Corona Distributed Rendering Crashes 3ds Max 2018 Frequently

[Gandolf]

Hello Corona Team and Members. First of all, im stunned by corona, how fast it is and how easy one can create beautiful renders with it. Im Coming from Vray and since i have a lot of CPU`s to render on, i wanted to migrate to another CPU renderer but a faster one and more affordable, so yesterday i started my 45 Day trial and i love it.

Now my problem: I have two rendernodes, 48 and 72 threads. When i render using Coronas built in DR Server, it renders fine for about 10 to 20 minutes and then crashes max. It looks like its freezing max, saves the rendered image just fine (rendernode says "Ready for new connection") and then 3ds max closes with a "report to autodesk" window. On the rendernode is no error in the log.

What i know:
-Backburner seems to work fine, i use it daily with Vray and i can also render with itself without problems.
-On all machines is the exact same Backburner Version installed.
-There are no artifacts or error in the rendered images (missing textures etc).
-It does not crash if i render on local PC`s (on my workstation or the nodes itself).

What i tried:
-Playing around with the Settings "Synchronization Interval" and "Max Pixels to transfer at once"
-Reinstalling Corona
-Using the rendernode as "workstation" and my actual workstation as "Node", same result.

My PC specs:
Workstation
-Windows 7 pro 64bit
-i7-3930k @3.8ghz
-32gb RAM
-3ds Max 2018
-Corona 3
-Backburner 2018

Rendernode
-Windows 7 pro 64bit
-2*Xeon e5-2670v3
-64gb RAM
-3ds Max 2018
-Corona 3
-Backburner 2018

My second rendernode has the exact same specs but a different CPU: 2*Xeon e5-2696v3

One of the main reasons i want Corona as my new Render engine, is its similar DR workflow i learned to love from Vray. If this feature works fine, you`ve sold me.

Its a really weird behavior since it crashes for no reason, obviously there must be a reason, it just dosent feel like there is one. I dont see CPU`s overheating, i dont see ram overflow, no plugins are used, no errors in the log.

Thanks in advance!

[TomG]

Probably the best bet is to upload the scene, plus the various logs from the Corona DR application on the render node (would be helpful if you clear those first) - https://corona-renderer.com/upload

What happens if you render for less time, that is, set a limit so that rendering will finish in 5 minutes rather than the 10 or 20 when you get a crash? Since Max crashes, it will have created a minidump, and that will be super useful (if not critical) too (see https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000524006-how-to-report-issues-3ds-max)

Was NVIDIA denoising used at all? (if you are uploading the scene, we can answer that for ourselves :) )

Cheers!

[Gandolf]

Hello TomG. Thanks for your help.
I cleared all the logs and desperately trying to crash it again... but it wont. Its always the same, you run into a problem, try everything to fix it, when nothing helps you start a new thread in a forum and right after that it just works. I will let it render over night (2500 frames) and see tomorrow if it was successfull or not.

I will let you know if it worked or not. 

PS: NVIDIA Denoiser was disabled.

[maru]

Yeah, pretty much what Tom said. We will either need:
1) To reproduce the issue on our end (we will need your scene for this, and as much info as possible)
2) A minidump and logs that can help us understand what is going on under the hood
For collecting minidumps, see point 1 or 2 from this guide, depending on the kind of issue: https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000524006
For gathering DR logs, see: https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/12000002065

Is (was) this happening in any scene, even super simple, or just in one specific scene?

[Gandolf]

I did a lot of testing today with all kinds of scenes, simple, complex, with and without plugins, long single frame renderings, lots of short ones, animations, trying to reproduce the error, but it seems to work stable now. I have absolutely no clue why it does work. The only thing i changed between the last crash and now, was deleting all the log files (corona, DR, Backburner, 3dsmax) so i have fresh and clean ones to send you, nothing else.

For me im ok with it because it now seems to be working and due to the fact that i did not encounter a crash since i cleared all the logs, it would not make sense to send it, right?

If the case happens and it will crash again, i will pack the logs and upload them right away. If there will be no more crash, i just wait until my 45 Days are over and then (99% sure) i will subscribe to the fairSaaS.

I greatly thank you for the fast support and apologize if i wasted your time with a (so far) self fixed bug and my moderate english skills.

Regards Gandolf

[TomG]

Time is never wasted on hearing about a potential problem :) Glad it is working, and yes, do let us know if it goes wrong again at any point!