Houdini, Deadline, Redshift - cross platform windows2Linux issues with path remapping

Deadline
1

We are having huge issues rendering cross platform from Houdini on Deadline.

Submitting from windows and rendering on a linux node.
It seems like the path remapping is not working correctly with $JOB or $HIP in cached assets and ouput driver paths or even when using the fill network path.

There is an uncaught error showing up in the log:
2019-02-08 14:24:21: 0: STDOUT: [Redshift] Output file locked or path not available for writing. Skipping frame. (X:/17110093_achthamburg_researchanddevelopment/06_vfx/01_seq/deadline_test_190208/houdini/render/win2linux_env_job/deadline_test_190208_v001.Redshift_win2lin.0002.exr.lock)
I take this as an indication that the path remapping on the ouput driver didn’t work/wasn’t invoked.

I thought by setting the redshift env variable: REDSHIFT_DISABLEOUTPUTLOCKFILES to 1 it would fix the lock file problem and would give me the real error. But the output and also the output directory is not generated on the file server. It just keeps the lock error from showing up. The tasks are shown as completed but there is no ouput generated.

I would appreciate any help as soon as possible, to get our scene to render.

thanks in advance

here is the version info

Redshift for Houdini plugin version 2.6.31 (Dec 20 2018 13:25:19)
Deadline Client Version: 10.0.23.4 Release (e0d42871d)
FranticX Client Version: 2.4.0.0 Release (89425a6fb)
Repository Version: 10.0.23.4 (e0d42871d)
Integration Version: 10.0.23.4 (e0d42871d)
3PL Settings Version: 15/11/2018

Windows Platform:
OS: Win10
Houdini FX 16.5.536
Deadline 10.0.23.4
Redshift 2.6.31

Linux Node (headless):
OS: Centos 7.5
houdini batch 16.5.536
Deadline 10.0.23.4
Redshift 2.6.31

2

I suspect the error may not be correct.
As far as i remember, redshift will not try to create any folders, it expects that the DCC or another process creates the folder for it.

If you could double check, if you create the folder manually, do you still get the error?
Secondly, with the folder set and the lockfile environment variable, does it still create the lock file during the render?

Lastly, are you using Plugin level path mapping, via plugins > hounini > enable path mapping or Job level path mapping?

Cheers
Kym

3

The folder is already in place.
We are using Plugin Level Pathmapping.
It was suggested to me to test with fullpaths insted of $JOB or $HIP and also test the permission of the rendernode to write to the specific directory.
I will report back when i know more.

4

I’ve been quite some time on Maya but now I’m back in a Houdini Project and the Problem with the broken path remapping is persisting to be an issue.
Output Paths that fail to be remapped correctly are:
$JOB or absolute values

The only working option is to use $HIP, but we need to be able to render to a different location than the HIP file.

We really need a solution for this.