Error The system has reached its licensed logon limit
When you get the error “Error The system has reached its licensed logon limit” this means the citrix license server has either ran out of licenses, The correct licenses are not installed or there is a configuration problem on the license server.
Symptoms
When users log on to an ICA connection (RDP works fine) they get the error “The system has reached its licensed logon limit.” Please try again later
The following error could be logged in the windows Event Viewer Application Log:
Event ID 716 : (####) This license (MPS_ENT_CCU) has expired
Event ID 766 : System Clock has been altered
Event id 9018 : Cannot contact the license
Systems Affected
The citrix systems that are affected by the error “metaframe presentation server cannot contact the license server” are, Citrix Presentation Server Version 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 Xen App 4.0, 4.5, 5.0. I guess metaframe XP but I have not used this version of citrix
Things You Need To Check
First thing you need to check is if you have run out of citrix licenses, log on to your citrix license server and check how many licenses are being used and how many are free via the licensing console.
I have seen citrix license servers not releasing a citrix license when a user logs off, so the citrix license is still being used even theo the user has logged off. To refresh the license list simply restart the “Citrix Licensing” windows service. If you look in the licensing console you should see the amount of used licenses drop to 0 then start to increase when all the citrix presentation servers / users have polled back in. Restarting the service is a quick fix, For some reason restarting the service doesnt drop all the licenses in use, So what I do is restart the service everyday via a windows scheduled task and also reboot the server once a week. A reboot of the server seems to successfully flush all of the licenses.
Another good thing to do is update to the latest version of citrix license server. Also check www.citrix.com if there are any hotfixes for your version of citrix license server.
Do you have the correct license installed for the version of citrix presentation server you are running?? On the license server in the licensing console you can see which type of licenses you have, they will be either Standard / Advanced or Enterprise. Now on your citrix presentation server you need to make sure it is set to use the correct license. If you installed citrix presentation server enterprise edition it is possible for it to be using an advanced license, and if you have no citrix presentation server advanced licenses on your citrix license server you will not be able to log on to an ICA connection.
To check what version of citrix presentation server you are running log in to your citrix presentation console, Expand the servers tab at the bottom and navigate to your server. Now right click on your server and select “Set Metaframe Edition” Shown Below
In the next screen verify that the correct version of citrix metaframe is selected. Shown below
Are you using an evaluation license? Make sure it hasn’t expired.
Check if the time and date are correctly set on the presentation server and citrix license server, if the time is wrong you will get problems
Can the citrix presentation server communicate with the citrix license server correctly? Take a look at this article to verify Metaframe Presentation Server cannot contact the license server
How To Check If The Problem Is Resolved “Citrix The system has reached its licensed logon limit”
To check if this problem has been resolved log on to an ICA connection (Not an RDP connection) as a normal user that does not have local admin rights.
When the problem has been resolved you may see the following in the citrix presentation servers eventvwr “Citrix server has successfully contacted the citrix license server”
Have you got any other fixes for the error “Citrix The system has reached its licensed logon limit” if yes please post them below in a comment. Thanks
