Many questions, first renderings

[juan carlos echeverry]

Greetings.

Well, alright.... our first production renderings and there are many things we would like to know...

First, we have a very annoying issue regarding "LICENSING".... apparently most machines try to start a rendering job but get stopped by the fact that they "DONT HAVE A RENDERING LICENCE".... meaning they cant find an Arnold Licence to render....  and the job gets interrupted and dropped..... then, it restarts with a different assignment and it happens again and again..... You would say.... ok, so THERE ARE LICENSING ISSUES regarding Arnold RLM licensing, but that`s not the case, as we are able to render using Thinkbox Deadline with all machines and that doesnt happen.... no licence problem, and , well, we know RLM is working alright with our 35 Arnold licences. 

This issue is only happening when we try to render using Royal Render.... the funny thing is.... it doesnt always work like that... clients that have been rejected for that reason hundreds of times suddenly render 8 frames.... and then go back to "not having a licence".... if you dont have a licence, you dont have a licence , period, that status doesnt suddenly change..... but rendering with RR, it does change.  You see.... we have 35 machines, if we could make all of them get assigned to 35 job frames, the job would be completed in a breeze but the most we have been able to keep clients rendering at the same time is 14 (that i have seen)... never 20, never the whole farm. and most of the times , less than 10 machines render and the rest are trying to render and being rejected for the licence or being IDDLE.... just iddle for 120, 500 minutes and they never get jobs again. 

I understand there are settings to keep lesser machines out of the jobs, but we dont have them enabled..... we dont have enabled the High CPU ussage feature either.... and our jobs are NOT little, so it isnt that either.

Another thing... when most jobs finish there are siome unrendered frames... we use clear errors and enable job and then check frames to try to render the unrendered frames, but when it tries, the clients are stuck forever trying to render those frames but getting rejected for the licence. 

As you can see there are many things happening here. I already uploaded one of our job`s debug info to your website... it has the name Mompozt on it, so you can check what can be happening.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Juan Carlos Echeverry

Chief Technical director Mompozt.

[RR, Schoenberger]

Hi

I will take a look at your job debug file.

 

 

Note that there is a setting to debug Arnold license issues in RR.

Please see Arnold License:

http://www.royalrender.de/help/3rdPartyRenderer.html

 

 

 

regards,
Holger Schönberger

 

Please use the rrKnights Tavern
or our support system for new questions.

 

[RR, Schoenberger]

Hi

 

I can see one client which was able render a frame and did not got a license for the next frame.

But most did not got any license.

How have you setup the Arnold licensing?
Are you using  the env var „solidangle_LICENSE“ or „ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE“?
Env var notes:
Env vars must be set as system vars and then the machine requires a restart.

Or you set them in RR in the file [RR]\render_apps\_setenv\all\maya__inhouse.rrEnv

 

 

 

If you check the RLM license server via its local website,

does it state that at least any license is in use when RR renders a job?

 

 

 

It is hard to tell if the rrClient never gets a license or if it is a temporally issue like „all licenses in use“ or a license server connection issue.

You have to enable the Arnold license information (as already stated in my last message).

Please edit [RR]\render_apps\_setenv\all\maya__inhouse.rrEnv with a text editor.
Change the value of RR_MTOA_LICTEST to 1.

After you changed it, Reset the job or submit a new job.

Then upload a new debug file.

 

 

> Another thing... when most jobs finish there are siome unrendered frames...

The job state should not be „finished“ (table color gray).

If there are too many issues, then the job is disabled (table color orange and it shows an error triangle you can click on)

If the issue is fixed, then use the button „Clear Error & enable“.

PS: Some other issues I noticed:

1)
Render_Node19 crashes as it does not have Maya update 3 installed.

2)
There are some texture or fileserver issues:
12:15:02  7257MB ERROR   |   [texturesys] MILO_ASSTES_PROP_FRAGMENTOS_MILO_SHD_v002:galleta_milo_01_file5: Failed to read directory at offset 8

Error reading from "....../SHD/WORK/tx_galleta_milo/galleta_milo_01_Galleta_Nilo_sd_Normal.tx" (subimg=0, mip=0, tile@704,1024,0)

12:15:02  7257MB ERROR   |   [texturesys] MILO_ASSTES_PROP_FRAGMENTOS_MILO_SHD_v002:galleta_milo_01_file1: Failed to read directory at offset 30681812

Error reading from "Z:/MILO/ASSETS/PROP/GALLETA/SHD/WORK/tx_galleta_milo/galleta_milo_01_Galleta_Nilo_sd_BaseColor.tx" (subimg=0, mip=0, tile@704,1024,0)

12:15:02  7257MB ERROR   |   [texturesys] MILO_ASSTES_PROP_FRAGMENTOS_MILO_SHD_v002:galleta_milo_01_file4: Read error at row 768, col 768, tile 1035; got 18446744073709551615 bytes, expected 868

Error reading from "....../SHD/WORK/tx_galleta_milo/galleta_milo_01_Galleta_Nilo_sd_Height.tx" (subimg=0, mip=0, tile@704,1024,0)

12:15:02  7257MB ERROR   |   [texturesys] MILO_ASSTES_PROP_FRAGMENTOS_MILO_SHD_v002:galleta_milo_01_file3: Read error at row 768, col 768, tile 1035; got 18446744073709551615 bytes, expected 575

Error reading from "....../SHD/WORK/tx_galleta_milo/galleta_milo_01_Galleta_Nilo_sd_Roughness.tx" (subimg=0, mip=0, tile@704,1024,0)

[juan carlos echeverry]

I am sending you a screenshot of how all our machines got configured when arnold was installed those are the environment variables that were created, and as you can see, we use ADSKFLEX_LICENCE_FILE as the env variable ..... the same way, ingoing and outgoing rules were made for opening tcp ports 27000 to 27009 in each and every single machine... 

