I’m a middle school teacher and we do a bunch of basic design for laser cutting and 3D printing.
When we start Rhino on our school iMac it boots and after a few seconds the licensed user info normally shows up and it usually authenticates the software (what I assume) verifying the IP address. If a student boots Rhino and there’s a hiccup in the Wi-Fi, or if jumps to a different network momentarily (like the district guest network) then Rhino will start without authenticating the software and boot into “View Only” mode. Kids end up doing a bunch of work and eventually try to save or export and get a pop up stating “unrecognized runtime mode 100”. No saving or exporting allowed. I’ve tried a bit of everything and scoured to web to figure it out with no luck.
Today I had a couple students lose some great models.
In this screenshot you can see the absence of information in the “Licensed to:” and “Serial Number:” areas. You also see the pop up when you try to save. Somehow it still lets you boot into View Only mode and utilize Rhino and all the tools except Saving and Exporting.
The support people are mostly on Seattle time… if you don’t get an official response here in the morning their time I’d be tempted to email or give them a call (contact inffo on the McNeel website).
LAN Zoo means that you (institution not personal ‘you’) have a server somewhere managing licenses. I assume you’ve already spoken with whoever runs that.
My own (techie but not Rhino support) thought would be about whether invalid networks should be removed from the “always connect” list. Or, if they’re not incorrect to be using, whether the IT people should be making the Zoo server accessible from them.
Hi Jonathan,
We need a repeatable set of steps to try and duplicate the issue here.
What is the name of the Zoo server these computers are configured for?
Feel free to reply to tech@mcneel.com and include a link to this Forum thread.
Ask your students save before they do anywork.
We all hate to loose any work, and it has happened to all of us at one point or another for a variety of reasons…
Hopefully it is only a few hours and it will go faster the second time .
Ask them SAVE first before they do anything else until this issue is resolved.
Remind students to save after any task they do not want to do again! That is my rule.
Also save off to a Flash or other drive every day or so to have a 2nd copy of their model somewhere else.
And do not work directly off the Flash drive.
When Rhino open in View Only, it should be more obvious. Pop up a dialog and have the user pick that any work will not be save. OK or close Rhino. I will get this logged.
There is something about your error "unrecognized runtime mode” that is already in the works here has a defect. So keep up to date and hopefully you will see a fix in the next service release. We will notify you here.
Some in your school district are using the CloudZoo with Rhino Labs.
You may want to ask others in your district what their experience is with this option.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for reporting this.
Sincerely,
Mary Ann Fugier
If students save before doing any work everything is working great today.
I was able to duplicate this problem by launching Rhino with Wi-Fi off. A pop-up appears with “There was a problem communicating with (10.x.x.xxx IP address)…Do you want to use a different zoo server?” I click no. A new pop-up appears with “License not found, Rhino requires a license to run, Rhino will now exit.” I click ok. New pop-up appears with “Rhino Initialization Error, Rhino will not save, Unrecognized runtime mode: 100” I click ok. I can now choose any template and begin working as normal, starting a new project from the templates, unable to view any of my recent files, and unable to save or export as described in the initial post.
I’m not sure if these are the exact steps students are taking when this issue presents, but if so, it seems self inflicted and a case of clicking through pop ups without reading them or understanding what it means. If the issue arises again under different circumstances I can update this post and report.
I will spend some time building in the routine of saving prior to completing work and make sure everyone knows what happens in view only mode.
If it’s a frequent problem I might also consider telling the kids not to close Rhino when they’re done but simply save their work, create a new blank document, and leave it for the next user even if that’s hours out.
@mary Am I correct in remembering that there might be a way with LAN Zoo to force a license checkout that will be valid for days or a week (such as if the user is going traveling) to leave this copy functional while you troubleshoot?
Each student has their own user account on each computer. So a student in 1st period logs in and they have access to all their files in documents, desktop, etc, and they launch Rhino and it validates for this user. At the end of the period the student logs out of their unique user account on the mac. This process repeats for each new student in each class.
During a normal day we have 4 classes with ~25 in each class, so 100 unique Rhino launches.
Considering this, is our setup optimized for users like this?
Hi @Nathan_Bossett,
Yes there is. In the Zoo, Tool → Options
The only problem with license check out, is that license will not be freed up when Rhino is closed.
So if I have 40 lab computers that I am counting on floating the licence between 30 of them, if you or a user “check out” a license, it will stay on that computer until the duration is expired. Or on the computer, Options → Licenses → Check in ot return it ahead of schedule.
Maybe this is ok.
I tested with Rhino 6 and it does not open if the Zoo server does not give it a license.
Rhino 7 has changed and when it does not get a license, it opens in Eval or View mode.
This was a feature that users asked for by users.
Again, I think that the issue here is that it need to be more obvious that the Rhino has opened in View mode.
I will write up a YT and maybe the title bar need to be display a red color in View mode.
And maybe it needs to say “View only - No Work will be Saved” in the red title bar
Or maybe you just want Rhino to close like Rhino 6 if it can not get a license.
Let me know if you have any preference for these possible solutions.
Sincerely,
Mary Ann Fugier
Very cool! Either of those solutions seem reasonable to me. For what we do it would make sense to close the app. I can also see a use for the view only mode and in that case it would be helpful to see some sort of title bar in red as you described so it’s absolutely clear to any user that nothing will be saved.
Will I need to contact our tech support staff to possibly change the zoo server settings?
Hi Jonathan,
I have logged:
RH-78701/Rhino-Running-in-Viewer-Mode-Causing-Issues-for-Schools-with-LAN-Zoo
You will be notified here where there is fix.
The developer will review and there may be an internal discussion about how it should look.
But it is strange now, because it says, Rhino will close, but it continues to open in View only mode.
You do not need to do anything, unless you want to try checking out a Zoo license.
It is likely set to 30 days now on the Zoo server. You can ask your IT to change it to 60 or 90.
If you have 25 computer that need a key, it might be a good option,
