I followed the instructions for copying the initdeadlinesubmitter.mel and usersetup.mel from the repository to the ‘my documents/NAME/maya/scripts’ folder on my machines but only the 32 bit computers work. We try to submit a job via maya 64 bit and it crashes everytime.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Hey Jonathon,
I just tested this here and it worked fine. I did a fresh install of Maya 2008 64 bit on my XP 64 SP2 machine and was able to submit without any problems.
Are you using Deadline 2.7 or 3.0? Also, when does the crash occur? After you press the shelf button or after you press submit? Does Maya dump out a log anywhere that might contain some helpful information? I’m going to try a few more things and get back to you.
Cheers,
We are using Deadline 3.0. The crash occurs right after i press submit. I also attempted to submit a job via deadline monitor but that crashed as well.
You would think that Maya would have logs… i couldnt find any. (nor can i find the new deadline logs like were in 2.7 doesnt matter though right now)
But i pulled these errors from the event log from windows.
Faulting application maya.exe, version 2007.8.3.19, faulting module CommandEngine.dll, version 2007.8.3.19, fault address 0x000000000002e359.
Fault bucket 258695367.
Thanks,
Jonathan
That’s interesting that submitting from the Monitor crashes as well. Does the whole monitor crash, or just the submission dialog? Again, does the crash occur after you hit Submit? Can you send us the most recent monitor log after the crash occurs? If you’re on an 2000/XP machine, you can find the logs in c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\frantic films\deadline\logs.
Also, what happens when you open a command prompt on a 64 bit machine and type deadlinecommand and hit enter? If the deadline bin folder is in the path (which is should be), the usage information should be printed. Deadlinecommand is the application that Deadline uses for submission, so maybe it’s the culprit of the crash. If an error is printed out, please send it to us.
Cheers,
Maya is the only thing that crashes. Deadline stays up. The crash occurs after i hit submit and the job is not submitted.
A log from one of the machine i tested submitting from:
2008-09-09 10:58:48: BEGIN - RF-DX-02\farm
2008-09-09 10:58:48: Start-up
2008-09-09 10:58:48: 2008-09-09 10:58:48
2008-09-09 10:58:48: Deadline Job Monitor [v3.0.32934 R]
2008-09-09 10:58:50: MainForm.UpdateAll()
2008-09-09 10:58:55: Listener Thread - OnConnect: Listener Socket has been closed.
I ran cmd and typed in deadlinecommand. It didnt crash. it worked fine. Its output was the usage info.
Thanks,
Jonathan
So when you hit submit in the Monitor submission dialog, you mean that only the submission dialog crashes? I just want to make sure because Deadline doesn’t use Maya to perform the submission when submitting from the Monitor. If this is the case, does the submission dialog display anything after you hit submit, or does it just disappear? I might have to send you a debug submission script so we can try and figure out how far the script gets before it crashes.
Thanks,
When I click the submit button, maya completely crashes. The submission dialog does not say anything after i click submit. it just freezes for about 15 seconds then an error occurs saying maya has crashed.
Thanks,
Jonathan
I’m a little confused here. Just to make sure we’re on the same page, we are debugging the problem where submitting from the Deadline Monitor (not from within Maya) is causing a crash. You had mentioned this in the third post:
The Maya submission script in the Submit menu in the Deadline Monitor does not use Maya to submit the job, so I can’t imagine why it would show a dialog saying that maya crashed. I think we may be getting our wires crossed here because it sounds like you’re submitting from within Maya.
I would like to get the issue with submitting from the Deadline Monitor resolved first, because then it rules out the submission tool as being the cause of the problem.
Thanks
We are able to render by directly submitting from deadline. (My mistake). Maya crashes when we submit it through maya itself with the deadline submitting tool.
Here is what my artists wrote for me to submit:
In Deadline:
When I am In the Submit to Deadline Window I am trying to change the project directory the pop up window will not let me choose a folder. After I choose the folder I hit “OK” and nothing happens. I cancel the window. I have to type the directory manually. The same applies for the output path. The scene file line works fine.
In Maya:
Maya crashes after submitting a scene file. The job is never actually submitted to deadline. This occurs on both 32 bit and 64 bit versions.
In the submit to deadline window in Maya under the job pool and group tabs there is a line that says something about UNC paths not compatible.
One of my artists requests if we could submit from the deadline app “tile rendering options” as a feature… btw.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Sorry for all the hard troubles and miscommunications.
This is what we think fixes it but do not know why.
originally we did not have the project set in maya. We reset the project and it cleared out the UNC path error in the job pool and group tabs.
We submitted the scene and it worked correctly.
In previous versions of deadline we did not have to always set the project. You could type it in manually in the submission window.
