3dsmax starting up forever

[nickyliu]

My slave machines have been running fine but some doesn’t render lately. Just wonder if anyone has quick idea seeing this. I’m using deadline 7.2 and 3dsmax 2016

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Error

Error: 3dsmax startup: Timed out waiting for 3ds max to start - consider increasing the LoadMaxTimeout in the 3dsmax plugin configuration

at Deadline.Plugins.ScriptPlugin.StartJob(Job job, String& outMessage, AbortLevel& abortLevel)

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Type

RenderPluginException

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Stack Trace

at Deadline.Plugins.Plugin.StartJob(Job job)
at Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.RenderCurrentTask(TaskLogWriter tlw)

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Log

2017-08-03 16:14:45: BEGIN - ZRENDER_18\zrender
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: Start Job timeout is disabled.
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: Task timeout is disabled.
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: Loaded job: test (5982ce6da3abe51b00e47466)
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Executing plugin script C:\Users\zrender.FREED\AppData\Local\Thinkbox\Deadline7\slave\zrender_18\plugins\5982ce6da3abe51b00e47466\3dsmax.py
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Slave Running as Service: False
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: About: 3dsmax Plugin for Deadline
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: The job’s environment will be merged with the current environment before rendering
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Start Job called - starting up 3dsmax plugin
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Sys Env Var PATH: C:\Program Files\Thinkbox\Deadline7\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Autodesk\Backburner
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Sys Env Var PATH length: 286
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Backburner Path(s) Found in PATH: ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Autodesk\Backburner’
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Backburner server.exe version: 2016.0.0.1727
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Rendering with 3dsmax version: 2016
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Not forcing a build of 3dsmax because version 2014 and later is 64 bit only
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Rendering with executable: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2016\3dsmax.exe
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Slave 3dsmax.exe version: 18.0.873.0
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Slave 3dsmax.exe description: 3ds Max 2016 base install
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Submitted from 3dsmax.exe version: 18.7.696.0
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: WARNING: Slave’s 3dsmax version is NOT the same as the 3dsmax version that was used to submit this job! Unexpected results may occur!
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Checking registry for 3dsmax language code
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Language code string: ENU
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Language sub directory: en-US
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Fail on existing 3dsmax process: 0
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Load 3dsmax timeout: 1000 seconds
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Start job timeout: 1000 seconds
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Progress update timeout: 8000 seconds
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Progress update timeout disabled: 0
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Slave mode enabled: 1
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Silent mode enabled: 0
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Local rendering enabled: 1
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: Running render sanity check using 3dsmaxcmd.exe
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: 3dsmaxcmd.exe exit code: 3
2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: INFO: 3dsmaxcmd.exe returned:

[eamsler]

It looks like it’s failing to actually load up. The sanity check is running (and returning exit code 3 which is normal) but Max and Lightening (our internal C++ plugin) aren’t coming up fast enough.

Are these machines on a cloud provider or some place where the disk might be a bottleneck? If that’s the case we might just be too conservative here and you’ll have to bump up the load time as it suggests in the error message.

Also, this is good advice from the log, but it’s likely unrelated:

2017-08-03 16:14:45: 0: WARNING: Slave's 3dsmax version is NOT the same as the 3dsmax version that was used to submit this job! Unexpected results may occur!

To bump the wait time, go to the 3dsMax Plugin configuration (under ‘Tools’ while in super user mode) and bump up the time. It looks like this in 9.0:

[nickyliu]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I suspect an user is having 2016 sp4 while all the farm machines is 2016 only. It’s weird that the slave machine will not render once it encounters job submitted by max of sp4.

Anyway upgrading the slave to sp4 seems to fix it. Thanks.

[eamsler]

I appreciate Mike’s little version warning addition all the time.