RANT warning: AD licensing ingeniousness

[Morten Bartholdy]

So I got around to installing Soft 2013 only to find that Autodesk in their wisdom designed the licensing activation procedure so that I should activate our Maya and Mudbox 2013 licenses simultaneously to avoid conflicts, and on top of that the licensing for older versions may break and need reactivation, so effectively I have to wait until such a time where nobody will be waiting for licenses and we are not rendering, to do this.

 

And I just want to install Soft 2013 and take a look at the goodies.

 

Thank you Autodesk for making my day that much worse - grrr

 

Morten

 

 

[Christoph Muetze]

Hi everyone,

I recently upgraded my Softimage Network license to the Maya
Entertainment Creation Suite Premium - mainly for finally being able to
switch over to Linux (i had used mudbox2009 before, which was windows-only).

First let me say: Maya2013 and Mudbox2013 install and work _fine_. On
every (rpm based-)System i tried them on.

(though i wish i didn't have to google up on how to install these
programs (for real). because the documentation provided by autodesk is
really "limited". things like "use tcsh to install" and "you will need
redhat-lsb" are spread all over their site (IF they are there at all and
not buried in some user-forums somewhere else...)

My problem is Softimage2013, the one tool i truly need and can't get to
work under linux. I tried Fedora14, Centos, even unsupported Distros
like Debian. I tried it with different machines, several different
Geforces & Quadros, different Kernelversions and Nvidia drivers
(recommended and unrecommended ones). i have no idea what is wrong.

Here is what happens:

When i install softimage (using tcsh or csh) it installs supposedly
correctly but spits out a "setup did not complete sucessfully" in the end.
A look at the logfile reveals that cmdreg failed to complete the
XSICOMDLLs list (see
http://www.pixelz.de/stuff/softimage2013_fedora_install-log.txt).
So i tried to manually run it with cmdreg -f
"Application/bin/XSICOMDLLs.lst after sourcing .xsi_2013, here is the
result: http://www.pixelz.de/stuff/cmdreg_xsicommdlls-lst.txt <- it
complains it can't load the custom display host (the error warning looks
more like a windows error, though - so i'm not sure how much this
actually reveals..).
Next i ldd'ed the customdisplayhost.so manually to see what happens.
this is the log:
http://www.pixelz.de/stuff/ldd-libcustomdisplayhost-so.txt <- everything
looks fine as far as i can tell..
Starting Softimage shows the splashscreen, the gui is drawn partially
and then the program hangs forever.
Here is the strace (1.3mb, might take a while to load):
http://www.pixelz.de/stuff/strace_soft2013_fed14_hangs_forever_after_splashscreen_appears.txt
The last line is a "futex(0x2cd65b0, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 2, NULL"

This happened with every Softimage version i tried to install and start
so far (2011-2013) on every machine i have (several desktops and two
laptops)

The system i used to do this latest testrun and generated the above
mentioned Logfiles: i7quad, 6gigs ram, Kernel Linux
2.6.35.14-106.fc14_x86_64, Gnome 2.32.0, Geforce GT 330M - nividia
driver 280.13

Any help on how to further investigate or solve this problem is highly
appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

cheers!
Chris

--
---
Christoph Mütze
http://www.glarestudios.de

[Thomas Volkmann]

There also is another issue with /etc/hosts, apart from the wrong first line mentioned before.

I can't recall it exactly, but if it isn't setup correctly you get errors in SI, and not being able to connect to DisplayHost (or whatever) sounds exactly like that. Actually that one was driving me nuts for weeks, though my error was a segmentationFault at that time. The error was that my actual hostname didn't show up in that file...once fixed evereything worked fine.

I would post my correct configured /etc/hosts, but unfortunately I'm sitting in front of a Windows-box right now and it seems that it is going to be a loong evening :/

Anyway, my guess is this file. Maybe someone else can post a file for reference. And yes, a centralized how-to with dependency-list for the official-supported platform would be great. Not that I need it anymore, as I probably experienced every Linux-bug since XSI6... däNg

good luck!

Thomas

Christoph Muetze <c...@glarestudios.de> hat am 22. Mai 2012 um 21:04 geschrieben:

> On 05/22/2012 07:12 PM, Sandy Sutherland wrote:
> > I built one workstation with Nvidia driver a while ago - otherwise we crank out render nodes all on FC14 - and all work 100% - I will check tomorrow if we can remember how we did the one WS, which Nvidia driver etc... - BTW one thing I HAVE noticed is that you should update BIOS, we had lots of problems before with nodes untill we did that!
> >
> > I will see tomorrow if I can dig out which Nvidia driver I used!  Evening time here now and I am at home.
>
> thanks a lot - greatly appreciated!
>
> cheers!
> chris
>

[Christoph Muetze]

i'm wondering, has anyone ever tried running the license server on the
same fedora14-machine as softimage? could this possibly be problem?
chris