We really didnt configure this, an engineer from Autodesk came and did the job.... at the end, all machines worked in Deadline, the render manager we were using back then for everything. we have 35 arnold rendering licenses and all of them worked when he left. 

I am going to edit the file you said, and render again to see if the rendering issues go or still the same. 

As for the texture issues.... yes, there are some frames i can see thet didnt get textures from about 50% of the frame rendering on.... apparently access to our disk Z got lost for some reason.

Ill send you a new debug file as soon as i have it.

Thanks again for your cooperation.

[juan carlos echeverry]

Greetings....

Analyzing the file you pointed me to.... i see they provide the user with a way to exactly tell RR where everything is in our network , as well as the exact arnold licence server path.... shouldnt we provide RR with for example our arnold licence server (27001@SERVER_LICENCIAS) there?... if it doesnt find licenses, that may help it find them.

Just thinking here.....

[RR, Schoenberger]

Hi

 

>.... at the end, all machines worked in Deadline

Was Deadline running as background service?

Looks like it was not.

 

 

As I can see in the screenshot, you have defined the env vars for the user (see title of upper half)
and not for the whole system (lower half).

If it is not defined the system, the you have to specify it in maya__inhouse.rrEnv for Royal Render.

 

And it looks like you are using the Autodesk License Server (ADSKFLEX)  and NOT  the Solidangle RLM Server (solidangle_LICENSE).

 

Please edit the file render_apps\_setenv\all\maya__inhouse.rrEnv

In line 17, uncomment the line ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE   (remove the # in front)

and change the value that it matches your env var:

ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE  =  27001@SERVER_LICENCIAS

[juan carlos echeverry]

Already did that..... do this changes need a server restart or a machine restart?

[RR, Schoenberger]

> do this changes need a server restart or a machine restart?

No, chaning rrEnv files does not require to restart any RR application.

The rrClient detects changed files and reloads them.

And the machine/system does not care about RR settings.

[juan carlos echeverry]

Greetings. 

Alright, the env variables were set in the file, and it was told to test the arnold licence.

Anyway, there are still licence errors happening. lots of them. 

Functionality hasnt changed.

I havent been able to re send the job for production matters, but as soon as i can, i will and re upload the debug file with the new settings.

Thanks.

[juan carlos echeverry]

The debug file was successfuly uploaded to your website.

It has the MOMPOZT name on it.

Thanks.

[RR, Schoenberger]

Hi

There are not enough Arnold licenses for all clients.
I fit gets a license, then it states that you have 5 Arnold licenses:

00:00:22 146MB | [network] authorized for "87752ARNOL_2023_0F" in 0:00.39

00:00:22 146MB | [network] expiration date: 2024/02/26, in use: 1/5

You can use this tool to see what your license file contains.
(The license file should be located on SERVER_LICENCIAS. The installed Lmtools should state the license file location)
https://www.autodesk.com/support/download-install/admins/network-licenses/about-licensing-options-and-tools/use-the-license-file-parser-to-view-feature-codes

 

 

 

To fix the issues in RR:
- Please open rrConfig.
- Left menu RenderApps.

- Right tab Render Licenses

- Select Maya in the list.

- Uncheck Unlimited in the first row.

- Set the count to 5.

 

 

 

To verify that the license count is really the issue, please open the Windows Explorer on Render_Node5.

Enter path %LOCALAPPDATA%\Autodesk\Logs

Open file Adlm.log with a text editor.
Check for messages around  Feb 08. 16:30.38.

If the VendorError value is -4, then you do not have enough licenses.

If it is not -4, then please check this table: http://www.royalrender.de/help/Arnold.html#License

[juan carlos echeverry]

Thanks, i will.

But..... we bought 35 licences of Arnold, i know as i was the one who did the transaction (for what it is a lot of money to us).

and supposedly the Flex Lm licence was set to 35 licences...... this is very odd, and annoying if the Autodesk guy who set our Arnold Network Licences, only enabled 5.....

We`ll see....

 Thanks for the tip.

[RR, Schoenberger]

PS:
Here a screenshot where you find the license file if you start lmtools at Server_Licencias

https://blogs.rand.com/.a/6a0115711b8d26970b0263ec211056200c-600wi

 

Upload that to the website I send you in the last email.

[juan carlos echeverry]

Greetings.

Indeed, Autodesk sent a bad license file. 

Checked with the license parser and it says clearly that we only have 5 Arnold seats available.....

Autodesk representatives checked themselves and they saw the error so now im waiting for a response from Autodesk regarding that matter.

They should send us a new license file with the right number of seats this time. 

Thanks for pointing us on the direction of the flawed license.

We`ll let you know when we fix the Autodesk licensing issue.

I bet after that everything will work fine because the only errors showing up during rendering were the licensing ones.

Thanks again and best regards.

Juan Carlos.