Embergen 0.5.1.4 - Expired Trial on first load

Hi,
I’ve just downloaded and installed the software (embergen_beta_0_5_1_4_installer.exe) and I would like to test the vdb functionality but I have an [Expired Trial] in my program title.

The only weird thing that happened on the initial start of the program is that I had my firewall on (set to wait for approval) and then got the error that the program couldn’t reach a server or something (Sorry, I didn’t catch the full text of what it actually said).
Once I approved the connection from the firewall software the screen stayed blank (full white) so I just killed it from windows task manager and then restarted it and it loaded up just fine but with the constraint of the expired trial.

Any ideas? If not I can always just try it on another computer so no worries if it’s not fixable from your end.

If you go to the install folder and run the JangaFX_Licensing_Manager_beta.exe and click check trial, does any error pop up on the right hand side? These errors would be yellow.

Yes. I get “Detected expected error when using trial: IN_VM”
If that means it thinks it’s in a Virtual Machine, it’s not. I installed it directly in the OS. Though I do have docker installed, maybe it’s getting confused?
I also hit the Check Trial button on the VectorayGen section and that gave me a “Trial days remaining: 14” in that section.

Docker would definitely cause it to flare up. We don’t really have any control over why it hates docker so much but that is for sure the cause. If you don’t want to disable docker there isn’t a whole lot i can do for you since this is only a trial and not an actual license key. It is odd however that VectorayGen works… I’ll send that note over to our lead programmer @vassvik. Perhaps something is different with our EmberGen trial that makes it too strict.

Indeed, the problem here is that to run Docker you need to enable Hyper-V (among other things) in Windows, which effectively runs your entire OS inside a VM, and the licensing software is not able to reliably differentiate between this and an actual VM (like VMWare or VirtualBox). Some times it can even be a BIOS toggle, as I have seen with some motherboards.

This puts us between a rock and a hard place. Containerization is so common these days (but not as much as a couple years ago when it was truly a craze) that it’s not very ergonomic for our users to disable this each time they want to use our software, but we also don’t want to expose ourselves to the abuse that can arise with containers.

For more information about the sort of thing that would flag this, check out this link: https://wyday.com/limelm/help/faq/#in-vm

However, the VectorayGen behavior is interesting, I’ll have to take a look. It shouldn’t be much different.

Was any progress made on this? I’m running into the same issue with the trial, and disabling hyperV isn’t a practical option.

If you are trying to use the trial, there is no way around it without disabling it. If you purchase a license, we can help you out.