This section lists problems and error messages that you may encounter while installing and/or running Ansys, Inc. products. After each situation description or error message is the user action required to correct the problem.
You can also find answers to commonly asked questions on our Ansys customer site. After you log in to the Ansys customer site, select Knowledge Resources> Solutions.
For information on licensing-related errors, see the Troubleshooting section of the Ansys License Management Guide .
There are situations which require licensing-related information to be gathered for diagnostic and troubleshooting purposes. At times it may be necessary to provide this information to technical support.
The client-related diagnostic information can be gathered by using the Ansys Licensing Settings Utility. For more information, see, Gathering Diagnostics in the Ansys Licensing Settings Utility section of the Ansys Licensing Guide.
The server-related diagnostic information can be gathered by using Ansys License Management Center or by using the standalone gatherdiagnostics script.
You can also use the AnsysInstallationDiagnostics.exe, in the \v242\instutil directory, for additional installation diagnostics. This tool is helpful to diagnose installation and runtime issues. One or more log files will be generated either at the same location as the tool or in your temporary directory, depending on directory permissions. The log files are intended to help Ansys, Inc. technical support personnel expedite any technical issues. It is useful to have the files ready to provide before contacting Technical Support.
If you run the uninstall utility as a non-administrative user, you may get access denied error messages when removing product components. Run the uninstall as an administrative user, and close all applications before running the uninstall.
If you uninstall an Ansys, Inc. product on a Windows 7 or Windows 10 system using the Ansys, Inc. Uninstall utility, you may see the following error message:
This program might not have installed correctly.
If this program didn't install correctly, try reinstalling using settings that are compatible with this version of Windows.
This message is caused by the Windows Program Compatibility Assistant and can safely be ignored. Click and continue with the uninstall.
Help system .chm files may not display topics correctly when you try to use a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path to open the file on a network shared folder, typical with a Network Configuration install. This is a known issue. See security update 896358 and 840315 on the Microsoft support site for more information on this problem and Microsoft's recommended fix.
If you are running ICEM CFD over the network and you have applied this security update, you may not be able to access ICEM CFD Help using the Help menu. To access ICEM CFD Help, navigate to commonfiles\help\en-us in the installation directory on the server machine and copy the file icemcfd_help.chm to your local machine. Double-click the local copy to view the help.
On Windows Server 2008 systems, Ansys applications may crash with an application error if the DEP (Data Execution Prevention) flag is set. To check your DEP setting, right mouse click , and select Properties. Select the Advanced tab, and under Performance, click Settings. Then select the Data Execution Prevention tab.
If DEP is set, you will need to add Ansys to the list of exceptions. For more information on DEP and how to change the settings, see security update 875352 on the Microsoft support site.
On a Windows 7 or Windows 10 system, if you install Ansys, Inc. products but do not see a Start Menu/Apps item and your CAD plugins do not work, the TEMP environment variable may be pointing to an inaccessible location. For example, it may point to a location such as %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp. As a result, the product installation could end without configuring the product correctly. You should ensure that the TEMP variable points to a valid location, such as %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp.
If you see a security warning dialog box during a GUI installation/product configuration, or if your installation hangs during a silent installation, you may need to modify your security settings. Set the machine you are installing from as a trusted site and allow launching of unsafe applications so that the prerequisite installation can complete. Then re-run the installation. Contact your system administrator or refer to your operating system documentation for details on modifying security settings.
Alternatively, you can run the prerequisite check to verify that you have all the necessary prerequisites. If necessary, install any prerequisites and rerun the installation:
Run PreReqCheck.exe from the top level directory.
Install any missing prerequisites by running InstallPreReqs.exe from the top level directory as an administrator.
When the prerequisites have finished installing, run the installation as you normally would (GUI or silently).
***Error, Ansys242_DIR environment variable is not set. This is a fatal error – exiting.
This message indicates that the Ansys242_DIR environment variable was not set where necessary for licensing. This environment variable should be set to the installation directory.
Unexpected error: Request for the permission of type ... failed.
If you encounter this type of message on a server configuration, you
may need to set the machine as a trusted site. On a Windows 7 or Windows
10 machine, in the Control Panel, select , select , and select . Click
and click
. Add the machine as
file://.servername
The installation program checks your system to determine if you have the necessary prerequisites. If the prerequisites are not already on your system, the prerequisites will be installed automatically. In some cases, a system restart may be required after exiting the installation and before using any Ansys Products.
If a system restart is required, a restart error message will be written to the install.err error file. The install.err error file is located in the installation directory.
Note: Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.2 is now required for running Ansys products. If your installation computer does not have .NET 4.6.2 installed, the Ansys installation program will install .NET 4.6.2 as a prerequisite and may require a system restart after exiting the installation and before running any Ansys products.
Because of a known issue in Windows, confirmation messages displayed by the Ansys Installer occasionally open behind the installer display. In such a case, a pulsing task bar icon is the only visible notification that a confirmation message is open. Manually bring the confirmation message to the foreground. Accept the message and continue the installation process.
This issue is a result of a Windows limitation on the number of Start Menu shortcuts that can be displayed. A work around for this issue is to remove folders containing unneeded start menu shortcuts from the Start Menu/Programs folder. This will cause the Start Menu to be populated with the shortcuts that were not previously visible. To remove the unneeded shortcuts:
Navigate to
%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs.Move the program folders containing the unneeded shortcuts to a location outside of the Start Menu path above.
Verify that the shortcuts that were not previously visible are displayed. If not, reboot your Windows system.
If Ansys Additive generates an error: "Problem starting the application...," it is likely the Additive application is attempting to use a port number that is already in use by another application. You will need to change the port number of the conflicting application or run Additive inside a Virtual Machine.
Background: Due to the technology used in converting our original web application to a desktop application, Ansys Additive uses static port assignments. This is a current limitation of Additive. In most cases this is not a problem, but there may be times when you have another program that is already using the assigned ports. The workaround is to determine which other application is using the common port and reconfigure the port number for that other application. The alternative is to run Ansys Additive on a Virtual Machine.
To Troubleshoot: As described in Ansys Additive Requirements, the port numbers Additive uses are 5000, 7000, 7933, 7934, 7935, 8125, 8181, 9002, 9042, and 9711. Go through one-by-one to identify where the problem is.
At the Windows Command Prompt, enter:
netstat -aon | findstr 5000
If nothing happens in response to the netstat command, then you know port 5000 is free. Continue on to the next port number, 7000, and so on through all the Additive port numbers.
If you see something like this:
TCP 0.0.0.0:50001 0.0.0.0 LISTENING XXXX
then you know port 5000 is being used by an application with a process ID (PID) of XXXX. To determine which application it is, enter:
tasklist /fi “pid eq XXXX”and you will see something like this:
Image Name PID Session Name Session# Mem Usage ================== === ApplicationXYZ.exe XXXX
If possible, reassign the port number in the settings for ApplicationXYZ. This may only be possible by running the installer for ApplicationXYZ.
If it’s not possible to alter the port number(s) of the conflicting application(s), you will have to run Additive inside a Virtual Machine.