FME Form unable to obtain ESRI named user licence

Hi ​@telfma 

You may be running into versioning issues. Pro 3.5 is recommended with 2025. 

https://support.safe.com/hc/en-us/articles/25407724093837-Notes-on-FME-and-Esri-Versions-and-Compatibility

This is sort of a curved ball… check the system environment variable for the ESRI_SOFTWARE_CLASS amongst your users and compare the value with whats on your machine. See if there’s a pattern.

ArcGIS Pro does not use this variable but ArcGIS does. It is possible that FME Form uses the variable for Pro NU license check, but I’m just speculating this possibility.

Read these articles as well and see if there’s anything applicable to you.

https://support.safe.com/hc/en-us/articles/25407476093837-ArcGIS-Licensing-Error-Unable-to-Perform-Licensing-Related-Tasks

https://support.safe.com/hc/en-us/articles/25407421972109-Setting-different-license-levels-for-ArcGIS-and-FME-with-ESRI-SOFTWARE-CLASS

Hi crutledge,

Thanks for the response. I’m just about to upgrade to Pro 3.5, fingers crossed this is the solution. I’ll test and confirm.

Hi salvaleonrp,

Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve checked the environment variables for both users and neither has an entry for ESRI_SOFTWARE_CLASS in either system or or user.

I reviewed the links and I am sure that the problem user meets all the requirements of the first document. Valid advanced licences, accessible on the machine where FME is installed. No conflicting system variables.

I did notice something odd while testing today. The logs visible from the database connection test window for both users are subtly different before the failure. My working user account states that a licence is already checked out of type advanced, and that the installed ArcGIS version is 3.4.0. However the problem user shows that the product licence used by this machine does not include the Advanced level. It also makes no mention of the installed ArcPro version.

Working user log

Failing user log (ignore the invalid connection details error below, the details provided are correct, this seems to be a separate issue).

Hi crutledge,

I just upgraded to 3.5.1, unfortunately the same issue occurs for any user other than me.

Enterprise geodatabase editing requires a Professional or Professional Plus user type. 

Check your Named User licensing portal and go to Members tab to verify the profiles of your users and make sure that they have either user types assigned to them. Your user type is Professional Plus.

 Check this out for details on the user types https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/user-types/explore/professional

Yes ​@salvaleonrp 100% good point. Editing must have an elevated license in order to edit. ​@telfma Sorry the upgrade did  not work. We have run into issues with out users upgrading one (ArcPro or FME) and not keeping inline with the guidance doc I linked above. 

Thanks for the suggestions.

All users have Pro Advanced licences (equivalent to Professional Plus on the new ESRI licence terms).
 

I was rerunning through the Using ArcGIS Pro with FME Form – FME Support Center guide. I noticed this note. 
 

My user, which can use the ESRI features in FME, conducted the Pro install. Pro was installed for all users, and run as administrator. All users can access Pro on the machine. But the note does say all users must have installed Pro. I’m not exactly sure how it can be installed again 🤔

I think that line should just say licensing ArcGIS Pro.

In my experience, ArcGIS can be installed at a system level for all users, but in order for it to play nicely with FME, each user has to open ArcGIS on that machine and ensure the licencing is set up correctly (I’m not sure if this is how it should work, but it has been like that at multiple organisations I’ve worked at)

Thanks ebygomm.

That is my understanding of how this should work as well. All users can log in to the machine, launch the local Pro installation and get a licence. They can also launch FME with no issues, but only my user in FME seems able to pick up the ESRI licence via FME.

I tried uninstalling Pro, then reinstalling using one of the problem accounts rather than my account. This made no difference, all users can access Pro, but only my account can access an ESRI licence from FME.

I’m still battling this issue, if anyone has any suggestions that as to why FME cannot access the Pro named user licence for other users that would be brilliant.

In this article: Using ArcGIS Pro with FME Form – FME Support Center it mentions the following
 

As a result I am considering installing ArcServer 11.5 to allow FME to access an ESRI licence, rather than picking up a Pro licence. I spoke to an ESRI representative today who had no issue with this.

However, how do I configure FME to use the ArcServer licence and not Pro. The Esri ArcGIS Compatibility workspace parameter combines the options for ArcPro and ArcGIS Server.
 

At present my plan is to keep Pro on the machine for convenience, and have ArcGIS Server purely for the licence.

Thanks,

Martin

I am not familiar with that ESRI Compatibility setting parameter, so I looked at my FME Form setting and it shows ArcGIS Server/ArcGIS Pro.

More importantly to run your workflow if you have ESRI formats, you should configure your Python Compatibility to the server arcpy, shown below.

For FME Form, in your FME Options, Translation pane, add the arcpy module of AcGIS Server and then conifgure the python interpreter to be that of ArcGIS Server, instead of ArcGIS Pro.

To fix your original problem, I recommend submiting a support case with Safe as they may have some troubleshooting tips or tools to help you check the License checkout and available license checks using low level ArcObjects. Such tools may help them identify the state of the ArcGIS licensing that your user have to determine the root cause and recommend a fix.

Hi salvaleonrp,

Thanks for the info, I’ll check the Python compatibility setting.

For the time being I am placing the ArcServer install on hold. We are about to go live with a new instance of ArcGIS Enterprise at 11.5. We currently licence from a 10.7.1. install. I’m hopeful that the updated Enterprise site might make a difference.

I’ll report back once we have attempted to get a licence from the Enterprise site.

Regarding Safe support, we only purchase an FME licence. This doesn't include any support unfortunately. If we cannot resolve this issue soon I suspect we will purchase support and raise a ticket.

​@telfma did you get anywhere with this? did you install arcgis on same machine as licensing server? we are having the same issue. i found that switching arcgis pro to use the license offline resolves the issue, but this is a plaster not a cure for sure. 

Hi ​@bpn1990, not yet. To install ArcServer I need to remove ArcMap from the same machine first. Doing so I believe will break my working install of FME 2021.1. (in terms of being able to obtain an ESRI licence). Currently all our transfers run in the older version of the application so am reluctant to do this yet.

To get around the lack of a test system I am about to attempt a fresh install of FME 2025 on a new virtual machine with ArcServer installed and licensed. I’ll report back as to whether this works.

A previous post suggested altering the Python compatibility setting, but this didn't help for me.

I will let you know if this resolves the issue or not.

Hi ​@bpn1990, finally got all the bits in place to test this, and I can report that it seems to be working. FME is obtaining an ESRI licence from ArcServer and is able to read and write data to our ESRI geodatabase.

On a new server installed:

ArcServer 11.5 and licensed as ArcGIS GIS Server Standard.

FME Form 2025.0.3 with a trial licence.

Oracle client to connect to my Enterprise database.

I was then able to open FME as different users, all were able to connect to the geodatabase. Our service account user ran a scheduled task reading and writing data from the geodatabase.

I did set the workspace parameter for ESRI to Pro/Server from the default of auto, and changed the Python version to ESRI. I’m not 100% this is required. I set those values while trying to diagnose a rather generic database connection error, the cause of which turned out to be me forgetting that the database client needed to be installed 🙃.

When I repeat this process on the production server I will run through some steps to harden the ArcServer install e.g. turning off the ability to browse the REST service directory.
 

Hope that helps. In the future if anyone discovers how to use the named user licences please let me know. I would rather use the Pro licences than installing Arc Server.