What’s New In Deadline 7.0.0.33 (Beta 3)
This release fixes a bunch of bugs, and updates a few features, including support for Arnold for Houdini, Cinema 4D 16, Corona, Fusion 7, and Nuke 9. There are also new installer for the integrated submission scripts, which removes the need for most of the manual work when installing the submitters.
Support for ftrack has been added to most of the submitters, and so has the Shotgun options to automatically create and upload a movie and/or filmstrip after the job has finished rendering.
Finally, this release also contains the rebuilt Python and Qt libraries for all operating systems, and a 64-bit Mono Framework for OSX, which means you MUST reinstall the client software on your render nodes and workstations.
Here are the highlighted changes:
Upgraded Python to 2.7.8
This new build of Python fixes some stability issues.
Upgraded Qt to 5.3.1
This new build of Qt fixes some minor UI issues.
64-bit Mono for OSX
The Mono Framework that is installed with the OSX version of Deadline is now 64 bit. This means that Deadline will now run as a 64 bit application on OSX.
Submission Script Installers
Submission script installers can now be found in each application folder in the Submission folder in the Repository. These allow for most of the submission scripts to be installed automatically, instead of having to manually copy over files.
General Improvements
- The Deadline temp folder on the Client machines now gets cleaned up on a regular basis.
- Split out the critical Housecleaning operations into a new Repository Repair operation (orphaned task and limit stub checking, stalled slave checking, and available DB connection checking).
- The randomness of the housecleaning checks has been removed to make the system more reliable and predictable.
- Fixed some cases where timestamps were still using 12 hour clocks.
- Added IP address/hostnames to the power management logging.
- Added some missing boto files to the Amazon cloud plugin.
- Fixed a bug that prevented Deadline from shutting down an OSX machine.
- Most integrated submitter client scripts now print out where they’re getting the main script file from prior to running the main script.
- Added the region that a slave is in to the slave statistics reports.
Database Improvements
- When saving a new job, if there is a job with that ID in the Deleted Job Collection, it is now removed from the Deleted Job Collection.
- A config file is now installed to the Database folder, and this can be modified to configure how MongoDB runs.
Repository Improvements
- There are now submission script installers in each application folder in the Submission folder in the Repository.
Installer Improvements
- The MongoDB service name and port can now be customized in the Repository installer, and its default is based on the current Deadline version.
- The Windows client installer now creates a DeadlineLauncher# registry key to start the Launcher on login (where # is the major version number). This allows different versions of the Launcher to start on login.
- The Client installer now creates shortcuts for the Balancer application.
- Fixed a bug in the Repository installer that was causing “Password:” to be set for the user name in dbConnect.xml on OSX.
- Fixed some errors when running the Repository installer in unattended mode.
Job Improvements
- Improved the performance of how job tasks are updated in some cases.
- Added support for jobs to have their own custom event plugin directory to load event plugins from.
- Added a job option to override the number of days before the job is automatically cleaned up.
- Added an option to completely override auto-cleanup settings, which means you can choose to disable auto-cleanup for a job if it’s enabled in the Repository Options.
- Added an override for dependencies to ignore the job’s frame dependencies setting.
Client Application Improvements
- Added the major version number to the app packages on OSX.
- Fixed some bad logic when the applications try to determine if they should run in GUI mode or not.
- Fixed a typo in the dbConnect.xml error that would be shown if the Client application couldn’t find or read the dbConnect.xml file.
Launcher Improvements
- Fixed a regression that would cause the launcher to crash if it’s not connected to a repository at startup.
- Fixed a bug where the Launcher was not setting the default style properly if no style settings file exists.
- Fixed a bug where remote commands could not be sent to the local machine when remote administration was disabled.
- Fixed a bug where remote commands refused by launcher due to remote admin being off returned a success message.
- Cleaned up the output of a successful remote command.
- The Launcher can now process multiple remote commands simultaneously.
Monitor Improvements
- Added settings in the Repository Options to control how long the local Launcher and Balancer logs should be kept for.
- Fixed a layout issue in the multi-line file browser control in the Plugin Configuration dialogs.
- Fixed a bug in the Balancer Settings page that caused the Repository Settings to always be saved when closing the dialog.
- Resetting the Repository Options in the dialog is now visually smoother.
- Fixed some UI bugs in the Slave Scheduling dialog.
- Fixed an error that showed up after closing the Local Slave Controls in the Monitor.
- Fixed some colors in the Job Dependency View when a light palette is used.
- Fixed the color of the Save/Load List Layout menu item icons for light palettes.
- Added a panel menu item to reset the default list layout back to the original default.
- Moved the Modify Pools/Groups menu items in the slave list menu below the Modify Slave Properties menu item.
- The progress bar in the job list is now updated properly when task states change, but the actual completed percentage has not.
