Installshield 2010 (and Inventor 2018) lock-up while waiting for the FlexLM license manager service

[IS-User]

I am looking for expert-level help on this FlexLM lock-up issue and not of "have you rebooted your computer yet?" sort of help. I am one of the oldest IRIX/SUN/Windows developers and likewise a long-term user of both Installshield and FlexLM since their earliest of days. I decided to pen this posting purely out of frustration from running out of options.

The simple overview: Installshield 2010 and Inventor 2018 (not 2020) lock-up immediately while waiting for the FlexLM license server.

The longer technical explanation. I have had Installshield 2010 running fine since 2010 and have no desire to change from that version. Around the middle of September isdev.exe would simply not start up nor show any splash screen. I did not install any new secondary software on the machine at that time (given my install records), although there were a few Windows updates.

Since September I have poured a lot of time and effort into resolving this problem on my own. However, I have come up dry. The locked start-up really hampers my development work when I need to get a new Installshield distribution created on the fly.

By sheer accident I found that running Autodesk Inventor 2018 would "sometimes" then allow isdev.exe to start up properly a short while thereafter (however, at this hour, that "fix" is not working as Inventor 2018 itself is similarly lockup up at the splash screen). On the flip side, Inventor 2020 will start up fine within 15 to 30 seconds. That in itself should provide a clue as to why the FlexLM service is locking up.

On this machine I also have PTC's FlexLM service running. However, based on all of my testing, it does not seem to have any bearing on the start-up of Installshield isdev.exe nor of Autodesk Inventor 2018 (given that it uses a different licensing mechanism and runtime service).

Some notes:

1) I have the x86 and x64 "FLEXnet Licensing Service" running, based on the newest download from Autodesk's WEB site of a week ago.

2) Enabling the x86 "Installshield Licensing Service" doesn't change anything

3) This is the stack trace from isdev.exe while it is locked up waiting for the FlexLM license to be resolved:

AcLayers.dll!66ea03ce() Unknown
...
ISUIServices_libFNP.dll!04fd5685() Unknown
...
ISUIServices_libFNP.dll!04fda84d() Unknown
...
ISUIServices_libFNP.dll!04e892a5() Unknown
ISUIServices.dll!639bbd29() Unknown
....
ISUIServices.dll!63a2532b() Unknown
AcLayers.dll!66ead2e9() Unknown
[External Code]

3) This is the stack trace from Autodesk Inventor 2018 while it is locked up waiting for the FlexLM license to be resolved:

adlmint_libFNP.dll!00007ffb819bd4af() Unknown
adlmint_libFNP.dll!00007ffb8199ffdd() Unknown
adlmint.dll!00007ffb83b0cf80() Unknown
...
adlmint.dll!00007ffb83a6abf4() Unknown
clmint.dll!00007ffb8434255a() Unknown
...
clmint.dll!00007ffb8435fc9b() Unknown
FwUI.dll!00007ffba3033cd9() Unknown
...
FwUI.dll!00007ffba31ded61() Unknown
[External Code]
Inventor.exe!00007ff77ba5129e() Unknown

Thanks for any pointers that you may be able to offer.