Licensing error -4 (The license for this product is locked to another computer or is using an invalid hostid)

Symptoms

Activation fails with the error message The license for this product is locked to another computer or is using an invalid hostid. (Error -4).

Cause

The rehostable hostid is invalid. This is a copy protected file in the folder:

On Windows:

%SystemDrive%\ProgramData\Reprise\bricsys\bricscad\

Note: This folder can be hidden, so you might have to turn on showing hidden files and folders on Windows.

On Linux and OSX:

/var/tmp/bricsys/bricscad/

Solution

Do one of the following:

  • If the folder was copied from another computer or from another drive, delete the folder from your computer and activate again.
  • If the folder was not copied, it got corrupted or unreadable in another way. Make sure full read and write access rights are set on the folder and on all its subfolders. If that is the case, the resolution is also to delete the folder. Additionally, the previous activation should be revoked.
Note: Warning: The rehostable hostid is locked to a computer. Do not copy the rehostable hostid folder (see Cause) from one computer to another computer.