When trying to activate, deactivate or register a product key one of the following errors occurs:
If you are using the TSM UI or the command line, you may see:
The requested licensing operation failed with error code '104: TABLEAU_ERROR_LICENSING_ACTIVATION_GENERAL'
The errors listed above are general errors and can be caused by various circumstances including the following:
These general license errors usually indicate that there is a problem with the key being used or the third-party Flexera folder is corrupt. Depending on the circumstances, review the information below.
It may not be possible to activate or deactivate a product key that has been marked obsolete. Go to your Tableau Customer Portal to obtain your current key if there is one. Often a product key is marked obsolete in our system and a new key has been issued to your organization. Tableau Desktop keys may have been exchanged for LBLM Creator Server keys.
The Tableau Customer Portal will always have the current key being used for Desktop or Server. For more information, see Maintain Licenses for Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep or Managing Tableau Product Keys in the Tableau Customer Portal. If there are any questions or concerns on what licenses are showing in the Tableau Customer Portal, please contact your Tableau Account Team for assistance.
On Tableau Server, the desire to remove an old obsolete product key can be performed with manual steps as directed by Tableau Technical Support. Please contact Technical Support to obtain assistance.
When using the legacy activation method (not ATR), the Flexera files may become corrupt and activation functions cannot be performed. Re-booting the hardware of the Tableau Server or Tableau Desktop machine will sometimes resolve this error. If further assistance is needed, please contact Tableau Technical Support and provide the license data files if possible.
If using Tableau Desktop on macOS, perform the following to rebuild the Flexera folders:
Tableau Server may have trouble reaching the ATR Service outside the network due to network or proxy issues. Please review Activate Tableau Server Using the Authorization-To-Run (ATR) Service to ensure it is possible for Tableau Server to reach the ATR Service on AWS. Troubleshooting steps may also include collecting a Fiddler trace.
Review the Internet Requirements guide for licensing with your Network Team for both ATR and non-ATR activation methods to ensure the Tableau machine can reach our license servers. A workaround for network issues is to perform an offline activation.
These general errors can occur when completing the offline activation and using the wrong file or there is a typo in the file name. Review the steps for the offline activation and check the file name for typos when processing the activation.tlf or offlineactivationlicensingatrs.zip response file from the Tableau offline activation website.
Find the correct key to offline activate on Tableau Server
Managing Tableau product keys in the Tableau Customer Portal
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