correct Mac address and port number 27000, so not sure if being able to edit it would help any way. 

Looking for other ideas! Some way to clearly prove that networking is the issue would be great! Thanks! 

[HamishMills · Accepted solution]

Hey,

For those interested I have now resolved this issue through a combination of changes.

1. Editing the Service.txt file to include the PORT=1234 entry. License manager was initially unable to restart when making changes to this parameter so I had abandoned it. After assigning to port 1234 however it did work. Unsure whether this is the port you must use to fix to or not. There are some holes in my knowledge here around port allocation so any information around this would be appreciated.
2. Changed our public DNS entry to include a pointer for our domain.com. We needed this because our cloud servers are currently only part of a work group and we do not have an internal domain name controller. 
3. Updated the licensing manager info with the update license manager tool in portal admin api (/portaladmin/system/licenses/updateLicenseManager) to be ‘SERVERNAME.domain.com’ where as previously it was only ‘SERVERNAME’. Once again this is because our servers are currently only part of a work group and not an internal domain.

In any case all sorted now! All internal and external desktops/PCs are able to use the Portal named user based ArcGIS Pro licensing without issue. 

Thanks! 

#ArcGISPro‌ #arcgisdesktop‌ #arcgislicensing‌ #arcgisprolicensing‌ #portal licensing‌

[AmnoyAm]

Hamish,

I am glad you were able to get this up and running.  Here are answers to your question:

1.  The ArcGIS License Manager uses two separate process, lmgrd.exe and arcgis.exe.  By default lmgrd.exe uses port 27000 and arcgis.exe uses any random open port.  These ports must be open for the client application to communicate.  Because arcgis.exe uses any random port, you have to lock it down to a specific port.  Port 1234 was an example.  You may want to choose another open port.  Most people use port 27000 - 27009 because these ports were reserved.  Once locked down, your must open these ports through your firewall.  

2.  Routing your internal hostname to an external name is done by your system or network administrator.  

3.  The step to configure Portal to work with Pro licensing is documented in the following site.  It provides a step-by-step instruction.  

Configure ArcGIS Pro licenses—Portal for ArcGIS (10.6) | ArcGIS Enterprise 

Let me know if you have any question.

[HamishMills]

Hey Amnoy Am , 

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply! 

Just on answer number 1. Strangely whenever I set the PORT value in the VENDOR ARCGIS line of the service text file to anything other than PORT=1234, I was unable to get the license manager to restart successfully. I did try using 27001 as the vendor port value but license manager would not restart. As I was under some time constraint I just had to go with whatever worked (didn't have much time to test multiple ports) so I stuck with 1234 as it was the only port that let me restart the license manager service. Seemed strange and I'm sure I'm probably missing something which hopefully you can point out for me!  

Thanks again!

Hamish Mills

[AmnoyAm]

Hamish,

I don't have enough information to determine exactly what is happening or what part of the service.txt file was edited.  But now that you have more understanding of how the license manager work, I can only suggest the following:

1.  Get a fresh start.  Remove the license manager.  Remove the existing license manager installation directory.  This is to assure the service.txt was removed.  Reinstall the license manager to get a fresh service.txt.  Add "port" to the file at this point and try to restart the license manager.  If it starts, continue to authorize the ArcGIS Pro Named User licenses.  If it does not start, consider case 2.

2.  Server is preventing the system from using the port designated for arcgis.exe.  Your system administrator can check the port for you. 

Those are the two factors I that comes to mind.