Error occurred while trying to open certificate store 'Altiris Licensing'. Or Can not get the license. System.FormatException: Expected hex 0x in '{0xdddddddd, etc}'

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to apply licenses via the SIM on the NS 7 server, the licenses are failing with the following error:

Error occurred while trying to open certificate store 'Altiris Licensing'.

As well, if you try to open the RemoveLicense.exe tool (Under ...\Program Files\Altiris\Notification Server\Bin\Tools), you may get the following errors:

Module: AeXSVC.exe
Source: Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicenseUtil.GetInstalledLicenseInstances
Description: Error occurred while trying to open certificate store 'Altiris Licensing'.

( Exception Details: System.FormatException: Expected hex 0x in '{0xdddddddd, etc}'.
at System.Guid..ctor(String g)
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicenseUtil.GetLegacyLicense(X509Certificate2 certificate)
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicenseUtil.GetLicenses(X509Certificate2 certificate)
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicenseUtil.GetLicenses(X509Certificate2Collection certificates)
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicenseUtil.GetInstalledLicenseInstances() )

( Exception logged from:
at Altiris.Diagnostics.Logging.EventLog.ReportException(Int32 severity, String strMessage, String category, Exception exception)
at Altiris.Diagnostics.Logging.EventLog.ReportException(String strMessage, String category, Exception exception)
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicenseUtil.GetInstalledLicenseInstances()
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.License..ctor(Guid licenseGuid)
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.DefaultLicenseProvider.GetLicense(Guid licenseGuid)
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicensingPolicy.EnsureLicense()
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicensingPolicy.get_LicenseGuid()
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicensingPolicy.Initialize(ILicensingPolicy policy)
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicensingPolicy.InitializeCore()
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicensingPolicy.ReInitialize()
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicensingPolicy.EnsureInitialized()
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicensingPolicyEventProcessor.Collect()
at Altiris.NS.Licensing.LicensingPolicyEventProcessor.OnTimerCallback(Object state)
at Altiris.Common.Threading.LocalTimer.InvokeCallback()
at Altiris.Common.Threading.LocalTimer.InvokeCallbackAsync(Object state)
at Altiris.Common.Threading.LocalThreadPool.ExecuteUserWorkItem(UserWorkItem workItem)
at Altiris.NS.Threading.NSThreadPool.ExecuteUserWorkItem(UserWorkItem workItem)
at Altiris.Common.Threading.LocalThreadPool.ExecuteUserWorkItemInContext(UserWorkItem workItem)
at Altiris.Common.Threading.LocalThreadPool.ThreadPoolProc(Object threadStartParameter)
at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart(Object obj))

( Extra Details: Type=System.FormatException Src=mscorlib )

Cause

In one instance of this issue the problem was that customer was using previous NS 6 licenses. 

In another case the cause was a corrupt license. It created a certificate on the Server that was causing the license process to fail.
This is an example of how the bad license looked like (as you can see, the content of the license was referring to a product called 'Test Product', which is an invalid product name) :

(combined license) Connector Solution.txt  --Externally, the license file looked fine.

Altiris Product License

Company    :
Product    : Test Product
Reg. #     :
Node Count : 0
AUP Expires: 4 2012

Resolution

Option 1:
Customer rebuilt NS and was acquiring NS 7 NFR licenses from the Sales Account Rep.

Option 2:
Remove all licenses and apply a new set of them. If still using NS6 licenses, please request a new set of 7.x ones.

Option 3:
In another customers case, The problem was that there were some old/expired Altiris/hpcms licenses on this server.  He removed those and the issue was resolved.

Option 4:
In the particular case of one license causing the issue, it was necessary to go and verify each license certificate using MMC. Please refer to HOWTO5527 "Removing Altiris Licenses". After removing the bad certificate (it could be an expired one, bad product name, or a product no longer valid for SMP7 (like Carbon Copy, etc), run the scheduled task called 'NS.Internal License Refresh Item' and watch the NS logs for errors around refreshing licenses, if any.

Applies To

Symantec Management Platform 7.x
CMS 7.x