Distributed Rendering - nodes not kicking in

[james_g_brown]

Hi,

We are using Corona 1.7.4 and are having a recurring problem where we send an image to Backburner and the 8 render nodes we have are not kicking in and helping out with the render when using DR.

We have 8 render nodes which have the DR spawner on them and they are all on 1.7.4 as well. Sometimes it works just fine but many times it doesn't and the only way to get them working is to close down the DR spawner and open it up again. This isn't ideal when we have lots of images queued up overnight and there is noone to restart the spawners. Last night we had 12 images queued up and only 3 got rendered as no nodes kicked in so each image took 4hrs.

Anyone else had this or got any ideas?

Is there a script or something we could implement which closes and starts the spawners again for each render?

We are using 3DS Max 2017 by the way...

Thanks,

James

[Frood]

So one node rendered 3 images in one night? Why use DR then? Would be better to just submit 12 jobs to 8 nodes without DR.

As for DR slaves not working: Something like this was repeatedly reported ("Waiting for render start" in UI on nodes) But I only had that 2 or 3 times when ruggedly messing around with DR and larger scenes (start/stop/cancel/start job again while spawns were still active and so on).

Have you checked the logs? Asking because I found nothing dubious when it happened.


Good Luck

[maru]

It would be good to somehow find out whether Corona's DR or Autodesk Backburner is the culprit here (I have my bet ;) ).

To find out, you could gather logs from unsuccessful rendering:
-Corona DR logs
-and Backburner logs
The instructions for gathering both can be found here: https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/12000002065

A random idea for now:
Could you try running the DR server as administrator? (right click > run as administrator)
This is a known solution (workaround?) to similar issues, however it might cause some other problems...

Anyway, right now I can just say that we are aware of this restarting issue and we are looking into it.

[Frood]

(I have my bet ;) ).

I bet on the contrary this time ;)


Good Luck

[iancamarillo]

I'm not submitting my jobs through BB but I always need to log in to the nodes and close the crashed max program to start IR. My scene is using sbsar files -FYI.
Max 2018
Windows 10
1.7 hotfix4

[maru]

Email sent to James, as we would love to gather more info on this issue and have it fixed for good.

I'm not submitting my jobs through BB but I always need to log in to the nodes and close the crashed max program to start IR. My scene is using sbsar files -FYI.
Max 2018
Windows 10
1.7 hotfix4

This sounds like a different issue.
"IR" was a typo, right? You meant "DR"?
In case of 3ds Max crashing, we will need a minidump file: https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000524006
You can host the minidump somewhere (e.g. https://corona-renderer.com/upload) and contact us about it at support@corona-renderer.com

[iancamarillo]

Yes sorry DR. Ok I'll send it next time. thanks

[maru]

We have released a new daily build yesterday (V3 RC2) which has various DR bugfixes included, and also a "Restart 3ds Max after render" checkbox in the DR server window.

If you have the time, and if you are able to install the experimental daily builds, please test it, and let me know whether there is an improvement with the "Restart 3ds Max" checkbox enabled and without it. It is very important for us to gather information about the performance of the DR server with this checkbox enabled and disabled.
Please note that the newest daily build has to be installed on all computers taking part in distributed rendering, and the newest DR server has to be launched on the render nodes.

More information:
Dedicated forum thread - https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=22160.0
Daily builds - https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000570015

[maru]

We have just released RC5, which includes yet another DR fix ("Fixed DR server sometimes getting stuck when restarting slave 3ds Max").
If possible, please try it with the "restart 3ds Max" option on and off, and let me know about the results.
The RC5 can be downloaded from https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000570015