NAS failure, DR no longer works

[Macker]

Hey guys,

We recently had our NAS drive fail (think it was the motherboard/controller, not the disks) and switched the disks out to another server and everything is running as it was beforehand. All the drives have retained the exact same names as before and all software is working as expected EXCEPT for our render nodes which are rendering almost-blank scenes.

I say almost blank as they appear to be picking up the HDRI (even though it's mapped wrong). The local machines render everything just fine, but the nodes seem to just render out the HDRI with nothing else in the scene at all. Max is set to convert the file paths to UNC, so it's a bit of a head-scratcher as to why it's not working. The odd thing is that the nodes don't appear to even know they're not receiving assets, or files.

[Ivan1982]

Hi,

can you check user paths your render nodes see, for instance do they show \\name_of_computer(or ip address)\c\maps\

I see that you placed asset HDD to another server, did you gave sharing permissions to everyone, can you access it through network group from your nodes?

What vray console on node says when you start render, any warnings?

Take care

[Macker]

I'll check those things now.

I restarted the nodes and now they don't even render the HDRI...

[DR] getting frame data...
[2016/Oct/17|11:48:09] Received TM_END_RENDER from 10.0.0.86
[2016/Oct/17|11:48:09] [DR] frame number is 0
[2016/Oct/17|11:48:09] [DR] frame data is NULL, aborting
[2016/Oct/17|11:48:09] [DR] Calling endSeqeunce()
[2016/Oct/17|11:48:09] Entering endSequence().

[Macker]

The paths the nodes see are like this:



The paths my local machine sees are like this:



The P: and O: drives are the ones that are important.

[Ivan1982]

Hi,

please, go to one render node(node_1), one that is not hosting any files, start max, go to customize, configure user paths/external files/add... then choose network(choose computer that has all the files) select drives/dir you need, click use path(check sub dir if you need), repeat for all directories/drives you need, turn off max, start DR render on your WS or another BB job using node_1 to see if things are working.

If by any chance you are unable to see server that is hosting all you assets than problem is in network groups(search on google adding computer to network group), but first things first.

Take care

[Macker]

It appears to be rendering fine as a BB job.

[Macker]

https://youtu.be/C6UUm23D628 This is what's happening, just for clarification. You can see my local machine rendering parts of the scene properly, whilst the node just skips past everything. Clearly it's getting the HDRI from somewhere though!

[Morbid Angel]

Hi Macker, question would be - can you go to DR slave and load the scene via max UI? When it loads can it be rendered?

It could be that the hdr has been synced using transfer missing assets before your nas broke down, and new files do not get copied over (just a guess).

[Macker]

Well guys, in another weird plot twist the node (only one of them) randomly started working - but neither my local machine OR the node rendered what was in the viewport! I don't know whether to create a new thread for this, it's just bizarre!

[Deflaminis]

I think it used to be that you had to render a BB job before DR would work, maybe that's what happened here.

[svetlozar.draganov]

I think it used to be that you had to render a BB job before DR would work, maybe that's what happened here.

DR wouldn't work at all if there is something wrong with the BB configuration. In this case DR works but most likely there is problem with the external assets.

https://youtu.be/C6UUm23D628 This is what's happening, just for clarification. You can see my local machine rendering parts of the scene properly, whilst the node just skips past everything. Clearly it's getting the HDRI from somewhere though!

Are there any XRefs into that scene, looks like the ground plane is rendered properly while the rest of the geometry is not visible by the render node at all?
Can you send us vray-log files from the workstation and from the render nodes?
How did you start V-Ray Spawners, as a windows service or manually? Can you start them manually and ensure that current windows account has access to all the assets in the scene?

Looking forward to hearing from you.