Upgrading your Floating License to FME Form 2023 and Newer

Question

What should I know about upgrading my floating license to FME Form (2023 or newer) for the first time?

Answer

As part of Safe’s rebranding, FME Form (formerly FME Desktop), consolidates all of our previous license offerings including Professional, Esri, Database, and Smallworld, to a single license type named FME Form. FME Form edition is the equivalent of the previous FME Smallworld edition, which is the offering that includes all functionality.

This means that when your end user goes to select a floating license from the license pool, they might encounter just a single line called FME Form now, because all the individual editions have now become consolidated into one line called FME Form, such as in the example below:

If you are the administrator who is upgrading your FME license for your floating license server, you’ll want to re-request your safe.lic file from this page: Floating License Request Form. Replace the license file in your FlexServer directory and restart the license server. More detailed instructions can be found in our documentation, Request and Install the License.

When your end users connect to the floating license for the first time, they may see the Licensing Assistant pop up, where they can navigate through to accept their floating license and hit Finish.

Troubleshooting FAQ

For most users this should be a smooth upgrade, but just in case, here are a few scenarios you might want to have covered:

• Why are all my licenses Smallworld Edition?
• I get ‘The following license is missing…’ 
• Where can I find my floating license (.dat) files?
• I or my users don’t have admin permissions to the license directory
• How do I keep using my specific edition license of FME?
• Why am I getting multiple lines of License Types in the ‘Select an Edition’ dialog?
• Will this impact my license for FME Flow (formerly FME Server)?

I requested FME 2023 for my floating license activation, why are all my licenses now in the Smallworld edition?

Given that you have paid for Annual Maintenance (AMC) that includes FME 2023, you’ve just upgraded all your license assets to FME Form, which is essentially the Smallworld edition behind the scenes.

This edition has all the capabilities of the Database edition and, in addition, the ability to connect to Smallworld, so you will only gain functionality with this edition if you don’t already have it. You can still have other older versions of FME, and these will continue to be licensed under the  Smallworld edition. 

When re-requesting my license in the FME Licensing Assistant, I get ‘The following license is missing: FEATURE database safe (not listed)’

You might also get: instead, ‘FEATURE_Smallworld’ is listed with xx licenses

Usually, FME is able to replace the .dat files in your FME License directory to update your license when you re-request it; however, sometimes, a user might not have permission to remove those files. If that happens, there’s a mismatch between FME Form looking for the old licensing edition names, such as Database, Esri, or Professional, when the license server says it now only contains FME Form (Smallworld edition). 

If this is occurring for the FME user trying to access a floating license, they will need to remove their old .dat files manually. Ensure you are only deleting the .dat files and not the fme.uuid. 

Where can I find my license files for FME Form on my machine?

You can find the information on this Community thread, as well as below:

• Windows: 
  • :\\ProgramData\\Safe Software\\FME\\Licenses [This is the default location.]
  • <fme-install-folder>/licenses
  • C:\\users\\<user>\\Documents\\FME\\Licenses
• macOS: 
  • /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/FME/Licenses/
• Linux (Ubuntu 14.04)
  • /home/<USER>/.fme/Licenses
  • <fme-install-folder>/licenses

I am a license administrator and my users do not have admin permissions to replace .dat files in their license directory. I have too many users to have them do this manually.

This change would need to occur for all client machines. Please contact our team by submitting a case for further help. 

I am not ready to upgrade my licensing, how do I keep my specific edition such as Database?

You can re-request your floating license file in the Floating License Request Form for FME 2022 or older to keep your current editions. Note that you will need to request FME 2023 or newer for the corresponding new releases, which will all be associated with the Smallworld edition (and named FME Form).

If you upgrade your license to FME 2023 and newer, your license will show as Smallworld in FME 2022 or older. You do not lose any functionality by upgrading.

Why am I getting multiple lines of license types in my ‘select an edition’ dialog in the FME Licensing Assistant?

When organizations add new floating license seats to an existing serial number or request a license file with multiple serial numbers, the end user may end up with two or more line items in the ‘select an edition’ dialog. 

This creates two or more “FME Form” license pools in the Licensing Assistant when there should only be one. 

This should be resolved for FME 2023.0, but if you run into this, requesting an FME 2023 license will give you a license file where all editions associated with the serial number(s) will be consolidated into a single edition called “FME Form”.

How will this impact my license for FME Flow (formerly FME Server)?

This will not impact your FME Flow license. EDo ensure that you continue to use the same major version between FME Form and Flow for the best compatibility and performance when publishing workspaces to run on Flow.