How to avoid loading Plugin.UserSettings.ini?

Deadline
1

Is there any way in Deadline to ignore this file?

It messes up my plugin loading on the farm with workstations that use different versions of plugins for Work and Rendering.

2

Change the following setting in your copy of 3dsMax on each machine:

c:\maxroot\InstallSettings.ini

[Least User Privilege]
useUserProfiles=1

change it to:

[Least User Privilege]
useUserProfiles=0

then the Plugin.UserSettings.ini is ignored and just the “C:\maxroot\plugin.ini” is used just like in the old days :slight_smile:

3

Thanks Mike, but I have useUserProfiles set to 0 on all my machines. :frowning:

4

I checked the 3dsamx.py plugin script, and confirmed that Deadline only explicitly includes Plugin.UserSettings.ini when useUserProfiles is set to 1. So that would mean that 3dsmax is including Plugin.UserSettings.ini itself for some reason.

Is all else fails, would deleting Plugin.UserSettings.ini be an option? If useUserProfiles is set to 0, 3dsmax shouldn’t need that file in the first place…

5

I found that 3ds Max uses that file when useUserProfiles is set to 0. That’s the setup I have here. I use the Plugin.UserSettings.ini as my primary plugin loader. I don’t use the standard Plugin.ini.

Honestly, I don’t remember the reason for this decision already :smiley: but the thing is, I can get rid of it without issues, but I’m surprised that it worked in previous Deadline versions and started acting up in the latest Deadline 5.x version.

6

My logs are also saying:

0: INFO: Not including user profile plugin ini because it does not exist: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2011\Plugin.UserSettings.ini

(after removing the Plugin.UserSettings.ini, but shouldn’t this line not exist actually, as Deadline is supposed to be ignoring the ini?)

7
  • Smacks Forehead *

I guess I should have read further down the code. We DO include the Plugin.UserSettings.ini file if it exists in the 3dsmax root folder when useUserProfile is disabled.

How does Max normally do things? We were under the impression that it always loaded Plugin.ini, and also loaded Plugin.UserSettings.ini if it exists. Is that correct, or does Max only load one?

8

To make things even more complicated, since Max 2010, Max loads up BOTH, Plugin.ini and the Plugin.UserSettings.ini, prior to that, it ignored Plugin.ini if it were there.

I don’t really know the motivation for the change, but in practice, if you use userProfiles and have plugin.ini stuff in Max root it loads it as well as the UserSettings.ini in the user profiles. This applies to the maxroot UserSettings.ini as well, naturally.

I personally keep Plugin.ini clear, completely and only use UserSettings.ini. That’s why it was tripping my Deadline submissions as it was including both the UserSettings.ini as well as my custom Deadline submission inis I made specifically for certain plugins and environments on the farm (mixing VRay and finalRender in my pipeline etc…).

Glad you found the “bug” in Deadline, otherwise it’d drive me crazy to try to troubleshoot the issue on my farm :smiley:

9

Ah, good, that must be what motivated us to do this as well. :slight_smile:

It probably makes sense for us to ONLY load the custom plugin.ini if one is specified, regardless of whether or not useUseProfiles is enabled. If no custom plugin.ini is specified, then we will continue to do what max does: load the root plugin.ini file and the user plugin.ini file if it exists.

Sound right? :slight_smile:

Thanks!

  • Ryan
10

Definitely makes most sense. :slight_smile: Thanks.