Checking for network licence freeze

[LudvikKoutny]

Hi,

is it really necessary to freeze 3ds Max on startup for several minutes just because of checking for Vray licence? At home, I am using VPN to grab floating licence from work, but if i forget to enable VPN, i get very long freeze on 3ds Max startup while Vray is checking for licence.

I realize that it takes so long for the reasons related to network rendering, where on larger farms, tiny network traffic outage could have devastating consequences if it happened in the exact time Vray was checking for licence, but i still think freezing 3ds Max on startup is way too preemptive. Guess what... My maxstart.max file has mental ray set up as renderer, so 3ds Max does not even come in contact with anything Vray related as long as i stay away from any Vray scenes.

First solution could be to postpone checking for licence only when actual rendering with Vray is initiated.

Second solution would be to add option to Vray licence server utility to set time out for licence check, and if licence is not found within that time, then simply proceed without licence. Licence would then be checked again when actual Vray rendering starts, and if the licence wasn't found then either, rendering would simply be cancelled.

[svetlozar.draganov]

Thank you very much for the feedback and for the suggestions.
We'll add this issue into our system and we'll update you when we have some updates on that matter.

[vlado]

The freeze comes from Windows, not V-Ray. There is little that we can do about it right now. It might be possible to rework the licensing code to run in a separate thread, but I don't know if/when we will get to it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

Btw, there is a timeout already and you can control that with an environment variable - I will check what is the name and will let you know.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

The environment variable is VRAY_CONNECT_TIMEOUT and specifies the time, in milliseconds, that V-Ray will wait for the license server to reply. Set this f.e. to 1000 to make V-Ray wait for 1 second.

Best regards,
Vlado

[LudvikKoutny]

Thanks a lot. This definitely helps!

Although, wouldn't it be possible to to simply put the timeout value in the V-ray client license settings window? I can deal with environment variable easily, but there will be people in future who not even know this is possible. Especially when the information is dug so deep.

[vlado]

Yes, one of the support guys suggested the same and it does make sense - although in that case perhaps it can just be written in the license configuration file rather than in the environment variable.

Best regards,
Vlado