Spawner Fails

[creapix]

Hi everybody,

I have the same problem of VraySpawner launching, loading the file (I can see the ram going from 270Mbs to 1.5 Gb for the maxdummy) and then doing nothing and crashing, then restarting again.

Here's what the VRSpawner log says:
0: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] ========================== Starting new session ==========================
1: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] Got this module name: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\vrayspawner2010.exe
2: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] Got this INI file name: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\VRaySpawner.ini
3: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] *** ALERT! Could not open INI file: "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\VRaySpawner.ini". Using defaults.
4: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] --
5: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] Dumping current settings...
6: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] VRaySpawner temp dir: "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\network"
7: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] Application name (MAX/VIZ): "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\3dsmax.exe"
8: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] --
9: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] Process id is 1248 (0x4e0)
10: [2010/Aug/28|11:10:15] Executing ""C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\3dsmax.exe" -server C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\network\vraydummy2010.max"
11: [2010/Aug/28|11:12:42] Process id is 1248 (0x4e0)
12: [2010/Aug/28|11:12:42] Executing ""C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\3dsmax.exe" -server C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\network\vraydummy2010.max"
13: [2010/Aug/28|11:14:26] Process id is 1248 (0x4e0)
14: [2010/Aug/28|11:14:26] Executing ""C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\3dsmax.exe" -server C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\network\vraydummy2010.max"

I have urgent renderings to do and need to use DR ideally, I'm using 3dsmax Design 2010 with Vray SP5 all on Windows 7, all in 64 Bit on the slave and Windows XP x64 with 3dsmax Design 2010 and Vray SP5 too on the workstation, all in 64 bits. They both have 12Gbs of RAM.
Backburner renders fine, I also resaved the vraydummy2010.max file, and overwrote the vraydummy2010.xml file with Vlado's one from another post - still no luck. I don't find the vrayspawner.xml file tho.

Any fix please?

Thanks

[vlado]

If this started after installing the 3ds Max 2010 hotfix, please see this thread: http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...-2010-hotfixes

Best regards,
Vlado

[toby™]

I have a similar problem with 3ds max 2011 and V-Ray 1.5 SP5.

While assigning a job via Distributed Renderer, 3 render slaves start participating in my render-job, but 1 workstation (WK02) keeps starting, ending and restarting the DR render service. To clearify things a bit more, the following list explains how our setup is set up:

- Total of 3 Licenses V-Ray 1.5 SP5 in our company
-- 1 License of V-Ray RT 1.5 SP2
-- WK01 assigning the job | dongle attached and fully authorized with V-Ray RT to this dongle, too
-- WK02 receiving the job, but keeps re-/starting the dr render server | dongle attached and fully authorized (V-Ray RT installed, not authorized, to prevent error messages during render process)
-- 3 render slaves receiving and calculating the assigned job | no dongle, just using the network rendering license feature, V-Ray RT installed due to compatibility to WK01

This is quite annoying, since WK02 is as fast as WK01 and one of our most powerful computers down here.

Is there a workaround on this or do I need to fix a specific file on WK02? I already did a reinstall of V-Ray 1.5 SP5 and V-Ray RT SP2 on WK02, but no success either.


thanks in advance,
toby

[creapix]

Hi Vlado,

No I didn't install this hotfix. Just in case, I've used the vraydummy2010 file in the thread you referenced, and still the same problem. The slave is started, when I start render on the workstation, the slave starts loading a file then stops and exits then reload itself. In the vrspawner log you can see something like that I wrote before. In the Vray workstation render log it says the file has been transferred to the slave, then that the scene is loaded and slave starting render, then that the slave is not responding.

Any clue? I still need to render some more hi resolutions files and it would save me a lot of time.

Regards,
Andy

[KiboOst]

problem solved by reading the forums thread `max 2011 and vray`. just found the attached updated vrayspawner.xml from vlado.

now everything works fine.

Where is this post please ? Can't find it and still can't use DR with max2011 x64 on win7
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...1-DR-nightmare

[vlado]

Björn probably means this thread: http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...-2010-hotfixes

Best regards,
Vlado

[stevesideas]

Great, had the same problem...the new xml file solved my problem. Thanks

[Pionier]

Hi Vlado,

No I didn't install this hotfix. Just in case, I've used the vraydummy2010 file in the thread you referenced, and still the same problem. The slave is started, when I start render on the workstation, the slave starts loading a file then stops and exits then reload itself. In the vrspawner log you can see something like that I wrote before. In the Vray workstation render log it says the file has been transferred to the slave, then that the scene is loaded and slave starting render, then that the slave is not responding.

