Network error mesage

[Kip.Lytle]

I'm a network admin for a software company and one of my users has Madcap Flare v3.1 installed on her computer. A couple of days ago she was working from home and got the following message when she started Flare:

MadCap Flare V3.1 has trouble accessing the network [] - this access is needed when checking for license key usage.
Perhaps your firewall is blocking it from the network.
If so, please enable the network and click OK.

I have searched the internet as well as MadCap's knowledge base and have tried adding Flare to the firewall exceptions list. It makes no difference; she continues to get this message when she is using Flare at home signed up on our company's VPN.

HELP!

[RamonS]

What happens is that Flare tries to access a MadCap server to check the license. Afaik it uses port 80 for that. This is a common error when the licensing server cannot be reached for one reason or another. I am somewhat surprised that there is no KB article about this as it comes up every other week here in the forums.

[Richard Ferrell]

If you have a VPN client enabled, Flare may think this is active network connetion and is trying to connect to register.madcapsoftware.com If you disable the vpn client then you will not see the message.

[Kip.Lytle]

If you have a VPN client enabled, Flare may think this is active network connetion and is trying to connect to register.madcapsoftware.com If you disable the vpn client then you will not see the message.

The problem is that she needs the VPN to communicate with our network.

[RamonS]

Is there a way to VPN into a box back in the office? That way Flare would run on a system that is not affected by the VPN. This is how I connect from home to work using Windows Remote Desktop Connection. It works OK to do some work, but the latency is noticeable and a bit annoying over time. So it would depend on how often the remote connectivity is used and how fast the line from home to office is.

[KevinDAmery]

Ok, let's back up a bit: if your coworker clicks OK in the message, can she use Flare? I get that message every single time that I launch any Madcap product here because of the firewall rules my network admin has set up. However, it doesn't interfere with my use of the applications at all, so we just ignore it and carry on. It's only harmful if Flare refuses to allow you to do anything.

[lcharlesjohnson]

I'm getting this same error on my laptop at the office. I'm not using VPN or anything. While I can hit OK and continue using Flare - I would like to know how to tweak my system so this message goes away.

I'm also getting this error in Capture and Analyzer.

Suggestions?

Laura

[RamonS]

Talk to your IT folks, it may well be that the content blocking does not allow for talking to the MadCap servers.

[KevinDAmery]

When I talked to my IT guy wayyy back, he asked me "does it stop you from working?" I said no. So he said "I don't see any reason to let it phone home unless it prevents you from doing your job."

Twenty months and 5 or 6 Flare upgrades later, I'm still clicking Ok on that message after launching Flare, and I'm still delivering everything the company needs without any problems.

[tomjohnson1492]

Just wondering if there is any way to permanently disable that error message nag.

troubleaccessing.jpg

I'm behind a firewall, but not connected to VPN. Still get the prompt. No other licensed application on my computer prompts me with messages like this.

[Madcap Guru]

Its not possible to disable that message, as all Madcap Applications want to call home.

[Ryan Cerniglia]

Its not possible to disable that message, as all Madcap Applications want to call home.

This one isn't quite dialing home Flare's simply attempting to check other computers in the same local area network to make sure that you don't have one license of Flare running on 5+ computers at once.

Some VPN software use a simulated network connection to achieve seamless integration with Windows. Normally this isn't a problem, but in some instances the VPN software doesn't remove the connection when it's not running. When Flare starts up, it does a check to make sure that no other user is running Flare with that same license key. It tries to use the Windows network connection that the VPN created but it does not go anywhere. If the network connection isn't actually disabled in Windows, then Flare believes it's been blocked by a firewall, prompting this message.

It's a complex process and usually works right, but in this instance something isn't lined up correctly. I heavily recommend filing an official bug report so you can get a ticket to follow-up with.

[pe_thiemann]

To warm up this thread again: is there any possibility to stop the broadcasts in the local area network because some customers are nagging about the heavy traffic slowing down the network capacity.
Any recommendations are appreciated.

[joy]

I, too, get this message all the time. I work on my laptop at work, unplug it, and then plug it in at home to continue working. That's generally when I see the message -- but I also see it if my Internet connection at home goes down, which it does more often than it should.

It doesn't generally cause problems, but the message is annoying and somewhat misleading. I always thought that I had to have an active Internet connection when running Flare!

[pe_thiemann]

Joy, you do not need an internet connection to work with Flare. But i agree, the message is annoying and misleading.

