Nios license not recognized by assembler

[Altera_Forum]

We have a permanent fixed license for Quartus, Nios II, and the embedded IP suite, which is correctly recognized under Quartus II v9. The license file is defined in the system variable LM_LICENSE_FILE, the variables QUARTUS_ROOTDIR and SOPC_KIT_NIOS2 are both defined, and the Quartus installation has no spaces in its path. The Quartus IDE "Tools...License Setup" dialog correctly shows a permanent fixed license for these features. However, the Quartus assembler apparently isn't seeing the Nios license. 

 When I try to generate a programming file with a design using Nios II, the Quartus assembler only generates a time-limited .sof, and gives this message: Info: Design contains a time-limited core -- only a single, time-limited programming file can be generated Warning: Can't convert time-limited SOF into POF, HEX File, TTF, or RBF  Similarly, if I use Altium Designer (which uses the Quartus tools as a back-end), the Quartus assembler says: <Warning: Can't generate programming files for project because design file "Altera_NiosII_VGA.root_partition.map.atm" is encrypted. It does not have license file support that allows generation of programming files.>  Anyone have an idea why the Quartus assembler doesn't seem to detect the license, but the Quartus IDE does?

[Altera_Forum]

I think in your design one of the component used without license so that because of this component quartus not able to generate the programming file. 

 Can you give me list of component used in SOPC builder for reference?

[Altera_Forum]

Hardik, thanks for the suggestion. We're pretty sure now that this is a license problem, since we just found out that everything works when the license is tied to a dongle. 

 We don't know yet if the problem is with the fixed-node NIC address license itself, or if there's some other software on this machine interfering with the license. Still, it's strange that the Quartus IDE detects the license, but the back-end tools don't.