Problem:

We received the message "LMF 004: You have exceeded the license limit for this product". Following this message, a further message indicates the number of license units in the license database, all of which are in use. For example:

"No more licenses for this product are available. All of the 0002 license units in the license database are in use. You may continue using this product after this message as a temporary unlicensed user."

Resolution:

It is possible that the number of licenses available has been exceeded, in which case you will have to contact your sales representative in order to purchase more licenses.  However, if you believe that you have not exceeded the licenses available, it may be possible that a rogue process is still running behind the scenes and is still making use of a license. To check the state of all processes running do one of the following:

ps -aef | grep cob

or

lmfgetpv w    (this should list the PIDs still connected to a license).

You should now be able to identify if any COBOL processes are still running.  If they are, kill them and retry compiling your original COBOL application which should now compile cleanly without returning the error message.

Another cause of the error could be if the COBSW environment is set to A.  Setting the variable invokes the Server Express Integrated Development Environment (SDE), kicks in a debug session and will then result in a terminal connection.  If you do not have a sufficient number of licenses, you will most certainly get the error message "Micro Focus LMF - 004: You have exceeded the license limit for this product". This is because the terminal name for the debug session is set by the operating system and is not the same as the terminal name used by the SDE itself. License Manager, therefore, considers the two terminal sessions to be two different sessions, and requires them to have a license each. So, in order to overcome this problem you must not run the SDE with COBSW= A, or obtain further licenses.