FusionReactor License and Activation Issues

Version Check

We recommend that you first make sure that you have the most current version of FusionReactor installed as recent updates include license and activation fixes. You can download the most current version from the FusionReactor download page.

Problems and how to fix them

Typical problems

In the following section, we list the most often reported problems with the FusionReactor license and activation process as seen from the user's perspective. The typical causes of these problems are discussed subsequently, along with the steps necessary to solve them.

1. Restarting the server expires a trial license or activation period immediately
2. Attempting to activate a license with an expired activation period redirects to the login page (but the license was not activated)
3. Installing a license shows an error page saying Can not upload license: null
4. Installing a license silently fails (you get redirected to the login page but the license was not installed)
5. Loss of license activation after reboot on some multi-server installations of FusionReactor 3.5.1

Typical causes

1. Insufficient privileges of the server account when trying to write to the Java System Preferences Backing Store.
2. A Java6 VM on Linux or Solaris that has no fix for SUN JVM bug 6519088
3. Firefox browsers occasionally corrupting the license during the upload
4. Trying to activate a license without a connection to the Internet (bug FR1409).

How to fix it

Insufficient privileges

The runtime user of the server on which FusionReactor is installed requires read/write access to the Java System Preferences Backing Store. Depending on the operating system, the location of this data store is different. On Windows the data is stored in the registry hive HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREJavaSoftPrefs, the data belonging to FusionReactor is in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREJavaSoftPrefscomintergralfusionreactor.
Page 14 of the FusionReactor Installation Guide provides you with instructions how to adjust the permissions of this store.
On Linux and Solaris the data is typically stored in the directory /etc/.java/.systemPrefs as a hierarchy of directories containing XML files. The data belonging to FusionReactor is in the directory /etc/.java/.systemPrefs/com/intergral/fusionreactor. To set the necessary permissions execute the following command as user root:

chmod -R 777 /etc/.java/.systemPrefs

Alternative locations of the System Preferences Backing Store

Some JVMs try to create the System Preferences Backing Store in the directory $JAVA_HOME/.systemPrefs as a fallback solution if the directory /etc/.java/.systemPrefs cannot be created where $JAVA_HOME denotes the directory where the JVM itself is located (e.g. /opt/coldfusionmx/runtime/jre ).

We strongly recommend you to use /etc/.java/.systemPrefs as the one and only location of the System Preferences Backing Store. In case there is already data from other applications in $JAVA_HOME/.systemPrefs you should move it to /etc/.java/.systemPrefs and delete $JAVA_HOME/.systemPrefs afterwards (after you have adjusted the permissions of /etc/.java/.systemPrefs properly).

Clear the System Preferences Backing Store

If you attempt to install a license and you get the error message mentioned before:

Can not upload license: null

or simply

null

then you should stop the application server, clear the content of the Java System Preferences Backingstore and restart the application server.

On a Windows machine run the registry editor (regedit.exe or regedt32.exe) and then delete the key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREJavaSoftPrefscomintergralfusionreactor

On a UNIX machine as user root delete the directory

/etc/.java/.systemPrefs/com/intergral/fusionreactor

If the permissions are configured correctly uploading a license and activating it will work properly afterwards.

On MacOS the System Preferences are stored as a set of *.plist files under the /Library/Preferences folder. Once the application server has stopped delete the file /Library/Preferences/com.intergral.fusionreactor.plist to clear all Preferences belonging to FusionReactor.

SUN Java 6 VM bug 6519088

This bug has been introduced with version 6 of the Linux and Solaris SUN Java VM and unfortunately has not been fixed even in the recently released version 6.0_05. We have a technote available at https://www.fusion-reactor.com/support/kb/FRS-168.cfm which provides you with detailed instruction how to apply a fix for this bug.

Bypassing problems with Firefox

If you upload a license with Firefox and nothing seems to happen (except that you have to login again) check the reactor-0.log file for the typical error message (see also https://www.fusion-reactor.com/support/kb/FRS-45.cfm) shown below

...
javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException: Input length must be multiple of 8 when
decrypting with padded cipher
at com.sun.crypto.provider.SunJCE_h.b(DashoA12275)
at com.sun.crypto.provider.SunJCE_h.b(DashoA12275)
at com.sun.crypto.provider.SunJCE_ae.b(DashoA12275)
at com.sun.crypto.provider.PBEWithMD5AndDESCipher.engineDoFinal(DashoA12275)
at javax.crypto.Cipher.doFinal(DashoA12275)
...

If multiple retries of uploading the license file again do not change this try to upload the license from a different browser and/or computer. If this does not help neither manually copy the license file to FusionReactor/license/license.lic and restart the server.

Making the manual activation process work

As mentioned in the overview of this document there is a hotfix available that fixes the bug FR1409 in the previous FusionReactor version 3.0.0 where a license can only be activated if the computer has a connection to the Internet. Download: fusionreactor-hotfix1409.zip. It comes as a ZIP file containing a new version of the FusionReactor Java library (fusionreactor.jar) together with instructions how to apply the fix. However, we recommend to upgrade to a newer version, which does not require this hotfix.