Troubleshooting Guide

This is a guide to solving common problems associated with network rendering. Solutions to these problems vary, depending on whether you are using the network rendering programs as installed Windows NT Services, or running them in Desktop mode.

PROBLEM

When I submit a job to the network rendering queue, I can’t connect to the Manager.

SUGGESTION

Make sure you entered the correct name or IP address in the Manager field in the Network Job Assignment dialog and verify that the manager service is started:

• If running in Desktop mode, go to the window that is running the Manager service. Be sure that the servers are “pinging” the manager. The DEBUG option must be checked in the Log to Screen section of the Server Properties dialog to display the “pinging” messages. If the Manager is not running or appears inactive reboot it. See Initial Setup for Manager and Server Programs.
• If running Manager as an installed service, go to the Control Panel under Services and verify that the Manager Service has been installed and started. If it is not, click Start to restart the Manager. See Installing Network Services under Windows NT.

PROBLEM

When I connect to the Manager, I don’t see a server that should be listed.

SUGGESTION:

Verify that the server is correctly running:

• If running the server in Desktop mode, verify that it has been launched and make sure that it is being “pinged” by the Manager at 10- to 30-second intervals. Check the DEBUG option in the Log to Screen section of the Server Properties dialog to display the “pinging” messages.
• If running the server as an installed Windows NT service, display the Control Panel under Services and verify that the Server Service is installed and started. If the server is not installed, see Initial Setup for Manager and Server Programs. If the server service is installed but not started, click Start in the Services dialog, with the Server service selected.
• Verify that the correct IP address or machine name is listed in the Manager Name or IP Address field in the Server Properties dialog. If the Manager’s IP address or machine name is missing or listed incorrectly, enter the correct IP address or machine name. To make the new settings take effect, reboot the server.
• Verify that your NT HOSTS file (located in the winnt\system32\drivers\etc\ directory) includes the IP address and corresponding machine name for each of the servers and manager involved with the 3D Studio Network Render. The HOSTS file provides mapping for machine names to IP addresses.

PROBLEM

When I try to assign a job in the Network Job Assignment dialog, some of the servers display a gray or yellow icon.

SUGGESTION

Regardless of their state in the Network Job Assignment dialog, servers can always be assigned new jobs.

The gray icon means that the server is currently not available to render a job. This state can occur for several reasons, including:

• The server has not been correctly started (see Initial Setup for Manager and Server Programs).
• The server has been disallowed for the current time period in the Properties dialog of the Queue Manager (see Scheduling Hours of Activity for the Servers).
• The server has experienced abnormal termination.

If you’ve checked these conditions and the servers are still unavailable, stop running server on each of the problem machines, and restart the service after a few seconds. This “purges” the server and may solve the problem. Then click Refresh in the Network Job Assignment dialog to display the most recent information about the server.

The yellow icon means that the server is busy rendering another job. If the server should not be busy, verify that the queue is clear of jobs by opening the Queue Manager and connecting to the Manager. If the queue is clear of rendering jobs and the server is still flagged as busy, stop running server on each of the problem machines, and restart the service after a few seconds.

PROBLEM

When I submit a job to be rendered, the server fails.

SUGGESTION

Servers can fail for a variety of reasons during a network render job. Some of the more obvious reasons include:

• Bitmaps used in the scene are not correctly pathed, so the servers cannot find them when attempting to render the job. Solve this by ensuring that all bitmaps are pathed using the UNC format or that drive and directory structures are identical on all machines involved in Network Rendering. See Setting Up Directories.
• The output directory is not a valid path for the server machine. See Setting Up Directories and make sure a specific output path is available to all servers.
• An object in the scene does not contain texture coordinates.
• A plug-in used in the scene is not correctly pathed or does not reside on a server rendering the job.
• The Include Maps option is being used and the archive utility has not been added to the system path or does not exist on the server.
• There is not enough space on the target output drive.
• There is not enough space on the local drive of the server to hold the incoming data.

Note: All errors are recorded in the appropriate log file. You can view most of the errors mentioned above in the max.log file in the \Network subdirectory on each server machine. This is the file that is displayed in the Queue Manager when a server is highlighted and the Log File tab is selected. Any time a server fails, check the max.log file to determine the cause of the failure. Here are some of the error messages, along with a likely cause, that you will see in the Log File tab of the Queue Manager when a failed server is selected:

ERR: ----- Render Error:

ERR: D:\MAPS\3DS.CEL [where this is the location of a map in the submitted scene]

The Server could not find 3DS.CEL in the local path specified, which means that this map has not been correctly pathed for network rendering. To fix the problem, do one of the following:

• If all maps are being shared from a single directory, make sure the directory is still exported with full permissions. See Sharing a Directory.
• Make sure that you have used either the full UNC path name for the bitmaps or that the MAPS directory has been mounted to the same drive letter on each machine. In this case, verify that particular path has been added to the Configure Paths dialog of every server’s local version of 3D Studio MAX or that the particular path was used when assigning bitmaps in the scene to be rendered.
• Verify the bitmaps still reside in the shared directory.

