It is now possible to submit DR servers list for DR through backburner

[Olli96]

No, the pc which picks up the job doesnt have to be in the DR list.

[grasshopper]

Thanks for your replies Olli96 but I'm having no joy. I have tried all combinations of submission now.

Are you running backburner and spawners as services or manually?

[Olli96]

Here is, step by step, how i have set it up:

At the end of the day i start the BB Server and Manager on my workstation. In 3dsmax i activate DR and select all other nodes on the network, but not my workstation. Activate Net Render and press render. In the BB submission window i select "use selected server" and pick my workstation (it should be the only available one in the list since the server is only running on my workstation) and submit. Now my Workstation starts to render and all the other PC's i specified in the DR list are kicking in. I do this for alle the scenes and cameras and in the morning usually everything is done.
I do actually start them manually because i couldnt get DR running (even local, not network rendering) because of some security reasons of our network which the network admin couldnt solve. It has something to do with admin privelges but i am not a network guy so i cant help here. Even now i have to start them by doing a right click on the icon and select "run as" and then login as an admin. This way at least it works for us.

[grasshopper]

Thanks again, I'm getting somewhere. I followed your work flow in part. My nodes are still running as services but this time I submitted in backburner to my workstation. 3 out of 4 of the nodes assisted in the render BUT it took nearly twice as long than sending the job with DR straight from my work station.
This method doesn't really work for me anyway. The purpose of setting up DR thru BB would be so that I can submit a job and be able to continue to work throughout the day. I can DR overnight with out backburner.

I may be able to help with you set up though:
We have 4 render nodes which we created a separate render account for. This account was given full admin rights. We run BB and Vray spawners as services on all the nodes but in the services properties there is a tab called Log On in there (in both BB and Vrayspawner) we needed to add the account details and password for in to work properly . You could try this (adding you admin details) if you haven’t already. It means you don’t even need to log the machine on never mind start them manually.

I Am running BB manager 2008.1.1.292 does anyone know if this could be the problem?

[Olli96]

You dont have to use your workstation as the server, you can use any other pc, just make sure that its the only one running the bb server. if i have to render something over the day i do this all the time. About the DR servers kicking in very slow, we have this sometimes too, usually this happens if there is a lot of network activity.

Thanks about the tips with the setup as services, i will mail this to our admin and see if he can solve our problem.