Matlab gives a "License checkout failed" error after rebooting

I'm using Fedora 27 with Linux 4.14.16-300. Every time I reboot it gives me an error:

License checkout failed.
License Manager Error -9
The hostid of your computer ("8e16dd22f151 d050993b4804") does not match the hostid of the license
file (c246c6426b48). 
To run MATLAB on this computer, you must run the Activation client to reactivate your license.

Troubleshoot this issue by visiting: 
http://www.mathworks.com/support/lme/R2016b/9

Diagnostic Information:
Feature: MATLAB 
License path: /home/josh/.matlab/R2016b_licenses:/usr/local/MATLAB/R2016b/licenses/license.dat:/usr/local/MATLAB/R
2016b/licenses/license_localhost_2713860_R2016b.lic 
Licensing error: -9,57.

Something must be reset after each reboot, but I can't figure out what it is. The hostid is just the MAC address of my wireless adapter, followed by that of my ethernet adapter, neither of which should change on reboot. I'm not sure why the license file looks for a single hostid either, rather than a double one like my computer has. Has anyone else run into this issue? This is with MATLAB R2016b.

EDIT: After a reboot I have realized that my network adapters' MAC addresses are randomized on each boot. I believe setting a static MAC address (if that's possible on Fedora) will solve this problem. It's probably bad practice to link a license to something that the operating system changes by default.

Answer 1

[Ville Lehtola]

Had the same problem with Fedora 27: my network card changes MAC address after each reboot. For Matlab to start, however, the "Host ID" visible in MathWorks license center must match the network MAC address of your network card. I fixed the problem by copying the value from the license center to my network configuration at

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

I added the following line (replace this example with your "Host ID")

MACADDR=XX:78:EE:75:R1:k4

and rebooted the card

ifdown eth0
ifup eth0

Voilà!

[jg614]

Thanks, this worked for me on Fedora 33. Only difference between 33 and 27 is the network-scripts seem to be named for the specific network now, not the interface. The ifdown and ifup commands have to refer to the same network name as the network-script.

[jg614]

I just realized I was the one who asked this question years ago... that's wild. Answer accepted!