Arnold watermark appears in renders from a licensed workstation

Autodesk Support

Oct 11, 2024

Products and versions covered

Issue:

When rendering in Arnold from Maya (MtoA), 3ds Max (MaxtoA), Houdini (HtoA), Cinema 4D (C4DtoA), Katana (KtoA), Softimage (SItoA), the rendered images show watermarks.
 
arnold watermark

There may also be an error message when trying to sign in with Single-User license with the error message:
Render process exited with code: 11
Do you want to reload the page?
 
 
Or in the render log, the following "Warning" appears 
 
Render log for Arnold - Warning

Causes:

Watermarked images may occur for the following reasons:
  1. Skip License Check is enabled.
  2. Plugin version of MtoA, MaxtoA, HtoA, C4DtoA is not compatible with the Autodesk License Framework.
  3. MtoA, MaxtoA, HtoA orC4DtoA are not up-to-date.
  4. The environment variable ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE is missing.
  5. There is a combination of permanent and rental licenses in the license file.
  6. The Arnold plugin is not set to Network Licensing (Arnold 4.0 or higher only).
  7. The Network License Manager (LMTOOLS) is out of date.
  8. Autodesk Single Sign On component (AdSSO) is out of date.
  9. The Autodesk Desktop Licensing Service (ADLS) is out of date.
  10. The product license manager is experiencing an issue.
  11. The license file contains expired licenses.

Solution:

To fix the problem, try the following:


Make sure that the Autodesk Desktop Licensing Service (ADLS) and Autodesk Single Sign On component (AdSSO) are up to date.


If using network licenses for Arnold, make sure that the Autodesk Network License Manager is up to date.


The product license manager is experiencing an issue.

  1. Reset the affected product license via Command Prompt/Terminal as per: Autodesk Licensing Installer Helper tool guide .

  2. Launch the Arnold License Manager directly and sign in with the Single User license.

    Example below is for launching the Arnold License Manager on macOS is for the R25 build (adjust the callout to match the affected program):

/Applications/Maxon\ Cinema\ 4D\ R25/arnold/bin/ArnoldLicenseManager.app/Contents/MacOS/ArnoldLicenseManager


Update Arnold and its extension to the newest

 

Confirm "Skip License Check" is disabled 

With this setting enabled, Arnold will always render images with a watermark, even when there is a valid license. To disable Skip License Check:

  1. Navigate to Render Settings.
  2. In the System tab, turn the checkbox off for Skip License Check if necessary.

 

Verify the Autodesk license and the corresponding plugin version

Access the Autodesk Account and navigate to Products and Services to verify the  license version. Depending on the Arnold license version, a different version of the plugin may be required, see below:
  • Arnold 2018 > Arnold 5 > Plugin version 2.0.1 to 3.3.0.2
  • Arnold 2020 > Arnold 6 > Plugin version 4.0.0 or higher
A comprehensive list for version reference: Arnold version quick reference. Then proceed to download and install:
  1. Download the Arnold plugin for the 3d Software from Arnold downloads page.
  2. Follow the Install Wizard (automated guide) to install it.

 

Check the License File Variable

Arnold 2018 / Arnold 5 / Plugin version 2.0.1 to 3.3.0.2

Make sure that the ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE variable is correctly set. An environment variable is needed for Arnold to verify from which server to pull a license. This needs to be done on the workstation where f.e. MtoA runs.
  1. Open a Terminal window.
  2. Type cd to move to for the Home folder.
  3. Type touch .flexlmrc to create the configuration file.
  4. Type nano .flexlmrc to open the file in the Command Line Text Editor.
flexlmrc file part 1
  1. Type ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE=@myserver where myserver is the license server hostname or IP address. If Arnold will render on the same machine where the license server runs, use @localhost.
  2. Press CTRL+X to save the file. Then press Y to confirm and finally ENTER to save it with name .flexlmrc.
  3. The variable is now set. Double-check the contents of the .flexlmrc file by typing cat .flexlmrc.
flexlmrc file part 2
  1. Run a render in Maya using Arnold and check if any watermarks are shown.

Arnold 2020 / Arnold 6 / Plugin version 4.0.0 or higher

Use the Arnold License Manager to connect to a Network License Server.
See this playlist to learn more about the Arnold License Manager.

 

Check the License File with License Parser

Check the license file on License Parser. Upload it and click Submit License File.

Verify if there is a combination of permanent license and rental license (a permanent license will show "permanent" in expiry date, while a rental license will show the actual expiry date) and if those have different issue dates, for example like the example below:
 
License parser Arnold 1
 
If the licenses have different issue dates, generate a new license file from your Autodesk Account for both licenses and make sure they carry the same issue date. Eventually it will look like this in License Parser:
 
License parser Arnold 2

    Products:

    3ds Max; Maya; Arnold;

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