On 05/22/2012 04:42 PM, Vladimir Jankijevic wrote:
> thanks steven,
>
> I had the same problem here and this is really something that makes me
> puke. If you state that the only supported distro of linux is Fedora14 and
> when you first run your setup it returns with an error, then something is
> really wrong with your testing on the supported platform. I mean, if you
> guys are about to merge every damn aspect of softimage with the autodesk
> doctrine, then I would like to see some stuff done on the linux side of
> things. What do you think?
>
> Cheers
> Vladimir
>
> On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 4:17 PM, Stephen Blair
> <Stephe...@autodesk.com>wrote:
>
>> The libcustomdisplayhost.so error will not prevent Softimage from running.
>> I get the same error here, and I can run Softimage 2013.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Here's a recipe for setting up Softimage on CentOS:
>> http://groups.google.com/group/xsi_list/msg/6d2d0f483a400e4e
>>
>>
>>
>> Here's a Fedora recipe posted by another user:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Stefan Andersson wrote an install-guide for FC13 (see below) that can
>> be used for FC14 (newer versions of Flash and NVidia available probably).
>> Most
>> important is the Nouveau and SeLinux section. I guess you don't need the
>> update-stuff if you just want a quick test.
>>
>> Also important for FC14:
>>
>>
>> http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/the-case-of-the-slow-2011-startup-on-fedora-14/
>>
>> and:
>>
>>
>> http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/rpcss-servicemain-failed-with-1702-000006a6-the-binding-handle-is-invalid/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------
>>
>> Here it goes:
>>
>>
>>
>> after installation as root:
>>
>>
>>
>> yum -y localinstall --nogpgcheck
>> http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
>>
>> http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm
>>
>>
>>
>> yum -y update
>>
>>
>>
>> REBOOT
>>
>>
>>
>> yum -y groupinstall "Development Tools"
>>
>> yum -y install nfs-utils ypbind wget PyQt4 PyQt4-devel
>> python-pyside libXpm control-center-extra wine.i686 libquicktime vlc
>> filezilla
>> gimp gimp-libs ufraw-gimp openssh-server MySQL-python xorg-x11-apps
>> python-sqlite2
>>
>>
>>
>> #Flash
>>
>> cp /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins
>>
>> #wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/XXXXXXX/libflashplayer.so
>>
>>
>>
>> #Dropbox
>>
>> cd /etc/yum.repos.d
>>
>> wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/XXXXXXX/dropbox.repo
>>
>>
>>
>> yum -y install nautilus-dropbox
>>
>>
>>
>> #NVIDIA
>>
>> cd /root
>>
>> wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/XXXXXXX/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-256.53.run
>>
>>
>>
>> #------------DISABLE NOUVEAU (opensource nvidia crap)
>> #GRUB.CONF Edits nano /etc/grub.conf last in the kernel line:
>> nouveau.modeset=0
>>
>>
>>
>> #MODPROBECONF edits
>>
>> nano /etc/modprobe/blacklist.conf
>>
>> blacklist nouveau
>>
>>
>>
>> #SELINUX
>>
>> nano /etc/selinux/config
>>
>> disabled
>>
>>
>>
>> #REBOOT
>>
>> install Nvidia

>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
>> softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Christoph Muetze
>> Sent: May-22-12 9:52 AM
>> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
>> Subject: Softimage and Fedora14 - help please!
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I recently upgraded my Softimage Network license to the Maya
>> Entertainment Creation Suite Premium - mainly for finally being able to
>> switch over to Linux (i had used mudbox2009 before, which was
>> windows-only).
>>
>> First let me say: Maya2013 and Mudbox2013 install and work _fine_. On
>> every (rpm based-)System i tried them on.
>>
>> (though i wish i didn't have to google up on how to install these
>> programs (for real). because the documentation provided by autodesk is
>> really "limited". things like "use tcsh to install" and "you will need
>> redhat-lsb" are spread all over their site (IF they are there at all and
>> not buried in some user-forums somewhere else...)
>>
>> My problem is Softimage2013, the one tool i truly need and can't get to
>> work under linux. I tried Fedora14, Centos, even unsupported Distros
>> like Debian. I tried it with different machines, several different

>> Geforces& Quadros, different Kernelversions and Nvidia drivers

>> Christoph M�tze
>> http://www.glarestudios.de
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

[Christoph Muetze]

Hey Sean,

thanks for jumping in and helping out! this actually helped a lot to
narrow the problem down..

if i try what you suggested then soft starts up (very slowly) and gets
past the splashscreen, opens the netview and then segfaults the moment
the ogl-viewports are drawn.

disabling the ogl-viewports (via this description ->
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=14691242&linkID=12544120)
lets me fully start softimage, it takes ages and i can't do a thing
without ogl-views, but there are no segfaults and no freezing.. so
that's a partial success, i guess :)

interestingly enough, if if just disable the the ogl-viewports without
removing the x11-patch then soft freezes up right after the splashscreen
again..

here is the end of the segfault-strace, i can provide the full log
(which is over 17megs) if necessary...

