Event Handler exception when submitting job through Monitor

Deadline
1

When submitting a 3ds Max job through Deadline Monitor v3.0.33353, one of my users is getting an Event Handler Exception:

"An exception occurred in the event handler for SubmitButton
Failed to spawn process “deadlinecommandbg” with “-notify “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Frantic Films\Deadline\temp\max_job_info.job” “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Frantic Films\Deadline\temp\max_plugin_info.job “\arch-render\renderfarm\Input\beom jun\Tree Animation Palm doodhi.max”” arguments bcause: The system cannot find the file specified (System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception) (System.Exception)”

I tried submitting a different Max job that I’ve rendered previously on that user’s workstation and got a similar error. Relaunching the Deadline Monitor doesn’t resolve the issue.

2

You have to shutdown all Deadline applications running on the machine, including the Launcher in the system tray. After re-launching the Monitor from the Start menu, you should be good to go.

In the next release, this won’t be a problem anymore. If Deadline can’t find deadlinecommandbg in the path, it will simply run it from the Deadline bin folder (which the Monitor is aware of internally).

3

Thanks for the response, Ryan. I did a full reboot of the machine, but that hasn’t resolved the issue. Are there other troubleshooting steps we can try?

Cheers,

Eric

4

Try adding the Deadline bin folder (ie: c:\program files\frantic films\deadline\bin) to the PATH environment variable, and restart the Deadline applications again. The problem is that the Monitor isn’t finding deadlinecommandbg in the path, so if you add it yourself, that should solve the problem.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
5

Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to test this earlier. I checked, and the Deadline bin folder is already in the PATH environment variable, so that doesn’t seem to be the solution. Uninstalling and reinstalling the Deadline app doesn’t help either.

6

A couple of things to check:

  1. Open the Deadline bin folder (by default, this would have been installed to c:\Program Files\Frantic Films\Deadline\bin). Check to see if there is a deadlinecommandbg.exe file here.

  2. Open a command prompt, and run ‘deadlinecommandbg’ with no arguments. Nothing should be printed out, but you should not get an error message either.

Let us know the results of both of these checks.

Thanks,

  • Ryan
7

I checked that out, and deadlinecommandbg.exe is in the c:\Program Files\Frantic Films\Deadline\bin folder, and I was able to run it from a command line without issues. Also, when I launch the Deadline Monitor app by going to the c:\Program Files\Frantic Films\Deadline\bin folder and running it, I’m able to submit without an issue. When I launch it through Deadline Launcher, I get the error message.

8

That is really strange. The Launcher should respect the environment variables, just like any application would. What happens if you exit the launcher, then run it from C:\Program Files\Frantic Films\Deadline\bin, and then try launching the Monitor through it?

9

When I run Deadline Launcher from C:\Program Files\Frantic Films\Deadline\bin\ and run the Monitor through it, I’m able to submit jobs without a problem. Very odd. So it seems like something’s up with the way the Deadline Launcher is being started at login?

10

Do you guys have anything setup on your workstations to set environment variables at login? If so, and it’s being executed after the launcher is started, that could explain the problem. If that’s not the case though, I’m not sure what it would be.

With the fix we implemented for the next release, this won’t be a problem anymore, but it would be nice if we could figure out a workaround for now. One potential workaround would be to edit the submission script to use the full path to deadlinecommandbg.exe, instead of assuming it’s in the path.

11

We have a couple of policies that run at startup on all machines, but this issue seems to be isolated to one particular machine I’ve seen so far. My workaround for now will just be to have the user run the Monitor directly from the \Deadline\bin folder, which takes care of the submit errors. Thanks for the help, Ryan.

Cheers,

Eric