Any clue? I still need to render some more hi resolutions files and it would save me a lot of time.

Regards,

Andy

Hi Andy, did you fix the problem? I have to render few hi res images as well and now I can't as DR stop working for some reasons ;/;/

peter.

[Pionier]

OK i fix the problem in my case.

this is what I did:

- open notepad, file - open - C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
- I have something like this there:

...
# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost
10.11.12.187 render-01
10.11.12.191 render-03
10.11.12.192 render-02

i change it to:


...
# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost
#10.11.12.187 render-01
#10.11.12.191 render-03
#10.11.12.192 render-02

restart slaves,

and from now on, everything is work again

[particlerealities]

Doesn't this effectively nullify the IP addresses (comment them out) so the IP addresses are ignored? I opened my text file, and every line is commented out with the "#".

_________
# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

[DJH]

Couldn't get DR working with Max2016, even though all was all ok with Max2015.

To get it to work I had to disable firewalls (even though I believe I have added all relevant exceptions in firewall), but also I needed to installed Backburner2016 on my slaves (didn't think I needed it so hadn't included it in the installation at first).

Simply installing Backburner - not even running a job on it (and my main PC doesn't even have it installed yet) - has allowed DR to work now (before installing BB2016 on the slaves the Spawner was just closing as soon as it loaded, repeatedly, on the slave machines).

[tzaar]

Strangest spawner thing ever I think: I got my colleagues rendering in my framebuffer! We've got a bunch of rendernodes, all with spawner 2014 and 2015 running on them. We're moving on to 2016, so that was just installed on one node for testing purposes. So one nodes had spawner 14-16 running. And I was testing spawner from my workstation, worked fine it seemed. But then I unchecked use local host, and then I didn't get anything at all. But that might have been because that node had been "taken" by other users using spawner. I just left it on to see what would happen. And the next morning I have a view from my colleagues project in my vfb. And he's using 2015.

There are missmatches of vray versions between our workstations and some other things that are being sorted out. So it's hard for me to figure out what's really going on. But if I will definitely post again if this weird thing happens more.
We never really got spawner to work in 2015, and I'm still running all my projects in 2014 (and encourage my colleagues to do so to) because there was just too many weird problems in 2015. Unusable layer manager, snapping goes bananas, viewports too etc. But I have high hopes for 2016. So hoping to get spawner running properly there too

Just saw that I need to read up on the help section. This was a bit of a shocker "If you create a fresh install of 3ds Max on a machine, you will need run at least one Backburner job with this machine as a server, before you can use the machine for distributed rendering."
Does that go for all every max version too? We use Deadline and have never used BB on our farm, how come we can render DR with 2014 then?

[Zdravko.Keremidchiev]

Does that go for all every max version too? We use Deadline and have never used BB on our farm, how come we can render DR with 2014 then?

Although the latest V-Ray versions doesn't require a BB job to be ran in order to do a DR, there are some issues now and then. Therefore we still have this information on our help pages and we still advise our customers to do so.

[Streetwise]

So for me, I'm going crazy trying to figure out what is going on. I have a successful 2016 install going on with a workstation and three nodes. I have BB server running on Node 1, Spawner running on Nodes 2 and 3. From my workstation, I can pass a DR job off to BB, and I'll see the job rendering out on Node 1, using the other two nodes as well. All is fine and dandy.

Recently, I purchased a second workstation to replace the older one. I can't figure out for the life of me why the other DR nodes will NOT join in to Node 1 as they should. If I run a job as DR on the workstation, all nodes start working as you would expect. But if I pass the DR job off to BB on Node 1, only Node 1 renders. The same is true if I activate the server on the other nodes - only that node will render. Since nothing has changed on the nodes or my workflow, I have to assume that the issue resides with the way the new workstation is acting. All Firewalls are off. I'm using IPV4 and have IPV6 turned off.

When I start the server service on Node #1, I see where it registers to the workstation manager on the new machine, so I know there's connectivity there, but why the other Nodes won't come to the party is beyond me. Also, I've just completed sending a BB job to each node to see if that corrects things. Still nothing.

Any other thoughts?

[Streetwise]

So it seems that if I check "Save servers in the scene" for DR Settings, that might have fixed the issue. This is apparently not on by default. I also, ticked "Restart servers on render end", but I don't think that makes a difference. Anyway, happy days are hear again! (knocks on wood).