Launch of ARM DS 2023.0 hangs at "Checking existing product setup..." in Product Setup dialog

I deinstalled both 2022.2 and 2023.0, and deleted the Roaming/Arm folder, which had entries related to those two installs plus an old DS-5 install. I deleted the Development Studio Workspace folder, rebooted and installed 2023.0. Starting 2023.0 still results in a hang.

I deinstalled both 2022.2 and 2023.0, and deleted the Roaming/Arm folder, which had entries related to those two installs plus an old DS-5 install. I deleted the Development Studio Workspace folder, rebooted and installed 2023.0. Starting 2023.0 still results in a hang.

Like many systems, I have an environment variable "LM_LICENSE_FILE" set to "C:\FlexLM\license.dat". On a hunch, I renamed the "license.dat" file to something else and created an empty "license.dat". 2023.0 launched successfully, being rewarded with the expected "Add License" dialog:

 I added one comment line:

# IMPORTANT

...to "license.dat" and received the "Activate product" dialog:

I removed the comment and substituted the first "feature" in the file, which happened to be for ModelSim:

INCREMENT msimcompare mgcld 2023.120 30-mar-2024 0 CFC395FD7C6058EB16C8 \
    VENDOR_STRING=CD6B950A HOSTID=FLEXID=9-72c52260 SN=283629548 \
    SIGN2="101F FA0D 8C47 C6FC 46B9 AAD1 6DAB BE9E 9671 B790 17CB 9032 \
    D99A 05CA C53C 1D09 5F30 3424 4F2D 5B59 0431 90F2 C45A B7AB BA48 D0AB \
    B8AC D045 5B42 BC37"

...and got the above "Activate product" dialog. Lastly, I put both the comment and the feature in the same file thus:

# IMPORTANT
INCREMENT msimcompare mgcld 2023.120 30-mar-2024 0 CFC395FD7C6058EB16C8 \
    VENDOR_STRING=CD6B950A HOSTID=FLEXID=9-72c52260 SN=283629548 \
    SIGN2="101F FA0D 8C47 C6FC 46B9 AAD1 6DAB BE9E 9671 B790 17CB 9032 \
    D99A 05CA C53C 1D09 5F30 3424 4F2D 5B59 0431 90F2 C45A B7AB BA48 D0AB \
    B8AC D045 5B42 BC37"

...and got the usual hang dialog:

Hopefully, that will give your development engineers enough to replicate and/or fix the issue.

Hi again Ken,

Thanks for this information - yes, LM_LICENSE_FILE is searched for a license (as is ARMLMD_LICENSE_FILE).

I suspect the lack of an Arm DS license therein caused this issue.

I'll update the development team.

Hope you can now proceed with the tools.

Regards, Ronan