Has anyone managed to achieve any progress getting PDG to run with Deadline? Side FX have been very quiet for a long time on this too.
It may have arisen since the whole sandboxing concept was introduced because in late 2019 I did a presentation showing this working in AWS. in my basic test using a ropfetch in TOPS to cook a sphere, I dont get logs as detailed as what you show above, I just get value cannot be null. (parameter 'input').
No luck yet. I didn’t have any time to test this again, but will try again soon. I still have to reply to sidefx about some other tests.
I remember that presentation, great stuff.
Thanks @flatland ! I’ll be doing another one very soon, although no Deadline in this one, looking forward to another at the end of the year possibly if this get’s fixed.
Hey Andrew. Sounds good, looking forward to that!
Have you tried to send the job manually following Justin’s suggestion? i am not getting a topcook.py file copied into the temporary job folder, and was wondering if that’s the same issue for everyone.
Hey @Justin_B
I’ve got some help from Sidefx who suggested this about the tbdeadline.py file you sent
“The source file path for topcook.py was modified and no longer points to a valid location. That explains why the job submission could not copy topcook.py into the pdg temporary directory”.
I’ve tried their version and topcook is copied in the folder (still sending the job manually!).
What happens after is slightly confusing, as i need two workers to make it start. One i suppose is handling the queue of pdg tasks, the other one seems to be dedicated to running them.
The first worker shows no errors in the log, the second one goes back to the good old plugin sandbox error (see logs in attached).
Logs.zip (5.9 KB)
I just checked and the issue with CustomPluginDirectory is resolved in 10.1.17.4. So an upgrade should fix this problem so you don’t have to fight with it anymore and we don’t have to keep editing the PDG plugin.
haha nice to hear! can’t wait to try it out then.
You helped me a lot also understanding how these things work.
Thanks @Justin_B !
Happy to help, I hope there’s nothing else waiting to trip us up!
i can see that the version you refer to has a minor issue with Redshift that’s already been “fixed”. Other than that, i hope this time it’ll be fine. Upgrading to latest versions is always a risky job, but if you want all the cool toys…
Just to be clear, the fix isn’t in the installer you’ll download. You’ve got to grab the fixed hrender_dl.py file from this post Houdini/redshift, $HIP and $JOB paths no longer work - #10 by Justin_B
I’m sure you read that and this is unneeded but just in case. 
Hey thanks for this.
I’ll try the redshift thing as soon as i can get the other stuff to work.
Things are getting better, but a bit weird.
I have updated to 10.1.18.4, and now i can “submit graph as job” to deadline only if i don’t choose “all frames in one batch”.
The “live cooking” from the top network works (when you just go “right click - cook nodes”) , given they’re linked to the deadline scheduler.
It also works if i submit a single rop at a time with the submitter.
log.zip (2.9 KB)
Sorry about the delay - this doesn’t look like a Deadline issue at the very least. This line:
2021-08-22 14:54:03: 0: STDOUT: 127.0.0.1 - - [22/Aug/2021 14:54:03] code 400, message Bad request syntax ('\x00SP\x00\x000\x00\x00')
sounds an awful lot like there’s some central application that the topcook is failing to hit. Does this graph render succuessfully outside of Deadline?
Yes, it’s perfectly fine.
I start thinking there must be a problem with the way i’ve set up my machine, with admin and standard user. I’m using deadline locally anyway so there should be no big complications, but these issues started when i wanted to update deadline and houdini
@flatland I’d love to know how you even got one task to work! Although I see you are using windows, hopefully that’s not the reason though.
I tested 10.1.18.4 today, but it doesn’t look like anything has changed, same old sandbox plugin problems testing in Linux (Ubuntu)
2021-09-20 05:33:01: Exception Details
2021-09-20 05:33:01: RenderPluginException -- Failed to load the plugin because: Could not initialize the plugin sandbox (Deadline.Plugins.PluginException)
2021-09-20 05:33:01: RenderPluginException.Cause: PluginLoadError (0)
2021-09-20 05:33:01: RenderPluginException.Level: Major (1)
2021-09-20 05:33:01: RenderPluginException.HasSlaveLog: True
2021-09-20 05:33:01: RenderPluginException.SlaveLogFileName: /var/log/Thinkbox/Deadline10/deadlineslave_renderthread_0-ip-10-1-135-64-0000.log
2021-09-20 05:33:01: Exception.TargetSite: Boolean e(System.String, Deadline.Jobs.Job, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
2021-09-20 05:33:01: Exception.Data: ( )
2021-09-20 05:33:01: Exception.Source: deadline
2021-09-20 05:33:01: Exception.HResult: -2146233088
2021-09-20 05:33:01: Exception.StackTrace:
2021-09-20 05:33:01: at Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.e(String ajl, Job ajm, CancellationToken ajn
2021-09-20 05:33:01: at Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.b(TaskLogWriter ajh, CancellationToken aji)
2021-09-20 05:33:01: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Success
2021-09-20 05:33:04: Scheduler Thread - Job's Limit Groups: engineubl
2021-09-20 05:33:04: 0: Loading Job's Plugin timeout is Disabled
2021-09-20 05:33:04: ERROR: Encountered the following error while initializing the Plugin Sandbox: 'Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'input')'.
2021-09-20 05:33:04: Cannot render the current job [ID:"61481cffd25c0e16feddf392" / Name:"PDG TASKS"]. Contact Thinkbox Support for more information.
2021-09-20 05:33:05: Scheduler Thread - Render Thread 0 threw a major error:
2021-09-20 05:33:05: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
2021-09-20 05:33:05: Exception Details
2021-09-20 05:33:05: RenderPluginException -- Failed to load the plugin because: Could not initialize the plugin sandbox (Deadline.Plugins.PluginException)
2021-09-20 05:33:05: RenderPluginException.Cause: PluginLoadError (0)
2021-09-20 05:33:05: RenderPluginException.Level: Major (1)
2021-09-20 05:33:05: RenderPluginException.HasSlaveLog: True
2021-09-20 05:33:05: RenderPluginException.SlaveLogFileName: /var/log/Thinkbox/Deadline10/deadlineslave_renderthread_0-ip-10-1-135-64-0000.log
2021-09-20 05:33:05: Exception.TargetSite: Boolean e(System.String, Deadline.Jobs.Job, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
2021-09-20 05:33:05: Exception.Data: ( )
2021-09-20 05:33:05: Exception.Source: deadline
2021-09-20 05:33:05: Exception.HResult: -2146233088
2021-09-20 05:33:05: Exception.StackTrace:
2021-09-20 05:33:05: at Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.e(String ajl, Job ajm, CancellationToken ajn
2021-09-20 05:33:05: at Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.b(TaskLogWriter ajh, CancellationToken aji)
2021-09-20 05:33:05: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
2021-09-20 05:33:07: Scheduler Thread - Job's Limit Groups: engineubl
2021-09-20 05:33:08: 0: Loading Job's Plugin timeout is Disabled
2021-09-20 05:33:08: ERROR: Encountered the following error while initializing the Plugin Sandbox: 'Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'input')'.
2021-09-20 05:33:08: Cannot render the current job [ID:"61481cffd25c0e16feddf392" / Name:"PDG TASKS"]. Contact Thinkbox Support for more information.
I have simply updated everything and hoped for the best.
I’m taking a break from all this as i don’t really need it for now, but was using it to learn how to use it potentially on a larger scale soon or later.