Backburner limiting node participation

[Clifton Santiago]

I posted this on the Area, but as I usually get better answers on this forum, I thought I would post here as well:

I am trying to do my first animation since upgrading to 2009. I select all 10 nodes that I have, and assign them to the job. However the backburner manager is only permitting 3 nodes to work on a given job, the other seven just sit idle even though assigned. If I remove one of the 3 active nodes from the job, one of the idle assigned nodes will then become active, bringing the total active nodes to 3 again.

Any ideas? I would like to have all available nodes actually working on the job.

I am running Max 2009 64-bit (on all nodes) and Backburner 2008.1. Backburner XML settings such as maximum servers are all at default and should not be causing this problem. There are no errors being reported either the queue monitor or the backburner log files.

[DanielBrew]

Have you upgraded the Backburner on your manager machine?

[Clifton Santiago]

Yes, the manager machine is also running BB 2008.1

I have figured out a workaround in the meantime. Because BB is permitting only 3 nodes per job, I am submitting multiple jobs to run simultaneously. With 3 jobs I can have 9 nodes running. I was surprised when it actually worked...

[DanielBrew]

Good that you've found a workaround, I've had problems in the past when I didn't update the manager at the same time as the workstations and nodes.

I still think the problem is something to do with the manager though. Might be worth changing the logs on the manager and nodes to 'debug' and seeing if there is any useful info in there.

[Sascha Selent]

Task Blocking?

Just a shot in the dark: is taskblocking is enabled? Maybe the nodes get blocks of 35 tasks and if your animation is 100 frames long all the tasks are covered with 3 machines ?!?

Sascha

[Clifton Santiago]

Well, it would be at default. I searched the backburner.xml on the manager machine, and the only reference to tasks are:

<DontBlockTasks>No</DontBlockTasks>

<TaskErrorLimit>4</TaskErrorLimit>

<UseTaskErrorLimit>No</UseTaskErrorLimit>

I don't see anywhere it specifies the amount of tasks per node, but I guess I could try changing DontBlockTasks to Yes.

[Sascha Selent]

In the advanced options when submitting the job to BB you can decide wether to use task-blocking or not. By default it is enabled. The amount of tasks assigned to a machine cannot be manipulated as it seems to be calculated by the renderes performance.

[Clifton Santiago]

Okay, thanks. I'll give that a try.

[cs_sean]

Any luck with this? I'm having the same problem, but I only have 2 nodes online. They both appear available, but it only picks up the first one. I'm ticking the "use all servers" button on the assignment window. I get the same results if I tick "use selected" and select both machines. If I just select one or the other machine, they work for that machine. I did uninstall, and reinstall backburner on all my machines to see if that fixed things, but didn't. Not sure where to go now...any thoughts.

edit...
I'm running max 2009 64bit on all machines, no animation, just a static .jpg, have task blocking off...

[Clifton Santiago]

No, never did fix it. Fortunately I don't do animations too often. My DR and DR via Backburner, both work fine for still images. Its just Backburner with frames...

I posted this same query on The Area and received zero responses... figures

[Sascha Selent]

edit...
I'm running max 2009 64bit on all machines, no animation, just a static .jpg, have task blocking off...

No animation? If you have only one frame only one machine will be adressed! BB assigns one frame per machine. If you try to render one image over several machines the approach would be different...

[cs_sean]

I don't do animation often either, but it sure would be nice to use what I have. I have a new animation project starting. I've tried DR via Backburner too, but still only get one machine rendering. I searched the Area as well, no luck. Anyone have any ideas?

edit...same for the animation I was working on.

edit again...I worked through it again, uninstalling backburner on all machines and re-installing. Seems to have worked this time. Everything is working properly. Maybe I missed something last time. I'm not complaining though...it works.

Thanks.

[MegaPixel]

I don't have an answer for your 3 PC limit problem, however I wanted to make sure you all were aware that Windows XP 32/64 and Vista 32/64 have a maximum pc connection limit of 10. To add anymore servers beyond 10, you will need to setup your Backburner Manager PC on a Windows Server OS.

I mention this, because I had a similar experience to the posters problem where no matter how many PC's I added to the project, only 10 pc's would participate at any one point in time.

For what it's worth, I hope you resolve your problem. -MegaPixel

[dellis]

I've been crying about this for years....i just don't understand why the manager can't be run on a linux server. Its way more stable and cheaper then windows server.

[jonahhawk]

...I posted this same query on The Area and received zero responses... figures

The Area may sometimes be more aptly named The Void.