quicktime generation error

Deadline
1

Hi there.

i am trying to use my quicktime 7.2 to run with deadline, but i am experiencing a real weird error:

Error: unknown error (COM)



then deadline returns this:



Deadline Command BG 2.7 [v2.7.29178 R]

Error: could not find Auxiliary submission file: C:\Deadline\temp\quicktime_ExportSettings.xml (Deadline.Submission.DeadlineSubmitException)



i do not know exaclty what is going on…prehaps deadline is not finding the quicktime exe file?



thanks

mat

2

any ideas? prehaps did i install something wrong?

3

Hi Mat,



Can you open a command prompt on your machine, navigate to

c:\deadline\bin, and then run the following command:


DeadlineQuicktimeGenerator.exe -ExportSettings c:\test.txt



This will display the additional quicktime settings dialog, and will

save the results to c:\test.txt. I’m hoping that if an error occurs, it

will be printed to stdout and you can send us it. Also, have you had

success with using earlier versions of quicktime, or is this the first

time you’ve tried using the quicktime rendering in Deadline? I’m just

wondering if something changed between versions 7.1.* and 7.2 that might

be causing the problem.



Cheers,

4

hi there ryan,

this is the error i get:

C:\Deadline\bin>DeadlineQuicktimeGenerator.exe -ExportSettings c:\test.txt

Error: Unknown Error (COM)



and no test.txt file has been created!



it would be nice to use that features…i do not know why i get this kind of error…neither what such an error means…



comunication error?

boh…

if u have any ideas…

let me know…

i am running quicktime 7.2



bye and thanks:)

5

Hi Mat,



I just installed QT 7.2 (non-pro version) and I was able to run the

ExportSettings command without any problems. I ran this test with the

version of the DeadlineQuicktimeGenerator.exe application that was

shipped with Deadline 2.7.



I’ve attached our internal copy of the DeadlineQuicktimeGenerator.exe

application to this post (just unzip the attached file). The only

requirement of this latest version is that .NET 2.0 be installed, which

you can download from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en



This application is completely standalone, so you can replace the

current copy in your repository bin directory (just make sure to back up

the original). When you restart the slave or monitor on your client

machines, they should automatically upgrade their copy of the

DeadlineQuicktimeGenerator.exe application. Then run this command:


DeadlineQuicktimeGenerator.exe -verbose -ExportSettings c:\test.txt



This provides a little more verbose logging, and might help us detect

where exactly the problem is occurring. If you still get the error with

this version, please post the error message.



Cheers,

6

Hi,

Was this issue ever resolved? I’m running into the exactly same problem as the original poster.
I’ve tried Quicktime 7.2, 7.4 with Deadline 2.7.29178 on two different machines. Both machines are running Windows XP 32-bit (Japanese)
Any idea if any of the above would put a halt to exportSetting? And do you still have the internal build of DeadlineQuickTimeGenerator.exe? It’s gone now.
Thanks!

-David

7

Hi David,

I never heard back after the last post, so we haven’t looked into this issue any further. I’ve reposted our internal copy of the quicktime generator (all original attachments were lost when we switched forum software). Give it a try and let us know if you have any luck.

Cheers,

8

Hi Ryan,

I’ve download the “internal” copy, installed it into my workstation’s C:\Deadline\bin and came up with the same result.

Running the Quicktime submission script from the Monitor yields this:
[Unknown Error (COM)] in a console flashes by
[Deadline Background Submission Results]
Deadline Command BG 2.7 [v2.7.29178 R]
Error: could not find Auxiliary submission file: C:\Deadline\temp\quicktime_ExportSettings.xml (Deadline.Submission.DeadlineSubmitException)

Trying to run DeadlineQuicktimeGenerator.exe with -ExportSetting from the command line gives the same unknown error.
Is there some other way to get more information?

9

Did you try it with the -verbose argument:

DeadlineQuicktimeGenerator.exe -verbose -ExportSettings c:\test.txt

If anything is printed out before the “unknown error”, please post it so we can see how far it is getting. This particular error is being thrown by the quicktime active x control we’re hooking into, so hopefully we can figure out if we’re doing something wrong here. I’ve never seen this problem personally though, since the generator works fine on all of our test machines…

Cheers,

  • Ryan
10

Hi Ryan,

Please take a look at the command line output attached.
It shows exactly what I’m seeing here with or without the -verbose argument.
Thanks.

-David

qtGenError.JPG
qtGenError.JPG860×569 54.8 KB

11

Hi David,

It looks like you’re still running the old version, because the quicktime generator isn’t recognizing the -verbose argument. If you only copied the generator to the repository bin folder, you have to restart the slave or monitor on the client machine for it to be updated. If the -verbose argument is recognized, you should see something like:

C:…>deadlinequicktimegenerator -verbose -ExportSettings c:\test.txt
Exporting Quicktime settings to: c:\test.txt
Initializing component
Initializing Quicktime control
Adding new exporter
Setting up exporter
Showing exporter settings dialog

Run the test again with the updated quicktime generator and post the results here if you still get the error.

Cheers,

  • Ryan
12

Hi Ryan,

I’m now getting the output you’re getting, up until “Setting up exporter”. From there I am still getting the Unknown COM error.
Here’s a screenshot of the output:

newBuildTest.JPG
newBuildTest.JPG764×245 31.8 KB

13

Ok, try this updated Quicktime generator. You can install it the same way you did the previous one. Run the export command line with the verbose option again and see what happens. I’ve removed what seems to be some unnecessary code when creating the exporter so I’m curious to see if that makes a difference.

