3ds Max: Connection Error

[Andrew_H]

Hello,

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the best at this stuff (I’m surprised I was able to set it up), but I’ve had Deadline 10.1 running as my render manager since October 2023 with very few issues. I’m also running 3ds max 2022 and vray 5.

I am currently running my workstation and two render nodes. Everything has been running seamlessly until the other day when my workstation would start pulling a 3ds max connection error.

The jobs will still render fine on my other two PC’s.

I’m wondering if a recent windows update has something to do with it as it updated the morning before the issues started.

Below is some of the job report. The full is attached.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

=======================================================

Error

Error: FailRenderException : 3dsmax startup: Error getting connection from 3dsmax: Monitored managed process “3dsmaxProcess” has exited or been terminated.

at Deadline.Plugins.DeadlinePlugin.FailRender(String message) (Python.Runtime.PythonException)
File “C:\ProgramData\Thinkbox\Deadline10\workers\Randy\plugins\65f70db5baef692610e7f52a\3dsmax.py”, line 170, in StartJob
self.MyMaxController.StartMax()
File “C:\ProgramData\Thinkbox\Deadline10\workers\Randy\plugins\65f70db5baef692610e7f52a\3dsmax.py”, line 1276, in StartMax
self.WaitForConnection(“3dsmax startup”)
File “C:\ProgramData\Thinkbox\Deadline10\workers\Randy\plugins\65f70db5baef692610e7f52a\3dsmax.py”, line 2189, in WaitForConnection
errorMessageOperation, e.Message, self.NetworkLogGet()))
at Python.Runtime.Dispatcher.Dispatch(ArrayList args)
at __FranticX_GenericDelegate0Dispatcher.Invoke()
at Deadline.Plugins.DeadlinePlugin.StartJob()
at Deadline.Plugins.DeadlinePlugin.DoStartJob()
at Deadline.Plugins.PluginWrapper.StartJob(String& outMessage, AbortLevel& abortLevel)
at Deadline.Plugins.PluginWrapper.StartJob(String& outMessage, AbortLevel& abortLevel)

=======================================================

Type

RenderPluginException

Job_2024-03-17_12-59-57_65f7137d8b14ae1ed87463ed.zip (4.7 KB)

[Justin_B]

It’s possible a Windows update did this, but we’re not seeing anything conclusive in the logs I’m afraid. Could you try the steps in Troubleshooting Render Issues in 3ds Max to see what kind of behaviour you see as you simplify and isolate the render setup?

[Andrew_H]

============ SOLVED ============

Hey Justin,

Just wanted to touch base to let you know I’ve got the problem solved.

We started by submitting a test job through the command submitter rather than the SMTD submitter. It also failed.

We then ran the full render command we found in the error report through the Windows command prompt to start the job. It rendered but listed possible errors. It pointed to the following as having a possible deprecation error:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Design Connected\Connecter\plugins\3DsMaxIntegration\Installs\2022 - 64bit\initializer.py

The possible error said something about “import imp” being deprecated in favor of “import importlib”. However, both lines were in the python file.

We removed the “import imp” line and all jobs rendered fine without errors.

This was a result of their latest update as of two weeks ago.

There is also a similar file in the location below. We also changed it there, though I don’t believe it had an effect either way:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Design Connected\Connecter\plugins\3DsMaxIntegration\Plugins\initializer.py

Thanks for your reply!

Andrew

[Justin_B]

Nice! Thanks for sharing what you found as well, that’ll save some folks in the future I’m sure.

[Andrew_H]

According to Design Connected they’re already on it and will hopefully have a fix out soon.

A