Jonathan
Interesting. Now that it seems to be working, is there a way to get Maya back into the state where it would crash on submission? If so, can you give us step by step instructions so we can try and reproduce this here? We would like to figure out what the actual cause of the problem is so others don’t run into this problem in the future.
We don’t have the tile submitter option in the Monitor submission dialog because we need to know some internal information from the scene file (ie: render resolution) in order to create the tiles. Since we can only get this information reliably within Maya, that’s why you only see the tile option when submitting from within Maya.
Cheers,
Honestly, I have no idea how to get back to the crashed scenario. All we changed was the project directory. It was a UNC error that was spawning from keeping the project directory local rather than remote. That could be my only thought. Where ever those quotes came from is the cause. but its fixed now. Sorry i dont know how to get back there but that is really all we know.
One of my artists asked about a feature missing or how to get around it. It was the “submit to pool only” checkbox. I dont know if you know what this is but I was asked to pass it on.
Thanks,
Jonathan
No worries. At least if it comes up again, we know the workaround. 
We reworked our pool system and removed the pool only checkbox. Now, if you want to submit to a specific pool, just select it. If you don’t care which machines render your job, just select the ‘none’ pool (which is essentially the same as submitting with the pool only option unchecked).
Cheers,
The problems the artists are having described by them.
Problem 1:
When I am in the Submit to Deadline Window in Maya I have to make sure the project is set, if not Maya will crash when I submit the job. In previous versions of Deadline this was not an issue. I would be able to change the directory right in the submission window. The crashing still happens even if I set the project after opening the scene. The only way it works is if I set the project right before I open the Submit to Deadline Window in Maya. When Maya crashes the job is never actually submitted to deadline. This occurs on both 32 bit and 64 bit versions.
Problem 2:
When I am In the Submit to Deadline Window I am trying to change the project directory the pop up window will not let me choose a folder. After I choose the folder I hit “OK” and nothing happens. I cancel the window. I have to type the directory manually. The same applies for the output path. The scene file line works fine.
Problem3:
In the submit to deadline window in Maya under the job pool and group tabs there is a line that says something about UNC paths not compatible
Thanks,
Jonathan
Problem 1 seems to be the source of the other 2 problems (according to another thread on the forum). I can’t seem to reproduce Problem 1 though. I open up Maya, either create a scene from scratch or load an existing one, and then open the submission dialog. The project and output folders are already set in the submitter, so I just hit submit and it works.
When the artist has to set the project, where are they doing this? I’ve seen an preference option for this, but it’s always set to a default setting unless I change it. I’m not a frequent Maya user, so I may just be missing something here. I guess I just need clarification on what this means:
Steps to reproduce this would be great (maybe even a very simple maya test scene if that would help). When writing out the steps, just treat me like a first time Maya user. 
Thanks!
I think we were experiencing this problem, although now when I try to recreate the problem to post here I can’t of course!
But heres the rough steps I went though (after opening write permissions on the repository etc and the usual install hiccpus)
Repository samba share from openSuse11 accessed thru UNC path on WinXP 2002 SP2
Monitor could see the repository but maya submit from Monitor would do nothing - UI showed, submit button did nothing, no errors.
Maya MEL submit would crash Maya clean out (maya v7.0 x32). This was repeatable.
On Maya restart Pool and Goup dropdowns in maya MEL submit window hold stderr messages (presumably from the dealinecommand .NET call to access the repository dir - just gussing). See attached screen grab.
Mounted the repository as a mapped drive on Windows:
Submission worked. Now when deliberately taking the repository down the submit thinks about it (like the standard explorer network timeout) and gives the ‘repository does not exist’ dialog (in screen shot).
Since then I cant crash Maya.
Is it possible that if the crash only occurs during repository outages only if you have never successfully connected to the repository from the client? or on a new repository?
Is this a deadlinecommand -gethomediretory thing or similar? whatevers in the maya submitter.
Couple of other things:
If I get anything more scientific will post results.
cheers
pete.
We believe we have addressed this problem. The ‘system’ mel command would automatically prepend the “UNC paths not supported” error to any output received from calling ‘deadlinecommand’, and this would get included in the results for the pools, groups, etc. We now explicitly check for this message and exclude it from the final result.
The fix will be included in the upcoming maintenance release for Deadline 3.0.
Cheers,
Even if this seemed to be adressed in newer versions of deadline: I ran into the same problem. Just with a german version of Vista 64 bit instead of an english one.
I get rubbish in the pool and group fields every time i try to open the submit to deadline dialog from maya. Funny though, that on 2 machines that i am trying to get it to work (with both running the same system) it just occurs on one.
“UNC Pfade werden nicht unterstützt”…
We’ve actually changed how we run external commands with Maya, so theoretically this problem should go away in the upcoming 3.1 SP1 release. We hope to get this release out next week, so once you’ve upgraded, let us know if the problem persists.
Cheers,