----------------
[...]
stat("/home/gizmo/Autodesk/Softimage_2013/_DSRTL.MTT",
{st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=38808, ...}) = 0
chmod("/home/gizmo/Autodesk/Softimage_2013/DSRTL.MTT", 0100664) = 0
lstat("/home/gizmo/Autodesk/Softimage_2013/wireframe5d7beea2a52d11e135f74f68.bt",
{st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=2539, ...}) = 0
close(43) = 0
write(27, "Failed to save scene before syst"..., 43) = 43
write(27, "\n", 1) = 1
lseek(45, 1024, SEEK_SET) = 1024
write(45, "R\0o\0o\0t\0 \0E\0n\0t\0r\0y\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0"...,
512) = 512
close(45) = 0
stat("/var/tmp/XSI_Temp_11756/ViewSetup.DSViewSettings",
{st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=1536, ...}) = 0
access("/var/tmp/XSI_Temp_11756/ViewSetup.DSViewSettings", W_OK) = 0
unlink("/var/tmp/XSI_Temp_11756/ViewSetup.DSViewSettings") = 0
munmap(0x7fa15004c000, 16384) = 0
unlink("/var/tmp/Mw_gizmo/B95CB68D7A32B46ED2E7DB90B5DDF295.1052890.tmp.53")
= 0
munmap(0x7fa11e4f7000, 2097152) = 0
unlink("/var/tmp/Mw_gizmo/B95CB68D7A32B46ED2E7DB90B5DDF295.1052890.tmp.52")
= 0
lseek(55, 1024, SEEK_SET) = 1024
write(55, "R\0o\0o\0t\0 \0E\0n\0t\0r\0y\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0"...,
512) = 512
close(55) = 0
stat("/var/tmp/XSI_Temp_11756/ViewSetupSequence.DSViewSettings",
{st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=1536, ...}) = 0
access("/var/tmp/XSI_Temp_11756/ViewSetupSequence.DSViewSettings", W_OK) = 0
unlink("/var/tmp/XSI_Temp_11756/ViewSetupSequence.DSViewSettings") = 0
munmap(0x7fa1495f6000, 16384) = 0
unlink("/var/tmp/Mw_gizmo/B95CB68D7A32B46ED2E7DB90B5DDF295.1052890.tmp.56")
= 0
munmap(0x7fa1197cf000, 2097152) = 0
unlink("/var/tmp/Mw_gizmo/B95CB68D7A32B46ED2E7DB90B5DDF295.1052890.tmp.55")
= 0
sched_yield() = 0
--- {si_signo=SIGSEGV, si_code=SEGV_MAPERR, si_addr=0} (Segmentation
fault) ---
+++ killed by SIGSEGV (core dumped) +++
----------------

has anyone any idea on how to proceed from here?

(thanks for hanging on in there with me!)

cheers!
chris


On 05/23/2012 10:35 PM, Sean Donnelly wrote:
> Are you still stuck at the problem where once you start XSI it shows the splashscreen and then hangs? If so then you can try removing the X11 patch by editing the " ${MWHOME}/scripts/.mwenv" file and looking for the x11patch line. There you should see where it checks for various fedora versions and sets the x11patch for fc14. You could temporarily comment that line (should be line 17) and then source the .xsi??? file again. This will remove that X11 patch folder from your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Now see if XSI starts up correctly.
>
> Note: without this patch you may notice viewport performance problems. So this should not be used as a permanent solution to your problem.
>
> Sean

>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Christoph Muetze

> Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 11:50 AM
> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Re: Softimage and Fedora14 - help please!
>
> yes, i have...
>
> On 05/23/2012 05:36 PM, Sean Donnelly wrote:
>> Have you disabled selinux?

>>>> _ splashscreen_appears.txt The last line is a "futex(0x2cd65b0,

[Xavier Lapointe]

Not sure it's going to help here, but make sure that your /etc/host has not being regenerated by the Network Manager. It does happen on CentOS 6, not sure about Fedora 14. You can prevent this from happening by running this command as root:

chattr +i /etc/hosts

Also, make sure you did all the fixes mentioned on the xsi support blog.

One of them:

http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/the-case-of-the-slow-2011-startup-on-fedora-14/

 

But I would think that it should be pretty straight forward on FC14 ...

2012/5/23 Christoph Muetze <c...@glarestudios.de>

Christoph Mütze
http://www.glarestudios.de

--
Xavier

[Adam Seeley]

Hi,

Before I spend time sorting this one out on my short time scale, I wondered if someone had been there already.

I'd like to be able to split my cloud into, say, 10 randomised sets. Pretty much the same way that instancing 10 objects works, but so I can define specific colours/shapes etc. within the cloud.

Any handy compounds spring to mind?

Thanks and hope to see a few faces next Tuesday at USer Group,

Adam.