KB17155: What kind of diagnostics are helpful in troubleshooting issues pertaining to Automatic Server Activations?

Strategy Server Activation is a licensing technology that ensures that installations of Strategy server products are authentic and have been legitimately licensed. Server Activation registers each Server Installation with Strategy and locks the installation to a specific machine. For more details regarding Strategy Server Activation, refer to the MicroStrategy Licensing Site.
 
Server Activation can be simplistically represented as a 3-step process:
 

1. Generate (or re-generate) the activation file .
2. Upload activation file (regardless of manually or automatically) and request activation code.
3. Apply the activation code.

Step 2 may be performed automatically (during installation or from Strategy License Manager) or by manually uploading the activation file (Activate.xml) to the activation (licensing) site. This technical note outlines the logs and diagnostics that are helpful for further troubleshooting in situations where the automatic activation fails but the manual activation works fine from the same machine.
 

• LMError.log
  This file is located in the \Program Files\Common Files\Strategy folder on Windows or in the /log folder on Unix. This log is likely to contain generic information that gives basic idea about the issue, such as the following:
   
  10/10/07 15:30 Licensing web site is not accessible for activation!
  10/10/07 15:30 Checking licensing web site returns: 0
  
• MARegClient
   
  
• To enable this diagnostic, launch the 'Strategy Diagnostics Configuration' from Start > Programs > Strategy > Tools.
• Set 'Select Configuration' as 'Machine Default'
• Enable the diagnostics, MARegClient > Errors, Scope Trace, as shown below:
  

•  
  This diagnostic provides information on communications made to the licensing web site for checking its accessibility and for authenticating the server followed by the activation code request exchange. It also provides information on the port used to communicate with the licensing web site (the value is port 80). Following is a snippet from the MARegClient diagnostic:
   
  ] Enter 'CheckRegistrationSite( "licensing.Strategy.com" , 80 )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(902)
  ] Enter 'InitiateCommunication( "licensing.Strategy.com" , 80 )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(841)
  ] Enter 'ExchangeCommunication( "/Registration/initiator.asp" )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(793)
  ] Leave 'ExchangeCommunication( "/Registration/initiator.asp" )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(830) with 0x00000000
  ] Leave 'InitiateCommunication( "licensing.Strategy.com" , 80 )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(862) with 0x00000000
  ] Leave 'CheckRegistrationSite( "licensing.Strategy.com" , 80 )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(914) with 0x00000001
  ] Enter 'RetrieveActivationCode( "licensing.Strategy.com" , 80 , "C:\Program Files\Common Files\MicroStrategy\Activate.xml" )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(919)
  ] Enter 'InitiateCommunication( "licensing.Strategy.com" , 80 )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(841)
  ] Enter 'ExchangeCommunication( "/Registration/initiator.asp" )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(793)
  ] Leave 'ExchangeCommunication( "/Registration/initiator.asp" )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(830) with 0x00000000
  ] Leave 'InitiateCommunication( "licensing.Strategy.com" , 80 )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(862) with 0x00000000
  ] Enter 'ExchangeCommunication( "/Registration/activation.asp" )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(793)
  ] Registration Server returned failure: Code=401, Reason=Untrusted client.
  ] Page is:
  ] Leave 'ExchangeCommunication( "/Registration/activation.asp" )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(793)
  ] Leave 'RetrieveActivationCode( )' \ClientRegistration.cpp(919)
  
• MAHttp
   
  
• To enable this diagnostic, launch the 'Strategy Diagnostics Configuration' from Start > Programs > Strategy > Tools.
• Set 'Select Configuration' as 'Machine Default'.
• Enable the diagnostics, MAHttp > Errors, Info, Response Details, Scope Trace, as shown below:
  

•  
  This diagnostic provides details on the information that is exchanged between the machine and the licensing web site. Below is a snippet from the MAHttp diagnostic:
   
  2007-10-26 12:15:45.835-05:00 Enter 'ServerConnectionImpl::SendRequest( )' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ServerConnectionImpl.cpp(142)
  2007-10-26 12:15:45.867-05:00 Enter 'ServerConnectionImpl::hSendNetRequest( ): 546 bytes' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ServerConnectionImpl.cpp(54)
  2007-10-26 12:15:45.882-05:00 Leave 'ServerConnectionImpl::hSendNetRequest( ): 546 bytes' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ServerConnectionImpl.cpp(54)
  2007-10-26 12:15:45.929-05:00 Enter 'ResponseParser::ParseResponse( )' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ResponseParser.cpp(36)
  2007-10-26 12:15:45.976-05:00 Enter 'ResponseParser::FetchMoreBytes( )' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ResponseParser.cpp(588)
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.007-05:00 Enter 'ServerConnectionImpl::hFetchNetResponse( )' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ServerConnectionImpl.cpp(115)
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.054-05:00 Leave 'ServerConnectionImpl::hFetchNetResponse( )' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ServerConnectionImpl.cpp(115)
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.101-05:00 Leave 'ResponseParser::FetchMoreBytes( )' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ResponseParser.cpp(588)
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.132-05:00 Enter 'ResponseParser::hParseStatusLine( )' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ResponseParser.cpp(74)
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.195-05:00 HTTP version: 1.1
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.226-05:00 HTTP status: 200
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.273-05:00 HTTP reason phrase: OK
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.320-05:00 Leave 'ResponseParser::hParseStatusLine( )' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ResponseParser.cpp(74)
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.351-05:00 Enter 'ResponseParser::hParseHeaderFields( )' near Z:\Tools\MARegistration\MAHttp\MAHttp\PrivateSource\ResponseParser.cpp(200)
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.398-05:00 Header field name: Date
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.445-05:00 Header field value: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:15:46 GMT
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.492-05:00 Header field name: Server
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.523-05:00 Header field value: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.570-05:00 Header field name: X-Powered-By
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.617-05:00 Header field value: ASP.NET
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.664-05:00 Header field name: content-Length
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.710-05:00 Header field value: 368
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.742-05:00 Header field name: content-Type
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.835-05:00 Header field value: text/html
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.898-05:00 Header field name: Set-Cookie
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.945-05:00 Header field value: ASPSESSIONIDQABCRTCS=JJOJCJABPFOBIPICIIBAFKJK; path=/
  2007-10-26 12:15:46.992-05:00 Header field name: Cache-control
  2007-10-26 12:15:47.023-05:00 Header field value: private