This issue has been resolved. The problem was not Ubuntu 16.04. For some bizarre reason I received the wrong license file contents. When using my institutional email on the freesurfer website registration form I receive this file:

The information in this e-mail is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed. If you believe this e-mail was sent to you in error and the e-mail contains patient information, please contact the Partners Compliance HelpLine at http://www.partners.org/complianceline . If the e-mail was sent to you in error but does not contain patient information, please contact the sender and properly dispose of the e-mail.

Which is not the contents of the license file. However, when I put in my gmail email address on the registration form I receive an email with the correct license file.

I hope the freesurfer support team can look into this issue.

Thanks again.

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 4:57 PM, NIELS JANSSEN . njanssen@ull.edu.es wrote:

Hi Burkhard,

Thanks for the message but this does not solve my problem. I untarred as root in /usr/local, and as myself in /home. I also requested a new license file (which appears the same btw), and it does not matter. For all options I am still getting the same error saying my license is invalid (ERROR: Invalid FreeSurfer license key found in license file). Note that when I installed version 5.3 the license file worked fine (but I got the nu_correct) problem.

I am lost here as to what is causing this. I feel like going back to 14.04 may be the only way forward.

Thanks again.

...

Hi Niels, I also downloaded the development version recently. After untarring all files are mine (my uid & gid). Did you unpack the tar file as root? Then, I had to request a new license from the freesurfer team. Freesurfer did not accept the old license anymore. But that was it - now it runs again. And I did not see this mri_nu_correct error anymore. all the best, Burkhard -- Dr. Burkhard Maess Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences Stephanstr. 1a, P.O. Box 500355, D-04303 Leipzig Aussenstelle Bennewitz, phone/fax: +49(3425)8875-2526/-2511 mail: maess 'at' cbs.mpg.de, http://www.cbs.mpg.de

-- Niels Janssen Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory Institute of Biomedical Technologies Center for Biomedical Research of the Canary Islands University of La Laguna Tenerife, Spain http://www.neurocog.ull.es/en