DR missing maps - again... kinda

[rmaytee]

It was all you guys. Thank you so much.

Is there any reason I should be using UNC pathing though?

[Donald2B]

I use UNC because I run most of my programs as services on the rendernodes. Since services can't see mapped network drives, I switched over to UNC. That is my only reason.

[rmaytee]

Hello, getting back to this, I am wondering how best to set up my paths to UNC. I wonder if that would be more stable? I am still getting missing maps every once in a while. Any help on that would be great.

[Donald2B]

There is really not much to it. There is a check box in the Customize -> Preferences -> Files Tab -> Convert file paths to UNC

That is pretty much it. Whether we are using mapped network drives or UNC pathing we never experience the missing maps problem. Again, the only reason we are going this route is due to using VRay and backburner as services instead of logging in and running the applications.

[rmaytee]

Hmmm, you never experience missing maps either way? I'm not sure what my issue is then. Sometimes all nodes render fine, other times one says missing maps, and aborts the render. I almost always end up with at least one node not responding, and it is very inconsistent with which node(s) work and which ones don't. Very frustrating.

[Donald2B]

Yeah that is strange. It sounds like a network issue to me. We have a domain controller, main file server, frames file server and 20 nodes for rendering (including workstations). Without a much more detailed breakdown of your setup, I am just guessing.

Is it always the same few nodes that have the problems?

Are they going to sleep or hibernating?

[rmaytee]

No sleeping or hybernating going on. I am viewing all nodes through vnc viewer. Spawner is running. The nodes work when I don't use textures, or if I uncheck "check for missing files", but then I get buckets of missing content. Very sad.