Error 'Unable To Retrieve A License. Please Contact Your IT Department' Thrown While Licensing Unattended Robot

[system]

While licensing an Unattended Robot from Assistant, the following error message is generated: 'Unable to retrieve a license (please contact your IT department).'

Error Description:

While licensing an unattended robot, the following error is encountered: 'Unable to retrieve a license (please contact your IT department)'.

If the above error is seen for an Admin user, validate the steps from Admin Validation.

Root Cause:

For On-Premises Orchestrator (v2022.4 and above), this issue is observed when Robot Authentication (Tenant > Settings > Robot Security) is set as follows:

• Unattended Robot Authentication: Hybrid / Client Credentials

• Attended Robot (User) Authentication: Interactive Sign-in SSO.

For Automation Cloud Orchestrator, the following is observed for scenarios:

1. User License Management is disabled. Robot Authentication (Tenant > Settings > Robot Security) is set as follows:

   • Unattended Robot Authentication: Hybrid / Client Credentials.

   • Attended Robot (User) Authentication : Interactive Sign-in SSO.

2. User License Management is enabled in Automation Cloud (Automation Cloud > Admin > Organization Settings > User License Management option enabled). In this scenario, Interactive Sign-In SSO is enforced for Attended Robot (user) authentication.

This observed behavior while licensing Unattended Robot i.e. the message "Connected to Orchestrator. Unable to retrieve a license (please contact your IT department)" is the expected behavior due to the Robot Authentication settings for Attended Robot ("Interactive Sign-in SSO"). An Unattended Robot is deployed in service mode and works without human supervision. Since a user has manually logged into the Robot machine, the scenario is an Attended scenario despite the license being Unattended. If the Robot Authentication for Attended Robot in Orchestrator Settings is set to 'Interactive Sign-in SSO.', a sign-in is required.

Admin Validation:
UiPath Assistant uses the below logic to validate if a user is Admin or not.

It checks two conditions and if either one is true, they are considered to be an admin:

• Script 1: The user identity is in the "WindowsBuiltInRole.Administrator" role.

• Script 2: The user identity has a claim of BuiltInAdministratorsSid.

Ask the Admin user to log in to the Robot machine with his/her own credentials.
Open Power Shell normally (not in elevated mode)
Run the following PowerShell scripts

Script 1 :

$identity = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent(); $principal = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal]$identity; $IsAdministrator = $principal.IsInRole([System.Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole]::Administrator) Write-Output "IsAdministrator:" $IsAdministrator Write-Output ""

Script 2:

$idBuiltinAdmin = [System.Security.Principal.WellKnownSidType]::BuiltinAdministratorsSid $sidBuiltinAdmin = New-Object System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier($idBuiltinAdmin, $null) Write-Output "sidForBuiltinAdmin:" $sidBuiltinAdmin.Value Write-Output "" Write-Output "Claims:" $identity.Claims

Check if the return values are correct. Sid for Admin user is S-1-5-32-544 and are usually part of GroupSid.

Resolution:

In case the Robot Status is required to be 'Connected, Licensed', then one of the following steps can be done:

1. Use interactive sign in i.e. Open UiPath Assistant > Preferences > Orchestrator Settings > Click on 'Sign In' > Sign into Orchestrator.

2. Update the Robot Authentication method for the Attended Robot to 'Hybrid' : Login to Orchestrator > Tenant > Settings > Robot Security > Robot Authentication > Select the Radio button for 'Hybrid' for the Attended Robot (user) authentication and click on Save. Once this is done, the Robot status in UiPath Assistant will be 'Connected, Licensed'.

3. For Automation Cloud, if User License Management is enabled, then Interactive Sign-In SSO for Attended robot authentication is enforced. Hence, a sign-in would be required to get the Robot Status as 'Connected, Licensed'.

Read more on the Attended vs Unattended Robots .