USB seems to be performing a lot better. The Macs were still running fine this morning. Strange how the Linux nodes have never caused this much trouble

My problems still continue and I'm somewhat at a loss to explain them. One of the issues is a problem in exrTrader

- SNC4 loops the same frame over and over again because exrTrader defaults to writing out frmXXX files, but LW seems to (for me) output frmXXXX files. The dummy saver and the image filter saver don't agree, so SNC believes the node has crashed and requests the same frame to render. I'm not sure if this is an SDK limitation - Mike?

My more serious issue is that the Mac Mini, serving as a general workhorse (file server, LWSN node) stops responding to any fileshare activity after around 3-6 hours. It's wired into the router and still responds to VNC requests, but other than that it's dead - the machine actually won't reboot either in these situations, needing a hard power off. Commonly, the last line to be seen on the terminal is exrTrader throwing an exception because the file data cannot be written (to a local drive!). The MBP LWSN render naturally wedges at the same point because the location is no longer responding over the network. Argh.

I'm scratching my head over this whole thing. I thought a wired connection would resolve this, but it seems to be a more fundamental problem. I'm going to try a lengthy render without exrTrader just in case. I'll also try mode 3 LWSN renders on both machines to see if it is provoked that way. I also need to see if the firewire interface on the main storage drive is playing with me - moving the drive over to a USB port may help....I need to check. I'm halfway wondering if there's something being provoked by the drive going to sleep and not responding in a timely manner (the drive does this itself - OS X's energy savings on the Mac Mini are all switched off, except for display sleep).

*mutter*

I'm not sure if this is an OS X oddity either.

 

If I use any other saver other than the dummy saver, the same scene works just fine (and is rendering out right now). It had me very puzzled to work out what was going on - especially since no image saving was taking place

ScreamerNet Controller 4.09c

He recently added support for your dummy saver. I'm slightly confused though because it doesn't even get as far as trying to save an image.

Interestingly, I'm seeing nodes completely wedge with the dummy saver applied as well as the image filter. Just after the 'rendering frame' line is shown, all CPUs spin at 100% and then nothing more happens. I've had CPUs churning for a combined total of days of render time before I caught this :/

Wuh? Oh. Hmmm.

Congratulations!



(That's one down!)

No longer free. $95, with included AfterEffects CS3 OpenEXR plugins. Oddly, the sourcecode for the AE plugins is available off the site for download.

$95 for what should have been in PS to start with, and AE. *mutter*

Hmmm. I'm logged in, but the web site keeps telling me that the exrTrader download is only for logged in users. *puzzled*

I've tried via www.db-w.com and www.exrtrader.com.

Having just given in to the Apple Store and now waiting for a MacBook Pro to appear, I'm curious whether a Universal Binary release for Mac is planned. It would certainly be very helpful, assuming I can find enough cash down the back of the sofa in the next few months....