Deadline Monitor and Submitter too slow via VPN

loocas · May 28, 2010, 9:19pm

Hi there,

I wanted to ask whether there is any possibility to get Deadline, both the submitter apps, but mainly the monitor, to run any faster via VPN?

When at the studio we’re on a gigabit line and everything is flawless, simply perfect.

But when accessing my studio’s network from home via VPN, Deadline gets very, very slow. The Submitter app. shows milliseconds in the maxscript listener output, but the UI takes AGES to load up. But the monitor is even WORSE! It takes about a minute to load and then it takes about 20s to refresh! This is uber-annoying.

Is there anything I could speed things up?

The studio is connected to a 25Mbit line (up/down) and home I’m on a 4Mbit line (up/down), so it should be pretty fast! My pings to the studio’s server are around 8ms in average, which is very good.

Thanks a lot in advance, cheers…

rrussell · May 28, 2010, 9:26pm

Which version of Deadline are you running? If you’re running 4.0 or later, try running Pulse (if you’re not already), as this may alleviate some of the load times on the Monitor.
software.primefocusworld.com/sof … /pulse.php

I should note that Deadline was not originally designed to be used over a VPN connection, but with Pulse acting as a proxy between the Monitor and the Repository, it may help.

Cheers,

Ryan

loocas · May 30, 2010, 5:40pm

Hmm, interesting. Thank you, I’ll give it a try and see if it helped with the startup times.

Thanks again.

loocas · May 30, 2010, 11:03pm

Hi rrussell,

I tried what you suggested, I configured that my server should act as the pulse server and launched the Pulse app. on my workstation, but, I see no difference in speed.

Did I do it right? I configured in the repository that the server “messiah” (which translates to an IP via hosts on my workstation) should be used for Pulse.
Then I launched the Pulse app on the workstation that I want to speed up Deadline on (over VPN).
The Pulse app is running, the output window doesn’t show anyting “interesting” as your screenshot in the documentation and the Monitor is still slow as hell…

Did I do something wrong? Or is this how Pulse is supposed to be setup? I didn’t find the answer in the documentation, though.

Sorry for bothering again, I’d appretiate your tips and hints in this matter as the Monitor is really, really, slow over the VPN.

Thank you again, cheers…

loocas · May 30, 2010, 11:11pm

To clarify the “uninteresting output”, here’s the output from the Pulse app:

Purging trash ---- May 31 2010 -- 12:57 AM ---- Purging trash ---- May 31 2010 -- 12:58 AM ---- Purging old job reports ---- May 31 2010 -- 12:59 AM ---- Purging obsolete slaves ---- May 31 2010 -- 01:00 AM ---- Purging repository temp root files ---- May 31 2010 -- 01:01 AM ---- Purging trash ---- May 31 2010 -- 01:04 AM ---- Purging limit groups ---- May 31 2010 -- 01:05 AM ---- Purging old job reports Purging temp directory ---- May 31 2010 -- 01:06 AM ---- Purging obsolete pools and groups ---- May 31 2010 -- 01:08 AM ---- Purging temp directory ---- May 31 2010 -- 01:09 AM ---- Purging limit groups ---- May 31 2010 -- 01:10 AM ---- Purging limit groups Purging temp directory ---- May 31 2010 -- 01:12 AM ---- Purging old job reports

loocas · May 30, 2010, 11:29pm

OK, got it all mixed up here… Sorry for the mess.

I finally managed to get the Monitor connected to the Pulse.

I had to enable the port on my firewall (DOH!)
I rather put the IP instead of the server name for the Pulse server, to make sure.
I started the Pulse app. on the server itself.

Now the Monitor shows the nice yellow heart icon, but mainly, the response time improved DRAMATICALLY!

I hope this is the correct setup (should be since it seems to work).

So, thank you again for your support, rrussell! I appretiate it!

rrussell · May 31, 2010, 12:38pm

It sounds like you have everything setup properly. Glad to hear that it helped with performance!

Cheers,

Ryan

loocas · May 31, 2010, 1:40pm

Hi rrussell,

all worked fine and great, but only on my own computers. As soon as I setup the VPN and installed Deadline on another location, the Pulse doesn’t kick up for, to me unknown, reasons…

The strangest part is, the Pulse seems to be running fine, even in the Monitor is shown as running, but the Monitor app itself doesn’t recognize it and thus runs without it.

Could this be because of domain and user privileges? I have a domain setup on my server, but the guy is connecting from a computer from a different location without the domain. Only the user setup for VPN is stored in the Domain Tree…

Thanks a lot in advance, cheers…

rrussell · May 31, 2010, 1:47pm

Can you post the most recent Monitor log from this machine? If the Monitor is having trouble connecting to Pulse, it should say so in the log. You can find the log from the Monitor by selecting Help -> Explore Log Folder. Just sort on last write time to get the most recent.

Thanks!

Ryan

loocas · May 31, 2010, 1:59pm

Thanks for the super fast reply.

