Fortinet Trials... am I missing something...

Hi ​@TTFN ,

Can you redeploy the VM and refer this article for Permanent trial mode for FortiGate-VM : 
https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortigate/8.0.0/administration-guide/441460/permanent-trial-mode-for-fortigate-vm

If you have found a solution, please like and mark it as solved to make it easily accessible for everyone.

Thanks,
Mayur Padma

Hi ​@TTFN,
 

This usually occurs because the FortiFirewall VM Image (Wrong VM image) was downloaded instead of the FortiGate VM Image, or the Upgrade Image was downloaded instead of the New Deployment image from the VM Images page under the Support tab at the support.fortinet.com portal.
 

Check the VM image details using the following command: get system status (Note: The Version should display as 'FortiGate-VM VM64...'.)

Try to reinstall FortiGate VM image on your environment. Download the appropriate VM image from either the VM Images page (Under the Support tab) or the Firmware Download page. Both pages are available under the Support tab.
 

Please refer to the documents below for more information:

https://community.fortinet.com/fortigate-3/troubleshooting-tip-license-is-invalid-for-current-vm-configuration-upload-a-new-license-or-reconfigure-the-vm-102882

 

If the issue persists, collect the following debug output and create a support case:
 

get system status
diagnose debug vm-print-license
diagnose hardware sysinfo vm full 
exe ping fds1.fortinet.com
fnsysctl cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid

Also, if FortiGate is in an HA cluster, both FortiGate units should have identical and valid licenses with matching feature sets and expiration dates. If this is not the case, the error above may occur.
diagnose hardware sysinfo vm full
 

If you have found a solution, please like and accept it to make it easily accessible to others.
 

Regards,
Aman
 

Annoyingly I worked this out... Rather than re-applying the LIC file, I simply decommissioned the existing VM appliance under assets in my account...

The FortiGate trial/evaluation license file is usually locked to the original VM instance or hardware serial number. If you wiped the install and deployed a fresh VM, the new instance likely generated a different serial/UUID, so the old  file will no longer validate. In most cases you need to either re-register the new VM in your Fortinet Support Portal and download a new license file, or redeploy from the original preserved VM image instead of creating a completely new instance.