// Error: V-Ray : Exception [module=1] : Preparing ray server //

[joelly3d]

I have a scene which I can't share. It has a character by some lockers. The lockers are a fairly simple metal with triplanar. When the character and lockers are visible and I render at 8000x8000, i get this error:
// Error: V-Ray : Exception [module=1] : Preparing ray server //

However if I hide the lockers and just leave the character it renders fine.
Oddly, if I change my render to 2000x2000 it works fine even with the lockers visible.
I tried removing the texture thinking maybe the Triplanar on the lockers was creating an issue at larger sizes....but no difference, still halts with that error at 8k.
I also notice that when i save and reopen, my Render Settings appear to reset, like it can't save them properly. Not sure if this is related.

I tried re-installing vray to see if it would help, but no luck. What does this mean... how can I correct it?

I am on a 72 core 256GB RAM machine with dual RTX Cards.

Any troubleshooting insights welcome. Thanks in advance,
-Joel

[joelly3d]

Interesting update. I turned off Subdivision in Render Settings/Overrides and it renders, so it has something todo with geometry subdivisions. The render is way faster without that too, I suspect something is overly subdivided and hogging resources. I presume even with an absurd machine, this can create issues. .... continuing to investigate.

[joelly3d]

I could not figure out what was wrong with the geometry. all the settings were fine, but the problem persisted. So I made a sphere, combined my old geometry to it, deleted history and removed the sphere. Then it was all fine. Some kind of hidden data was making it go crazy I guess. It used 100GB less ram to render after doing this and looks exactly the same. I have no idea WTF.

[yolov]

What you're describing sounds like having abundantly high settings for subdivision (and/or displacement), although without a scene, it's just a guess.
Check your settings in Render Settings > Settings > Default displacement and subdivision and see if the edge length isn't too low or the subdivs too high. Since by default subdivision and displacement are view dependent, a very low value for edge length might be an issue on very high resolutions. Try lowering the subdivs (to something like 64 or 32) for example and see if that helps.

Keep in mind that you can override the global displacement and subdivision quality with extra V-Ray attributes on shapes or displacement nodes, so if you have those attributes added, please check them too.