- Improved the layout of the confirmation dialog when suspending a job.
- Fixed an error when removing users from the User Group permissions dialog.
- When cloning an existing user group, the clone is selected automatically.
- Increased the default height for the Manage Users dialog.
- Renamed the Local Slave Settings dialog to Local Slave Controls.
- In the Manage User Permissions dialog, there are now separate Local Slave Controls entries for Launcher and Monitor.
- Fixed a bug in the Job Dependency View that could cause it to lock up when quickly selecting multiple jobs in the job list.
- Fixed a bug that was causing non-local slaves to be loaded in the Local Slave Controls dialog if there were no local slaves on the machine.
- Fixed a bug where the slave counts in the Local Slave Controls dialog in the Monitor included non-local slaves.
- The slave list now shows the time a slave has been in its current state for all states (previously it would only show this for rendering slaves).
- Added Monitor Option settings to configure the double click task behavior for rendering, completed and failed tasks.
- The scripts menus are now hidden when right-clicking on a panel with nothing selected.
- Moved the Explore Path menu for non-job nodes to the main context menu in the Job Dependency View, and fixed a bug that caused it to be disabled when it shouldn’t be.
- The job scheduling weight settings in the Repository Options now have 4 decimal places instead of 2.
- Removed the job candidate filter from the Local Slave Controls dialog.
- Increased default width of slave scheduling dialog.
- Updated the icon/script sync icon to be the “refresh” icon.
- Fixed the selection color and general palette issues with the preview style dialog by opening it in a separate thread.
- Fixed a bug where the preview style dialog was not closing when the monitor options dialog closes.
- Fixed some tooltips in the style panel in the Monitor Options.
- Improved the layout of the Batch Resubmit job script dialog.
- Added View menu option to show/hide the main toolbar.
- Cleaned up the layout of the View menu a bit.
- Cleaned up the error message when changing the frame range for a job, and the new task count exceeds the maximum allowed.
- Updated the label text and fixed the tab order in the Performance panel in the Repository Options.
- Added ability to pin and save quick filters.
- Fixed a bug where a pinned filter could be duplicated.
- Quickfilters now persist again between Monitor sessions.
- Added missing tooltip for Region in user settings.
- The axis is no longer redrawn when non-pie graphs are updated.
- The task graphs now show nothing when no job is selected or more than one job is selected.
- Task graphs are no longer redrawn as often because all tasks are shown, regardless of status (incomplete tasks will have zeroed out data).
- Graph names are now shown in the panel titles when they are showing a graph.
- The option to suspend rendering tasks when suspending a job is now enabled by default.
- The archive job path is now remembered within a session (it will revert back to the default repository folder the next time the Monitor is restarted).
- Fixed a bug where job batch error counts were not getting cleared.
- Increased the default width for the import settings form.
- A warning now appears when trying to shut down the local machine from the slave list, instead of failing silently.
- In the Repository Options, regions now show up properly in the other panels.
- Fixed a bug in the Job Dependency View that could result in multiple sockets being shown on a node for a single connection.
- Added an option to the Monitor Options to disable Job Batch grouping.
- The splitter for job reports, slave reports, and remote command panels no longer moves when resizing the panel.
- Added new Cleanup panel to job properties window (for auto-cleanup override settings).
- The Dependencies Overrides panel now remembers if it was open or not when re-opening the job properties window.
- Added missing Connect To Slave Log option to local slave list controls right-click menu.
- Added option to auto-filter Job Reports based on the selected Task.
- Added option to switch Job Reports and Slave Reports panels to a horizontal orientation.
- Fixed a leak caused by the context menus in the panels.
- Fixed a bug that affected Ego Centric Sorting in the job list.
- Fixed a bug in the Auto Job Timeout settings in the Repository Options that caused the Timeout Multiplier to be disabled when it shouldn’t be.
Slave Improvements
- The idle interval between job searches is now calculated based on the percentage of the idle slaves in the farm. The interval increases as more slaves become idle.
- Improved the message printed by the slave when it is doing a self-cleanup because it didn’t close properly the previous sessions.
- Limit stub returning a little more robust.
- Improved verbose log messages when the slave is looking for a higher priority job.
- Fixed a warning message on OSX that was a result of using the same menu item in different menus.
- Fixed a bug that allowed the slave to move on to another task before finishing saving the log for the current task.
- Significantly improved how the slave handles large amounts of stdout from the rendering process (both to performance and memory usage).
Pulse Improvements
- Fixed bugs in some REST API functions that could cause Pulse to crash.
- Added a catch to prevent REST API functions from causing Pulse to crash.
- Changed some of the error messages that were inconsistent with the rest of the REST API.
- Pulse no longer prints out an error when favicon.ico is requested from the web service.
- Cleaned up the web service messages when the command is an invalid API command, and when no command is specified.
