I can confirm that with Sp2 we are have DR machines dropping the render, or not even starting it. The log says “Scene loaded: starting render.” There are no errors, but the buckets never kick in. It doesn’t seem to be any particular scene, it’s happened in all the files we’ve worked in.
Logging into the server and shutting down the 3dsmax.exe process allows it to restart, the scene is then resent to the node, and it picks up the render again. DR with Sp1 was rock solid, we rarely if ever had to restart the spawner on the render nodes.
Hope this helps the diagnosis..
Next time this happens, can you take the V-Ray log file from the locked machine and send it to me at vlado@chaosgroup.com? It will be very helpful.
Best regards,
Vlado
We are also having major problems with Max2009 and SP2 on 64bit machines (workstation and render nodes).
Each of the render nodes is displaying ‘vray_server_scene_1.max’ on the task bar.
This is pretty catastrophic for us, and we don’t know if the issue is with Max2009 or sp2.
EDIT: part way through a DR where none of the nodes were kicking in, I re-started vrayspawner on one of the machines. It initially loaded the ‘vraydummy2009.max’ but then changed to the ‘vray_server_scene_1.max’ at which point the buckets from that node started working on the DR scene.
EDIT2: yes - just done the same to another node and once re-started (mid DR render) it kicks in.
EDIT3: if using lc/irmap, the nodes that aren’t working seem to be rendering their buckets with old data - i.e. when certain geometry was unhidden at the first render. If I use lc/brute force, the nodes that aren’t working just don’t do anything.
(I hope this info is helping?)
Scrap EDIT3 - it doesn’t make any difference using Irmap of Brute Force
Vlado - any chance I can have a copy of SP1 for Max2009 64bit? I need to see if that works as we are having major problems with this. We have just upgraded all our nodes and workstations to Max2009 with SP2 and really don’t fancy reverting to Max9 32bit.
Possible fix:
I just renamed the two files associated with the max2009 steering wheel rubbish on the workstation and the rendernodes and DR now seems to be ok: well, on the 3 test frames I have done so far anyway.
I am also getting this, although now i’m up to ‘vray_server_7.max’.
I am also finding that if I merge into a new default scene, re-select vray as renderer and only change the setting I absolutely have to, it works more consistantly. Not perfect, but better than before. Still sucks but sucks slightly less.
Have you renamed the two steering wheel files? Solved it for me!!! Amazing!!!
go into stdplugs folder and rename ‘AutoCamMax.gup’ and ‘AutoCamResENU.dll’ to ‘AutoCamMax.gup.bak’ and ‘AutoCamResENU.dll.bak’ respectivly.
There is a hotfix for the viewcube/backburner issue:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=11279116&linkID=9241178
I have the autocamgup thingy renamed to bak anyway as the perspective view bug drives me crazy and still isn’t fixed.
Maybe someone could try the hotfix and see if it helps?
Peter
PS. You would think that Autodesk could email people on the subscription program and inform them that a hotfix is available..
Lol we just did that this morning and it resolved it for us too. (renaming the steering wheel files)
Fixed our problem of not being able to DR at all, or render on the farm.
Autodesk are a bunch of XXXXxxxx XXXxxx!
EDIT: I mean XXXXxxx XXXXxxx!
renaming autocammax.gup on my slave machine as well as the main machine seems to have fixed the vrayDR problem I was having. (haven’t got round to testing it till now)
Hmpf, one less thing to worry about then, at least for 3ds Max 2009; I thought I was going crazy for some time there trying to figure out what may be going wrong 
Best regards,
Vlado
thanks for looking into it anyway Vlado!
Maybe a few more people should check if this does indeed fix it… I wouldn’t take my word for it 
We’re still on max 2008 with vray sp2, so it’s not the steering wheel problem for us. Vlado, I’m waiting for the nodes to stop working today so I can send you the logs. Of course now that I’m waiting for them, they’re all working fine…
Same problem here, max 9 x64, al render nodes are x64 too. if i close the spawner on every machine and restart it works. I tougth it was with slower cpu’s but it happens ramdomly with quads and it tends to happend on areas that are on shade, well if seen that offen.
ps. sorry for my bad english.
I think I’m getting closer to finding the reason for this… I’ll post here if I find anything.
Best regards,
Vlado
Thats Great..
16028 update seems to be stable Vladimir… will let you know over the course of the week.