New tests with a stripped back scene (sample scene of the farnsworth house/skydomes from vizpark) running a single workstation and 1 node. The new scene is the house model with a simple clay mat (no maps) and an HDRI for lighting. Pathing for the HDRI is correct and the scene runs no problem with vray/vray slaves. DR runs correctly for about 50 passes until the node dumps the exr and resumes rendering again at pass 0 while the workstation continues as normal. Once the exr is dumped by the node, a darker strip appears on the vfb which looks a little like a gamma issue...but we have run some scripts to try and trouble shoot this and the problem is always replicated (tried other nodes and other workstations with the same results).
Pretty sure we have eliminated the material paths/proxy paths being the issue by using the new test scene. Its also safe to say the issue inst related to a bad node or workstation as its replicated with alternate nodes and workstation combinations. One thing I would like to ascertain is when we run the DR server as admin, does it have to be TRUE admin to work, or can it be a user with admin rights? Sorry if this is a silly question but i'm almost out of ideas.
Also tried a fresh instal of 7.1 on all workstations and nodes (original post for this thread was done with A7) but the result remains the same. Leaving the image render over night in the hope that more passes will help clear it up doesn't really help either. Final image sometimes have the strips, others are clean, but usually darker that if the image was rendered locally. Im sure figuring out the reason for the strips will solve the the vanishing objects issue also...i hope. Thanks to everyone thus far for the suggestions. Desperate to get DR running smoothly, its beginning to be a bit of an issue in the studio.