Thanks,

14

I ran the new build and it went a little bit past the last one with no file output in C:
QTgenNewerBuild.JPG

15

When the QT generator is setting the type name, it is actually setting the codec that the exporter will use. So the problem is occurring when setting the codec to “QuickTime Movie”, which essentially means that the codec isn’t recognized. If I change the code and set the codec to be “foo”, I get the exact same error you’re getting.

I’ve uploaded an updated generator that gives a better error message when setting the codec fails, but now we have to figure out why it’s failing on your end. You mentioned that you had already installed Quicktime on the machine, so that wouldn’t be the problem. The codec is just a string, so maybe the language difference has something to do with it (although if this where true, I would expect to find this information using google, which I’m not).

Do you by any chance happen to have Quicktime Pro? If you do, you can open up the Quicktime Player and select File -> Export to display the export dialog. There should be an “Export:” drop down with the different formats you can export to. In mine, I see options like “Movie to 3G”, “Movie to FLC”, “Movie to MPEG-4”, and most importantly, “Movie to QuickTime Movie”. If you don’t see “Movie to QuickTime Movie”, that would explain why you’re getting this error.

Cheers,

16

I’ve uploaded another modified generator, and added a new option to display the export dialog (in case you don’t have QT Pro). To display it, run this command:

C:…>deadlinequicktimegenerator -verbose -ShowExportDialog

You will see the “Export:” drop down and the list of available exporters. If you don’t see “Movie to QuickTime Movie”, then we know that’s your problem. If you can take a screen shot of the drop down when it’s displaying all the export formats, it would be interesting to see what you have in the list.

Cheers,

17

You guessed it–the export options are all in Japanese so parsing and matching the exact English strings does not work for Japanese (and probably other localized) Quicktime.
The Quicktime installer on apple.com automatically looks for the Region and Language settings on the Windows install and sets the language accordingly, it does not allow you to switch to other languages.

I was able to install an English copy of Quicktime by going to the Region and Language control panel and setting it to English.
The Deadline QT generater works fine with the English version QT, but will you be able to support non-English versions of QT in the future?

exportDialog.JPG
exportDialog.JPG1440×777 114 KB

18

Ok, in this update, if setting by the codec name fails, an attempt is made to set the codec by it’s ID. I got the ID by setting the codec by name, and then retrieving the exporter’s type ID afterwards. I’m not sure if this ID will ever change, or if it’s different in different regions, but it’s worth a test. Let me know if you have any luck with it.

Cheers,

19

I’m getting the same output with -verbose -ShowExportDialog with the new build (I re-installed Japanese QT)
But the QT-creation job came back with this error log:
(the repository bin, the client 's Deadline bin, and the slave’s Deadline bin were all populated with the new build)

Error Message
Exception during render: Error: Index was outside the bounds of the array.

Slave Log
outside the bounds of the array.
RenderPluginException.Cause: JobError (2)
Exception.TargetSite: Void RenderTasks(Int32, Int32)
Exception.Source: DeadlinePluginLoader
Exception.StackTrace:
at Deadline.Plugins.PluginLoader.RenderTasks(Int32 startTask, Int32 endTask)
at Deadline.Plugins.Plugin.RenderTask(Int32 startFrame, Int32 endFrame)
at Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.RenderCurrentTask()

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
FREE MODE: Repository has two slaves including this one - no license required.
FREE MODE: Repository has two slaves including this one - no license required.
---- June 26 2008 – 02:54 PM ----
FREE MODE: Repository has two slaves including this one - no license required.
FREE MODE: Repository has two slaves including this one - no license required.
---- June 26 2008 – 02:55 PM ----
FREE MODE: Repository has two slaves including this one - no license required.
Scheduler Thread - Plugin loaded in 0 seconds.
FREE MODE: Repository has two slaves including this one - no license required.
0: Loaded job: Box_Ppsky_anim (003_050_o_3f588de9)
0: INFO: Script plugin for Deadline 2.7.29178, built Aug 22 2007 14:02:42 R
0: INFO: >> Frantic Quicktime Generator Plugin for Deadline, 2005-06-16
0: INFO: job file: c:\deadline\slave\jobsData\003_050_o_3f588de9.job
0: Plugin rendering frame(s): 30-60
0: INFO: Executable: “C:\Deadline\bin\DeadlineQuicktimeGenerator.exe”
0: INFO: Arguments: " -CreateMovie “\path\to\image00030.tga” “c:\Deadline\slave\jobsData\quicktime_ExportSettings.xml” 30 60 24 “\path\to\qt.mov”"
0: INFO: StartupDir: “C:\Deadline\bin”
0: INFO: UseJobObject: true
0: INFO: HideDosWindow: true
Scheduler Thread - Render Thread 0 threw an error:
Scheduler Thread - Exception during render: Error: Index was outside the bounds of the array.

Error Type
RenderPluginException

Error Stack Trace
at Deadline.Plugins.PluginLoader.RenderTasks(Int32 startTask, Int32 endTask)
at Deadline.Plugins.Plugin.RenderTask(Int32 startFrame, Int32 endFrame)
at Deadline.Slaves.SlaveRenderThread.RenderCurrentTask()

20

Sorry, my bad. You fix one problem and create another. :slight_smile:

This new build should fix that error.

Just to confirm, are you able to submit a job now? I would expect the -ShowExportDialog to show the same as before, because it is QuickTime’s standard export dialog (which means it would use the region/language settings).

Cheers,