For everybody, who is interested to stop the broadcasts in the LAN: I filed a bug and this is what i got as an answer from Madcap support. It worked very well four our customers.

The Instant Messaging feature built into Flare is often the cause of this.
There is lots of information on the Instant Messaging in Flare Help file.

Disabling Instant Messaging
If necessary, your network administrator can disable Flare's instant messaging feature. Simply provide the following steps to your network administrator.

How to disable instant messaging

1. On your Exchange server, open the Active Directory.
2. Select the user or group for whom you want to limit instant messaging and open the properties.
3. Select the Exchange Advanced tab.
4. Click Custom Attributes.
5. Select an attribute and click Edit.
6. In the attribute field, enter either of the following:
MadCap: Flare: im=off

This command disables instant messaging for Flare only. To disable instant messaging for other applications, change "Flare" to another application name.

MadCap: *: im=off

This command disables instant messaging in all MadCap products.

7. Click OK to exit out of all dialogs.

[LTinker68]

The Instant Messaging feature built into Flare is often the cause of this.

Which brings up the question... If you don't use Flare's IM then is it periodically sending out broadcasts or something? (Seeing as I'm the only one here with the software there's no one to IM through it.) If so, then I'll definitely submit a bug report -- if you're not using a feature then it shouldn't be trying to access the Internet. So the feature should be disabled by default. From the sound of it, though, you can't disable it from within Flare? (I don't have Flare running at the moment to see if there is a menu setting.)

[RamonS]

As far as I know it does so to check if another instance of Flare is running with the same license. My guess is that the IM function is just window dressing for that check. The IM function in Flare is somewhat dysfunctional anyway because it can only talk to other Flares.

[KevinDAmery]

Plus it's a little presumptuous of Madcap to assume that everyone who uses Flare is also using Exchange (we don't, and we're not about to start using Exchange any time soon...). If your network doesn't use Exchange, there's no way to turn the feature off so it stops bugging you.

[RamonS]

Ah yes, this disease is called developerorus arrogantus microsoftius onlyus. Whoever drew up that design may have thought that those who don't use Exchange are not worthy of using Flare. Maybe it was just pure ignorance that there are also other software vendors besides MadCap and Microsoft.

[joy]

Thanks Petra for the information.

I have never seen a built-in IM feature that a) doesn't call itself that, and b) causes you to think that the application is not working properly. If we did that with our software, our support people would be running for the hills!

We also do not use Exchange. And we don't (and never plan to) use any of Flare's networking capabilities, so our IT dept has no control over Flare settings. I'd hate to be that tethered to the office.

[Debra Kopp]

This is the same problem I am having in Flare v5.0.1 when I am am logged in from home via the VPN. I continually get the following message:
Failed to IM broadcast: , error="The requested address is not valid in its context", user="", message="alive:Available"

I continue to close the Messages window, but it pops right back up (about 30 seconds later or so) with yet another line with the same message.

So, as if this isn't annoying enough, I then finally receive the "Trouble accessing the nework..." dialog box. However, I am unable to simply click OK to continue. I am forced to click Cancel and then Flare immediately shuts down.

I re-open Flare and repeat this annoying process. This has been a completely bad customer/user experience. I have never encountered this with any other software product. I have a valid software key and should be able to work "off-line" without being logged in to any network.

Did this issue ever get officially logged? Is there a solution for this? I often work from home and really don't know what to do about this problem.

[Madcap Guru]

I bet the VPN has reconfigured the ports and Flare is freaking out, I would log it with Tech Support

[rish88]

Hi,

Every time I work in a project in Flare v8, I get the following message in the Messages window:

Failed to IM broadcast: , error="An invalid argument was supplied", user="", message="alive:Available"

And, this is how it looks in Flare:

Untitled.jpg

Also, the cursor turns off while I'm typing because Flare starts displaying the messages. I have used Flare but never faced this trouble before, so I have no idea what's wrong.

Please help me!

Could this be a problem from my company's end? Because the Internet Security Department has blocked many websites and streaming data service to avoid any user hogging on the bandwidth.

[RamonS]

That seems likely that it has to do with the security changes. Flare includes IM capabilities to support collaborative authoring. There is a way to turn that off now that it won't work for you anyway. Of course, I can't recall to do that. Search the forums or drop support a line. That will be faster than waiting for me to remember.