Diappearing Pools

Deadline
1

Something strange has started happening to the 4 pools I have set up: they will spontaniously be gone every now and then.



It has happened at irregular times. It has happened a few times while renders are running so nodes will not pickup the next frame since they think their pool does not exist.



The pools only disappear from the Manage Pools list, but the node’s Assigned Pools will remain the same. When I re-add the missing pools everything is fine again, but it’s just a matter of time before they just disappear. Purge Obsolete Pools On Close is not checked off, and even if it was all my pools are in use.



This is very inconvenient, and I’m surprised I couldn’t find anyone else with this problem.

2

Hi Adam,



Just to confirm, are you using only 4 pools, in which case all of the pools are getting wiped out, or do you have more than 4 pools and only the 4 that you are using are being deleted? Another client of our has experienced the problem of all their pools getting wiped out in the past, but it was apparently a very rare occurence. Let me know if this is what you’re experiencing.



We will re-explore the issue, and hopefully we can resolve it.



Cheers,



Ryan Russell

Frantic Films Software

http://software.franticfilms.com/

(204)949-0070

3

Yes, I am only using 4 pools and they all are being wiped out.



At first it only happened very rarely but it has now started happening a few times a day.

4

Just an update:



I have set the pools.ini file to ‘read only’ and the pools have not disappeared at all. With it set like this I cannot add a new pool using the Pool Manager, but I can always go back and make the file writable again.



Hopefully this will only be a temporary solution until we can figure out what is happening.

5

Hi Adam,



That’s good to hear that you’ve found a workaround for now. I can’t seem to reproduce the problem though, so I’m wondering if you could answer a couple of questions that might help narrow down the problem.


  1. What are the names of your pools? Can you post the contents of your pools.ini file?


  2. Is the obsoletePools.ini file empty? It can be found in the same directory as the pools.ini file.


  3. Does this seem to happen…

    i) When there are lots of jobs in the farm?

    ii) When there are only a few jobs in the farm?

    iii) Completely at random?


  4. Do you change the pools often, or do you just set your 4 and leave it at that.



    If you can answer any of these questions, it will at least help narrow down my test cases.



    Thanks!



    Ryan Russell

    Frantic Films Software

    http://software.franticfilms.com/

    (204)949-0070
6
  1. They are “AfterEffects” “Anim” “Combustion” “Maya” and “RenderFarm” (I just added AfterEffects today)



    Anim=001

    Combustion=002

    Maya=003

    RenderFarm=004

    AfterEffects=005


  2. obsoletePools.ini is empty


  3. It seems pretty random. Sometimes it doesn’t happen for a while, but other times they have disappeared right after I re-enter them.



    Is it best to delete jobs when they are done? I have been leaving them in the Job window even after they are finished, just so there is a visible record of the job.



    Maybe I could try deleting all the old jobs that don’t need to hang around anymore.


  4. I added one pool today, but the first 4 were all created around the same time, long before this started happening.
7

Thanks for the info. It is a good idea to clear out jobs if they’re not needed anymore (for the sake of performance), but it doesn’t hurt to keep them around either.



Cheers,



Ryan Russell

Frantic Films Software

http://software.franticfilms.com/

(204)949-0070

8

As a test I’ll clear out a bunch of old jobs and take away the Read Only property on the pools.ini file and see if it happens again.

Update: almost as soon as I took off the ‘read only’ setting on pools.ini all of the pools were gone again. This was after I had deleted over 20 old jobs.

9

I have the same problem here … I had 2 pools xsi and maya … and It’s seems completely random … ill do some test…

update … my testing is not finished but someone did delete a lot of job recently (20 jobs she said) … coincidence or is it’s really the problem? I’ll wait to have 20 jobs again to delete and see if it happens again

10

I deleted 23 jobs and nothings happens … a complete mystery … The test I have done is having a pool and a limit group with the same name and delete the pool …someone did that today … but did nothing either …