A problem has been identified in the 3rd party license libraries that are used in the Siemens License Server v9.0.0 or higher, that prevents the vendor's "lmremove" utility from working correctly with NX Mach bundle products.
The vendor has indicated a fix will take time, after which we will need to then include it to a future Licensing Toolkit. At that point, it can then be included in a future Functional Release of NX.
We do not have an estimated date at this time, but do not expect all of that to happen in time for the NX Functional Releases planned for the first half of 2020.
Solution
In the meantime, for cases where the software or network have hung and left an un-used license checked out, the standard FlexLM should return that license feature to the license pool once the TIMEOUT period has expired (default = 2 hours). An admin can adjust the TIMEOUT value as needed.
An admin can also cycle the license server to clear hung licenses, although that can be disruptive to other users.
Notes and References
As a reminder, if the need for "lmremove" is for other scenarios, e.g. attempting to workaround the fact that NX does not support IDLE TIMEOUT, remember that NX does not test nor support forced removal of license features from an open NX session that is in use, even if the user is not active.
As described in the FlexLM documentation, such use of "lmremove" can be "disruptive" (ref: page 130 of FlexNet Publisher 2018 R4 License Admin Guide, shipped with SPLM License Server). In fact, FlexNet's new utility disables lmremove by default:
You can protect the unauthorized execution of lmremove when you start up lmgrd. The default for lmadmin is to disable lmremove because removing a user's license is disruptive.
Users were previously reminded that NX does not support such use of lmremove at the bottom this following FAQ from early 2016, which describes proper use of lmremove, when recovering hung licenses:
Specifically, you can read this reminder at the bottom of the FAQ:
***
Note that this method cannot be used to unlock a license which is actually in
use, i.e. tied to a running session of NX, even if this session is inactive.
Also note that a license locked by an nx session which is no longer running
will automatically be released after a period of 2 hours of inactivity.
Hardware/Software Configuration
Platform: na
OS: n/a
OS Version: n/a
Product: NX
Application: PLATFORMS
Version: V1847
Function: FLEXLM
Ref: 002-8016304