ERR: Object (UVW 1): Sphere01 requires texture coordinates and may not render correctly

ERR: Frame error

Texture coordinates must be applied to the specified object to render it on the server.

ERR: Load Error: Missing DLL’S

Following this error, you will also receive a listing of each of the missing DLLs in the scene. Files needed by the server are not available to render the job. Make sure that all the plug-in DLLs used in a job reside on each of the servers rendering the job.

ERR: Targa - The device is not ready. (0x15)

ERR: Frame error

The server could not write the output file. “Targa” represents the file output type, and will change depending on the output file type you selected. This problem can occur for several reasons:

• If you are running the Server Network Service as an installed NT service, make sure that the user account that the service is logged to has adequate NT permissions. Administrative permissions are recommended. See Creating a Special User Account.
• Check to make sure the target output directory is shared, with both read and write permissions.
• Verify that the path for saving file output in the Render Scene dialog (or the Output Event dialog in Video Post) is set to a valid UNC path name.
• If you are writing to a shared directory mounted locally on each server, verify that the directory is mounted to the same drive letter on each server, and that the file output path is set for that drive letter.

PROBLEM

The Server fails to render a frame and displays the following error:

Rebooting MAX by force due to load timeout.

SUGGESTION

The server has exceeded either the Wait for MAX to Load or Wait for MAX to Render value. This is usually caused by attempting to render large files over the network. Increase these values in the Server Properties dialog.

PROBLEM

When I start the Server in desktop mode I get the following error message in the Server window:

Host [manager name] not found.

SUGGESTION

First verify that the manager’s machine name or IP address is correctly specified in the Server Properties dialog. Next verify that the Manager and Server port numbers are correctly specified in the Manager and Server Properties dialogs. If this does not solve the problem, verify that TCP/IP is correctly configured on all workstations running 3D Studio MAX. See Setting Up TCP/IP.

PROBLEM

When I start the Manager and Server in desktop mode I get the following error message in the Manager window:

Error registering [server name].

SUGGESTION

This error is usually caused by invalid IP Addresses listed in the DNS Service Search Order or the Primary or Secondary WINS Server in the Microsoft TCP/IP dialog. To display this dialog, double-click the Network icon in the Control Panel, select the Protocols tab, and double-click the TCP/IP Protocol. If there are invalid IP Addresses listed in either the DNS or WINS Address panel, remove them and reboot the machine.

PROBLEM

While running the Server in desktop mode I get the following message:

Unknown TCP gibberish from [Manager Name or IP Address]

SUGGESTION

The checksum in the TCP packet does not match the calculated one. You have transmission problems that are caused by a bad line condition, possibly in combination with a bad set of network drivers. Re-submit the job to see if you get a better connection next time and, if not, install network drivers appropriate for your hardware and software version.

PROBLEM

When I start 3DS MAX I get an error message saying TCP/IP is installed incorrectly.

SUGGESTION

Verify that TCP/IP is configured correctly on all workstations running 3D Studio MAX, either as a Server or modeling workstation.

Some systems are sold with a pre-installed version of Windows NT and a non-working TCP/IP installation. Delete the existing TCP/IP protocol and re-install it. This may be faster than troubleshooting a badly installed TCP/IP layer. See Setting Up TCP/IP.

PROBLEM

I can assign a job to a single server only in the Network Job Assignment dialog.

SUGGESTION

If the output of a network-rendering job is an AVI, FLI, FLC, or CEL file or a single user device, the job can be assigned to a single server only. The Network Job Assignment dialog changes, depending on the file output type of a job. For example, if you are network rendering to one of the file formats above, the All and None buttons do not appear and the dialog title bar contains the word “Single.”

If a job that has an AVI, FLI, FLC, or CEL file output type is stopped for any reason (to deactivate it, or because a machine goes down), re-rendering the file restarts at the first frame. Frames cannot cannot be appended later to these file types.

To take advantage of the distribution power of network rendering we suggest you first render to a serier of Targa files. Then use the Targa files as either an animated background in a blank MAX scene, or as an image input event in Video Post and render the sequence out to the desired output type (i.e. AVI).