There are multiple scenarios in which the license is not automatically acquired, as described in the installation section of our documentation .
Sometimes, the request for a free license fails, and the software tries to acquire it again. This failure can be due to the absence of a stable Internet connection or a firewall blocking the license request. Usually, you will notice failed license requests when error messages appear, as shown below:
HostLicense.cpp:501: Error 500 on downloading the license.
HostLicense.cpp:621: License downloading yielded an empty request.
HostLicense.cpp:740: Invalid license downloading failed.
HostLicense.cpp:526: Empty license file found.
HostLicense.cpp:778: Validating the license failed. Please recreate the license.
Another scenario involves the TimeTaggerVirtual, which allows you to perform measurements using the Time Tagger library using time-tag dump file(s) as a data source instead of Time Tagger hardware. TimeTaggerVirtual can be used to replay the recorded time tag stream dumps without having the Time Tagger connected, as long as the license has been acquired once. This is usually done automatically by connecting the Time Tagger to the PC. What if it is not possible to connect the Time Tagger to this PC? There are two other options for acquiring the license besides the one described in the documentation:
A workaround would be to use the TimeTaggerNetwork class. Start the Time Tagger server from the PC that has the working license. With the call of createTimeTaggerNetwork in the client (second PC), the software license is transferred to it. You can close the connection/instance now and start an instance of TimeTaggerVirtual on this second PC. For the procedure, please find the server and client Python scripts in our installation folder. The default locations are:
Please run on your Windows PC:
from a command line terminal. You will be asked to enter your full name and email. This way, you generate the LicensesRequest file. Please double-check that the LicensesRequest.txt file is in the location “%APPDATA%\Swabian Instruments\Time Tagger" or “$HOME/.timetagger” for Windows or Linux, respectively. Please contact the Support Team (support@swabianinstruments.com), and send this text file. We will send you the License.txt file that needs to be placed in the same location as the LicenseRequest.txt file.
Once the license acquisition succeeds, no further requests will be made.