AutoCAD network unavailable license alerts

If you wonder what happens to users of AutoCAD if the Autodesk Network License Manager is unavailable for whatever reason, here’s what.

Users that try to start AutoCAD will get the FlexNet License Finder dialog box showing up.

Your application was not able to obtain a license because the FlexNet license server manager could not determine where to find the licensing data it needs. Please choose one of the following: Specify the License Server System or Specify the License File

Pressing Cancel shows the Licensing Error dialog box.

Network License Not Available
Common causes: all licenses are in use, the server is down, or the license has expired. Contact your system administrator or support.
Error [-15.570.0]

Finally this License Error dialog box shows.

The License manager is not functioning or is improperly installed. AutoCAD will shut down now.

But what if a user is already running AutoCAD while the license manager gets unavailable?

After 2 hours this Unavailable License Alert dialog box will show up.

Your license is no longer available.
To re-establish the license, close and then restart this product.

If the user keeps using AutoCAD there is a 2 minutes grace follow by this Network License – Lost Connection dialog box.

A valid license could not be obtained from the network license manager. Please save your work and shutdown.
6 minutes remain before AutoCAD will shut down.
Save drawings and quit – All open drawings will be saved and the application will be shut down immediately.
Continue working – Return to the application to manually save your work during the grace period.
Quit without saving – The application will quit without saving any open drawings.

If the user click on Continue working and does not close AutoCAD the above dialog box will show up when there are 4 minutes remaining and eventually again when 2 minutes are remaining. If still using AutoCAD this final “Network License – Out of Time” dialog box shows up.

A valid license could not be obtained from the network license manager. What do you want to do?
AutoCAD will be closed now.
Save drawings and quit – All open drawings will be saved and the application will be shut down immediately.
Quit without saving – The application will quit without saving any open drawings.

The above is verified to work like this for AutoCAD 2017 and AutoCAD 2018.

If you want to monitor the network license usage see our JTB FlexReport product.