We run Aspose Words v24.11 in a Docker container, and it sporadically falls back to a trial license, for example, when there are issues with the Aspose Cloud API or other network issues. Moreover, the application does not produce any logs when this happens; it just silently continues to run until we restart it manually.
Is there anything we can do to mitigate this issue?
To mitigate the issue of Aspose.Words falling back to a trial license in your Docker container, especially during network issues with the Aspose Cloud API, you can implement a few strategies:
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Regular License Status Checks: Since the metered licensing mechanism can switch to evaluation mode if it fails to communicate with the Aspose servers for 24 hours, it’s advisable to regularly check the license status. If you detect that Aspose.Words has reverted to evaluation mode, you should reapply the metered license. This can be done by calling the
SetLicensemethod again in your application. -
Error Handling and Logging: Although your application currently does not produce logs when this issue occurs, implementing error handling and logging can help you identify when the license status changes. You can log the status of the license after each operation or at regular intervals to monitor any changes.
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Docker Container Health Checks: Consider implementing health checks in your Docker container that can monitor the status of your application. If the health check detects that the application is running in evaluation mode, it can trigger a restart or reapply the license.
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Network Resilience: Ensure that your application can handle network interruptions gracefully. Implement retry logic for network calls to the Aspose Cloud API, which can help maintain the license status during transient network issues.
By following these strategies, you can reduce the likelihood of your application falling back to a trial license and ensure smoother operation within your Docker environment.
For more detailed information on licensing and how to apply it correctly, you can refer to the official documentation on licensing for Aspose.Words here.
Sources:
[1]: Licensing and Subscription|Aspose.Words for .NET
We use the aspose/words-cloud docker image, so I don’t think these generic robotic suggestions apply to our case.
We are sorry for the inconvenience. That happens when the billing service is down; we are now working on changing the pipeline of how our application connects to the billing service to avoid such cases when customers go to trial because the service is down.
Thanks for your reply, good to know you have identified the cause at your end. Do you have any indication of a timeline for the fixes as this is causing problems for us in production (e.g. are we talking, days, weeks or months)?
If we are talking more than days for a resolution, is there anything that we can do with the license (temporarily, until you have fixed the issue) to either increase the grace period (where we are unable to connect to your service), make the license unlimited (so we don’t need to connect to your service), or something else?
Once I have more information about the ETA, I will share it with you.
Any update on this? I’m being asked to look for alternatives due to the issue and my preference is to go back with a fix date instead?
I’ve been told that, for now, there are no issues with the stability of the billing service. Still, I also discussed this issue with my superiors, and they are now thinking about a new possibility of upgrading the window for sending data to billing from clients from 24 hours to smth more.
Thanks for your answer, great to know.
The internet is not always a reliable transport mechanism, certainly from a perspective where functionality is blocked due to the unavailability of a license server extending the retries on an incremental backoff over >24hrs makes sense (especially at weekends).
I’ll ask my team to continue monitoring for interruptions.
Sure, I will share once they make a decision.