- Fixed a warning message on OSX that was a result of using the same menu item in different menus.
Balancer Improvements
- Fixed a bug in the Balancer that was causing an error on OSX when trying to load settings.
Command Improvements
- Updated the help text for the ChangeRepository command line option to mention the optional Repository Path argument.
- The RemoteControl command options are no longer case sensitive.
- Added GetJobDetails command to print the job details that are shown in the Job Details panel in the Monitor.
- Added GetVersion and GetMajorVersion commands.
- Added commands that can be used to configure the Cloud plugins, group mappings, regions, etc.
Scripting Improvements
- Added ClientUtils.CreateScriptTempFolder() function to create a temporary folder for the script that is automatically cleaned up.
- Fixed how the value is set for the RadioControl script control.
- Fixed a bug with getting the disabled slave count in the GetFarmStatisticsEx.py web service script.
- Added a OnJobPurged event trigger that gets called right before a job gets purged from the database.
- Added OnSlaveStalled callback for event plugins.
- Added functions to the REST API and the standalone Python module to get the job details that are shown in the Job Details panel in the Monitor.
- Added support to the REST API and the standalone Python module to undelete deleted jobs, purge deleted jobs, get deleted jobs and get deleted job ids.
- Added RepositoryUtils.GetJobDetails() function.
- Added RepositoryUtils functions to get deleted job IDs and to undelete jobs.
- Fixed a bug that prevented JobUtils.CalculateJobStatistics() from working in non-Monitor scripts.
- PYTHONHOME and PYTHONPATH are now properly set to the system’s values in RunProcess for the event plugins.
- GetConfigEntry and GetConfigEntryWithDefault functions for plugins now trim whitespace off the values.
3ds Max Improvements
- Updated SMTD version numbers to 7.0.
- Fixed a SMTD initialization error.
- When copying external files, SMTD no longer tries to copy over missing files.
- 3dsMax2015_sp2 & Extension_1 dictionary entry added to 3dsmax plugin.
- Default/sticky settings can now be set in SMTD for the ExtraInfo fields.
- Removed (x86) references in 3dsmaxcmd plugin for Max2014 & Max2015.
CommandLine Improvements
- Path Mapping is now performed on the arguments for CommandLine jobs.
CommandScript Improvements
- Path Mapping is now performed on the arguments for CommandScript jobs.
Corona Improvements
- Added support for Corona standalone.
Draft Improvements
- Updated Draft Tile assembler monitor submission script to be able to add all of the plugin submission options.
- Updated Draft Tile submitter to fix a visual bug.
ftrack Improvements
- Added ftrack support to all submission scripts.
- Fixed bug in ftrack that would incorrectly grab the frame number when uploading a thumbnail.
Fusion Improvements
- Added support for Fusion 7.
Houdini Improvements
- Improved Arnold for Houdini support.
Mantra Standalone Improvements
- The “mantra: Bad Alembic Archive” error message is now caught during rendering.
Maya Improvements
- Fixed a couple minor bugs with the ftrack integration in Maya.
- Added multichannel EXR support for Jigsaw and Draft Tile rendering.
- Fixed a bug that prevented Maya Jigsaw and Maya VRay DBR submitters from working properly on Windows 8.
- Fixed the default Maya executable paths on OSX.
- Added an explanation to the tooltip for the frame list control in the integrated submitter for why it would be disabled.
modo Improvements
- Fixed some jigsaw/submission issues in the integrated modo submitter.
- Added ability to render over a specified background when Jigsaw rendering.
Nuke Improvements
- Added support for Nuke 9.
- Updated Nuke plugin to properly handle frame counts in batch node when given write node names.
- Fixed a bug that could crop up when setting the environment in the nuke submitter prior to launching deadlinecommand.
- Added Render Using Proxy Mode option to the Nuke submitter.
- Removed Build option from Nuke submitter, since the versions of Nuke that Deadline supports are 64-bit only.
Puppet Improvements
- The Puppet submitter now submits a maintenance job instead of a regular job.
- Made some minor improvements to the Puppet application and event plugins.
Rhino Improvements
- When Rhino starts up, the “Enter” button is now pressed to workaround a case where Rhino wouldn’t start rendering.
- Fixed a Jigsaw bug when rendering images of a different size then the viewport.
-Added ability to render over a specified background when Jigsaw rendering.
Salt Improvements
- The Salt submitter now submits a maintenance job instead of a regular job.
- Made some minor improvements to the Salt application and event plugins.
Shotgun Improvements
- Added options to all submission scripts to automatically upload a movie and/or filmstrip to Shotgun when the job finishes rendering.
- Added a solid black background to filmstrips because they behave weirdly in Shotgun when they have a transparent background.
- Changed the DraftShotgunHandler to not set any flags (ie, hide window, etc).