Symptoms

If you change the name of the computer on which adTempus is running, the adTempus service may fail to start, as described in article K00000222.

Causes

The following sections discuss possible reasons for the failure.

License Invalidated by Computer Name Change

Prior to adTempus version 2.0.4, licenses issued by our license management system were keyed to the name of the computer for which they were issued. Changing the name of the computer invalidates the license file, causing adTempus to report a licensing error and fail.

If you run the License Manager from the adTempus program group, the license will not appear in the list of licenses.

To correct this you must return your license and then re-activate the software on the computer. To do so:

  1. Log in to the online license management system at www.arcanadev.com/licensing using your License Account Number.
  2. Follow the instructions in the license system to "return" the license to your account. (Note: You will not be able to remove the license from your computer using the License Manager as instructed by the license system, because the license will not appear in the License Manager. This is OK.)
  3. Run the License Manager from the adTempus program group and select Activate Software from the License menu. Follow the instructions to activate the software. (If you are using adTempus 2.0.3 or earlier, activation cannot be initiated from the License Manager; you must follow the instructions in the online licensing system instead to request a license file.)

Beginning with adTempus 2.0.4 (e.g., if you activated the software using the License Manager provided with version 2.0.4 or later) the license is tied to the MAC address of the computer rather than the computer name, so computer name changes will no longer invalidate the license.

Database Settings Point to Old Computer Name

If adTempus is configured to use a SQL Server or MSDE database on the same computer as adTempus, the computer name may be stored in the adTempus database configuration, causing adTempus to try to connect to the old computer.

To correct this, run the Registry Editor and locate the key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Arcana Development\adTempus\lDatabase" (if this key does not exist, adTempus is not using a SQL Server or MSDE database, and this section does not apply to you).

Edit the ConnectionString value and look for a section that reads

server=computername\adtempus

or

server=computername

Where computername is the old name for the local computer. If this is present, replace computername with ".":

server=.\adtempus

or

server=.

Do not modify any other parts of the ConnectionString value. In particular, do not modify the "database=" section, which may also contain the old computer name.

Beginning with adTempus 3.0, the database configuration tool will not include the computer name in the ConnectionString setting, avoiding this problem in the future.