Here’s the log contents:

2010-05-31 14:57:42: BEGIN - ICE-DESKTOP\Ice 2010-05-31 14:57:42: Start-up 2010-05-31 14:57:42: Deadline Monitor 4.0 [v4.0.0.40330 R] 2010-05-31 14:57:42: 2010-05-31 14:57:42 2010-05-31 14:57:59: Attempting to contact Deadline Pulse (89.XXX.XXX.XXX)... 2010-05-31 14:58:20: Could not update from Pulse because 'A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond 89.233.131.161:5046 (System.Net.Sockets.SocketException) 2010-05-31 14:58:21: Attempting to contact Deadline Pulse (89.XXX.XXX.XXX)... 2010-05-31 14:58:42: Could not update from Pulse because 'A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond 89.233.131.161:5046 (System.Net.Sockets.SocketException) 2010-05-31 14:59:03: Enqueing: Super User Mode 2010-05-31 14:59:03: Dequeued: Super User Mode 2010-05-31 14:59:12: Enqueing: Configure &Repository Options... 2010-05-31 14:59:12: Dequeued: Configure &Repository Options... 2010-05-31 15:01:56: Enqueing: E&xit 2010-05-31 15:01:56: Dequeued: E&xit 2010-05-31 15:01:56: Main window closing 2010-05-31 15:01:56: Listener Thread - OnConnect: Listener Socket has been closed. 2010-05-31 15:01:56: Main window closed

rrussell · May 31, 2010, 2:06pm

Thanks for the log. Can this machine ping your Pulse machine via the IP address (89.233.131.161)? I noticed that your repository uses the host name, so maybe this machine needs the Pulse host name in the repository options in order to connect to it.

Cheers,

Ryan

loocas · May 31, 2010, 2:12pm

Well, that’s the thing, this machine can ping both the IP and the hostname (as I added the host name to the hosts file in the system32 directory):

C:\Program Files\Prime Focus\Deadline\bin>deadlinecommand getrepositoryroot
\messiah\Deadline

C:\Program Files\Prime Focus\Deadline\bin>ping 89.XXX.XXX.XXX

Pinging 89.XXX.XXX.XXX with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 89.XXX.XXX.XXX: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=56
Reply from 89.XXX.XXX.XXX: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56
Reply from 89.XXX.XXX.XXX: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56
Reply from 89.XXX.XXX.XXX: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 89.XXX.XXX.XXX:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 12ms, Average = 11ms

C:\Program Files\Prime Focus\Deadline\bin>ping XXXXXXXX

Pinging messiah [89.XXX.XXX.XXX] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 89.XXX.XXX.XXX: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56
Reply from 89.XXX.XXX.XXX: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56
Reply from 89.XXX.XXX.XXX: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56
Reply from 89.XXX.XXX.XXX: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 89.XXX.XXX.XXX:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 11ms, Average = 11ms

C:\Program Files\Prime Focus\Deadline\bin>[/code]

Don’t know what else to setup…

rrussell · May 31, 2010, 2:22pm

I wonder if something (ie: firewall or antivirus software) is preventing TCP communication between the machine and Pulse. Maybe it’s related to the domain/permission difference that you mentioned earlier.

loocas · May 31, 2010, 2:25pm

That’s what I’m afraid of…

Well, I’ll investigate further and let you know if I came up with a solution.

But thank you very much again, for all your help and support!

loocas · May 31, 2010, 4:24pm

Now this is trange. I came back home to try to do something about the Pulse not working, but when I launched my Monitor from my home workstation it too DID NOT connect to Pulse!

Here’s the log, saying pretty much the same thing. What could have gone wrong? I had it running not even 24 hours ago!

2010-05-31 18:19:01: BEGIN - DUBERIZER\loocas 2010-05-31 18:19:01: Start-up 2010-05-31 18:19:01: Deadline Monitor 4.0 [v4.0.0.40330 R] 2010-05-31 18:19:01: 2010-05-31 18:19:00 2010-05-31 18:19:16: Attempting to contact Deadline Pulse (89.XXX.XXX.XXX)... 2010-05-31 18:19:37: Could not update from Pulse because 'A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond 89.XXX.XXX.XXX:5046 (System.Net.Sockets.SocketException) 2010-05-31 18:19:37: Attempting to contact Deadline Pulse (89.XXX.XXX.XXX)... 2010-05-31 18:19:58: Could not update from Pulse because 'A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond 89.XXX.XXX.XXX:5046 (System.Net.Sockets.SocketException) 2010-05-31 18:20:15: Enqueing: Super User Mode 2010-05-31 18:20:15: Dequeued: Super User Mode 2010-05-31 18:20:22: Enqueing: Configure &Repository Options... 2010-05-31 18:20:22: Dequeued: Configure &Repository Options... 2010-05-31 18:24:18: Enqueing: &Explore Log Folder 2010-05-31 18:24:18: Dequeued: &Explore Log Folder

rrussell · May 31, 2010, 4:38pm

One thing worth trying is restarting the Pulse application (if you haven’t done so already). This probably won’t make a difference, but it’s worth a try. You should also check if there is any firewall or antivirus software preventing this communication. The error indicates a communication problem, as opposed to Pulse returning bad data. I know you had enabled this communication in your firewall previously, but maybe something is being overlooked or more exceptions are required.

Cheers,

Ryan

loocas · May 31, 2010, 4:48pm

The strangest thing!

I restarted everything I could. It all worked before with this setup on my system. But now it stopped working. So I restarted Pulse (for about a billionth time ) and again, it didn’t work. So I logged remotely to one of my workstations at the studio, which are on the local network, no firewalls, nothing inbetween, except for two switches, with the Server the Pulse is running on. Then the Monitor on the studio workstation showed the “Yellow Heart”, so I tried it on my home workstation by restarting the monitor and it too picked up Pulse and so did the other remote workstations I was setting up earlier! It’s all working as it should be right now! But why? I have no idea, I haven’t changed anything except for running the Monitor on one of the studio’s local workstations, which seems to have done the job…

I hope it stays this way for longer than a day, though…

Anyways, thanks for the support, I appretiate it!

loocas · June 30, 2010, 11:42pm

Just wanted to let you know that Pulse has been running smoothly ever since and it has been a great, great enhancement to the VPN remote render administration. Thank you very much for this!