Backburner Renders Timing out - but this is disabled!

[sv]

i've got a really strange and annoying problem....
I've submitted about 6 renders to the render farm through backburner, they are all really complicated scenes - 4 million polys (but handled with proxies), about 70 lights, more or less black walls and floors so glossy reflections everywhere etc. etc.

The last few days i've come to check them in the morning, and they all have the error - task timeout (600mins). The thing is - task timeout was set to 70000mins, so i just turned off task timeout over the weekend and let them render, and i'm still getting the errors task timeout (600 minutes).

I've re-installed backburner on the manager machine, including the backburner updates, and still i'm getting this error.

I've had images which have taken longer than 10 hours to complete the render, so why is this happening now? Just as i more or less have finished the project and am doing the high res renders for the client.

But obivopulsy the client needs the images now.....and soon.......

[joconnell]

It's probably not it but there's a different timeout for load / wait / cool off and render - maybe it's the load timeout that's getting them before the scene has opened into ram?

[sv]

yeah i looked at this - but no, the scenes all load fine, and the lightcache starts calcualting, and i've checked back on them and seen screens which are rendering the image having finsihed light cache and Irradiance map.

I can't really afford to sit by the machines for 10 hours to see if this is the problem, but ones (only a few) that have finished have completed in less than 10 hours (600 minutes).

Really annoying because my client needs these images, and they aren't set to time out after 600 minutes!.... arrhhh........

[Neilg]

We have this problem, as does everyone I think.

Use strip rendering.

[sv]

yeah ok, i'll try strip rendering.

but as i say, i've previously had renders which have taken (way) longer than 600 minutes to render, so i'm absolutely bamboozeled as to why this error is showing it's ugly face....

[sv]

does anyone else get unhandled exceptions when rendering through backburner, using the VrayFrame Buffer, and splitting the render up using stripes?

because i do....not when disabling the VrayFrame Buffer....

[gilpo]

You have to disable the VFB when doing stripe rendering. You can only use max's fb.

Something someone mentioned before on this issue was to install the full max install on the manager computer, not just backburner. Some have reported that this fixes the problem. I have not confirmed it myself.

[sv]

thanks gilpo,

but i have installed max as well as backburner on the manager machine.
i've never had this problem, but all of a sudden it's just started to kick up a fuss....no idea why....

[OrionD]

try opening ur backburner.xml in "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Backburner\Network" folder, or whereever ur backburner is located. (u can open it with notepad)
now see if the changes that u enter are being updated in the xml properly or not. it could be one of those windows permission issue.
did any of the permissions change in the servers...

[sv]

now i'm really confused - i've opened the backburner.xml file in the location you described, on both the workstation, and the manager machines.

On the workstation the .xml file has the entries:

<ManagerPort>3234</ManagerPort>
<UseTimeouts>No</UseTimeouts>
<MaxLoad>30</MaxLoad>
<MaxUnload>10</MaxUnload>
<MaxRender>70000</MaxRender>

but these can't be found on the .xml file on the manager machine. Infact i don't even have a <MaxClient> sub menu where these would be found.

would this be because the manager machine has never taken part in a rendering as a render server?

Again, what is confusing is i've been rendering fine for years with this system, i've had renders well over 10 hours, so why is this happeneing now? I haven't upgraded to RC3 yet, so there aren't any updated i've done........really confusing.....

backburner version 3.0.1 - haven't installed 3.0.2 because the install says if you've installed 3.0.1 then you don't have to use the .2 upgrade. (seems very peculiar to me)

Any more advice is most appreciated.

[marco]

hello,

I posted a thread on this topic a while ago, I had exactly the same problem with backburner 3.0
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...burner+timeout
now that I installed 3.02 it seems that backburner doesn't overrule the rendertimeout to 600 min anymore !
Although autodesk doesn't mention anything about a bug fix for this in 3.02, I still recommend upgrading 3.01 to 3.02.


to set a custom timeout your workstation .xml file should be:
<ManagerPort>3234</ManagerPort>
<UseTimeouts>YES</UseTimeouts>
<MaxLoad>30</MaxLoad>
<MaxUnload>10</MaxUnload>
<MaxRender>70000</MaxRender>

Marco

[sv]

yes thanks marco,
i've read through every post in that thread trying to solve this.

Good to know that the 3.0.2 upgrade sorts this out - i'll do the upgrade, but have got through a fair few strips and changed all the timouts manually, so might just see if it all completes now i've changed this.

So annoying because i don't know why this has changed suddenly......

[marco]

changed all the timouts manually

do you mean you changed the timeouts in the queue monitor under "edit settings/timeouts/wait to render" of the job ?
tried this in 3.0 and backburner still overruled this timeout with 600 min, even when it says wait to render=6000 min.

or do you mean that you increased strip count until rendertimes are well below 600 min. ?

Marco

[sv]

no i mean i went to the manager machine, clicked on each job, edit settings > changed the timeout from 600 mins (this was the first warning because they were all submitted as 70000 mins) changed this number to 70000 mins.

Obviously there is a problem somewhere, but i'm going to risk that this will work for now as these renders are getting out of control with how long they are taking.... don't want to cancel a days worth of rendering time....i'll do this as a last resort....

I tell you this is turning into a f**king nightmare, and strip rendering is really not making it any easier.....

[Neilg]

and strip rendering is really not making it any easier.....

How so? I cant see why it wouldnt.