clients not reporting chunk finished

[madCGi]

I have recently had a few clients that have not correctly reported or been logged by the server when a 3dsmax chunk has finished rendering.

Viewing the client events shows that the render was finished and the 3dsmax.exe is no longer running.
But checking the logs on the RenderPal server the job is assigned but the chunk is never logged as finished. therefore the server doesnt assign the now idle client with a new chunk and will stay that way until we manually reasign the client.

Any ideas as to what might be causing the RenderPal client to not report the job finished event to the RenderPal server?

[Shoran Support]

Does a timeout message appear in the client event log (after about 90-120 seconds)? And does anything appear in the logs of the job (not just in the global server event log)?

[madCGi]

the logs on the client only show the "job started" and "job finished" entries. no timeouts or errors.

the log for the job on the server only shows the "job started" entry. no errors.

[madCGi]

server_not_registering_finished_job.jpg

here is an example of the problems we have been experiencing. it doesnt seem to be limited to specific clients or jobs, it just seems to occur randomaly.

no error is displayed on the client. after finishing the job it just returns to being idle but the server still registers it as continue rendering.

--Client output log--

-- RenderPal V2 Client, Version 2.11.3.1758
-- Session started: 11/05/2015 09:48:31
-- Commandline: /service:run /minimize

=== #####_#####_####_####_#####_#_##_######.max, Chunk 23 - 11/05/2015 09:48:33 =======
Scenes: M:/####/####/#####_#####_####_####_#####/Pro/CG/Scenes/NEW/#####_#####_####_####_#####_#_##_######.max
Section: Frames: 22.000 - 22.000, Region: Entire image
Renderer: 3ds Max 2014/Default version
=== Started ========================================================================================

> "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2014\3dsmaxcmd.exe" -width:1920 -height:1080 -start:22 -end:22 -gammaCorrection:1 -gammaValueOut:2.200 -rfw:0 M:/####/####/#####_#####_####_####_#####/Pro/CG/Scenes/NEW/#####_#####_####_####_#####_#_##_######.max
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11/05/2015 09:48:37;
Max install location: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2014\
11/05/2015 09:48:37; Max file being rendered: M:/####/####/#####_#####_####_####_#####/Pro/CG/Scenes/NEW/#####_#####_####_####_#####_#_##_######.max
11/05/2015 09:48:37; Renderer: V-Ray Adv 3.10.01
11/05/2015 10:19:33; Job Complete
11/05/2015 10:19:34; Job Completed Successfully


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

=== #####_#####_####_####_#####_#_##_######.max, Chunk 23 - 11/05/2015 10:19:45 =======
Duration: 31 min 11 sec Avg. CPU usage: 82% CPU idle time: 5 min 38 sec
Result: Finished
=== Done ===========================================================================================

[madCGi]

any news on this bug?

we are still experiencing it with the latest update.

[Shoran Support]

We were not able to reproduce it, nor has anybody else ever reported such an issue. We'd need more information on this; one thing you can do is to launch RenderPal with /msgverbose as its command-line parameter, which will show all network messages received & send in the event log. Then, just after the issue occurred, send us the corresponding snippets of the event logs so we can take a look at it.

[ch3m1kal]

We've actually been seeing the same issue on occasion.
It seems to happen more with scenes with longer render times (more than 1 hr/ frame), but it is not tied to specific render slaves or scene settings, though it has been happening less as of late. (Not sure if it''s upgrading to Max 2016, Vray 3.3, or something else though)

[madCGi]

ive been trying to catch a log off a node when it does this by running the RenderPal client with "/msgverbose". But on the nodes i have tried this on; ive not experienced this issue as of yet.
not sure if this is because the client is being run as the desktop application instead of as a service (which we usually use) or whether it is being caused by something else like network permissions dropping momenterally.
what setup do you have that you have experienced this issue on?

[ch3m1kal]

Our setup is fairly straightforward.
Windows 7 machines (because we're a Max shop), all project files and assets are on a centralized network location, which may be part of the issue (I'm thinking it randomly fails when I/O load on the network storage is too high, but I haven't been able to pinpoint that).
The only common thing I see is that we run the RP client exclusively as an application, though I can't imagine why it would randomly fail on machines that otherwise render just fine.

[madCGi]

we have the same setup (3ds max, network server for files and assets). do you have a user domain setup to allow/deny access to the files? are you running RenderPal as a service or application?