I’ve been pulling my hair out for days while Autodesk Vault 2013 Professional Server kidney punched me over and over. It’s not Vault’s fault; I did a stupid, and have been paying dearly since. That’s what I get paid for, to suffer so the rest of you don’t have to.
I went through numerous resources that I have used in the past, and some new ones too. I like to catalog things like this here on Design& Motion for future reference. There are a few items that may only apply to local hosting, so I recommend having offsite hosting references to supplement this. Also a big thanks to the team over at ’Cracking the Vault’ and our own Scott Moyse for all the great information.
Here’s the list of things I passed through this week:
License Server
Donnie Gladfelter’s superb licensing write-up. I remember once gathering all these resources for an article of the license server, only to find out that Donnie was writing one himself !
http://thecadgeek.com/blog/2008/08/setting-up-configuring-a-license-server/
ADMS hand holding
ADMS and IIS have some restrictions. The license server will be running, but ADMS won’t communicate properly. If you get the “Can’t acquire license” error, try this:
Disable IPV6 – When I first learned this, I was instructed to kill the service and everything about it. This time around I simply turned it off. Worked fine.
Use Server IP – Identify an IP address for the server instead of a named machine. There is an apparent problem resolving the name, and the IP address is said to speed performance as well.
The License path can be found at this default Win7 path: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\ADMS Professional 2013\LICPATH.LIC
For those of you running a local host, you should see something like this:
SERVER localhost 000000000000 USE_SERVER
Change the localhost to 127.0.0.1so that you get this.
SERVER 127.0.0.1 000000000000 USE_SERVER
Then, (and this is the new part I learned this time around) navigate to this path:
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Add or un-comment “127.0.0.1 localhost”. (I simply uncommented mine).
ADMS hooked up on the first try AFTER the changes were made.
InvalidSystemDbLogin while logging into the ADMS Server Console
If you try logging into the ADMS Server Console, and get a nasty error like this:
“Unable to check the Autodesk data management server system state. After closing this message box you can press F5 to try again. If the error condition continues, contact your IT administrator.
The system database login is invalid. InvalidSystemDbLogin [215]”
This doesn’t mean you are screwed (but it’s not out of the question). The trick is to reset the KnowledgeVaultMaster file owner using Microsoft SQL Management Studio. Follow the directions on this page:
http://crackingthevault.typepad.com/crackingthevault/2010/06/invalidsystemdblogin.html
When they say to install a new database, don’t worry. Follow the directions exactly, and you’ll get past this problem.
Reinstall SQL Server – SQL Server Failed Installation aborted, Result=1603
While it is said to be a broad error, it was the end of the road for me. The server was running, the Vault was fine, but ADMS could not login to the SQL database due to a login rights error that I just could not pin down.
However, the fellas at Cracking the Vault put together this troubleshooting guide to try and help all the rest of you, and as it turned out, was pretty useful information.
I got to the log file they mentioned because it was linked at the bottom of the Vault Server failed install dialog. If you get this, open the link and scroll to the bottom.
Reset the Vault Database back to a fresh install
You may desire to go ahead and kill off the Vault database and start over. This won’t work if you can’t get into the ADMS console, but for everyone else, it will work great.
Uninstall without ADMS
I found that after all the BS, I ‘d rather just start over. This was equally painful because the installer wouldn’t complete the task, and ADMS was being cold to me.
What I did was:
Use SQL Management Studio to disable the database and stop the server.
Stop the ‘Server’ service in Windows
Uninstall Vault Professional 2013 Server
__________________ It was here that the Installer would keep flagging the 1603 error____________
Uninstalled SQL 2008 Server databases, both the Vault and the express
Navigate to both the c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL 2008\ & c:\ProgramData\Autodesk\VaultServer\ folders and erased anything that had to do with the Vault.
Uninstall Vault Professional 2013 Client
Reboot
Restart the Vault Professional Installs again. Everything went perfect.
Here’s a few more references that might be helpful
http://designandmotion.net/autodesk/vault-error-29001-installing-autodesk-vault-adms-2013/
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Vault/Error-29001-Vault-management-error/td-p/1639817
