I'm getting a "License key invalid or expired" error when using a VPN connection

Question

I use a VPN on the machine running QIE. sometimes after connecting to or disconnecting from a VPN connection I get the following error:

Answer 1

In some environments, connecting to or disconnecting from a VPN or other virtual network adapter can cause QIE to loose the mapping between the machine and the license key. If this happen you can "bind" QIE to the primary network adapter using the following java option:

-Dqie.mac=00247fd31d6a

To set this option:

1. Open a command prompt and type ipconfig /all to get a list of all configured network adapters on the machine.
    
2. Find the network adapter associated with your primary NIC card.  This adapter is typically named something similar to Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection
    
3. Copy the Pysical Address value, remove all puncuation and change all characters to lower case: e.g. 00-24-7F-D3-1D-6A becomes 00247fd31d6a
    
4. Open the QIE Service Manager dialog and navigate to the Startup tab.  Under Arguments, add the -Dqie.mac option using the MAC (or Physical Address) calculated in step 3 above.

Comments

NOTE: If QIE is running on a VM, make sure the VM has a static MAC address.  This ensures that when the VM is rebooted, the bound MAC address does not change.