Mantra Render to Disk Stops Randomly

[evanrudefx]

Hey,

I am rendering to disk a 400 frame ocean simulation. The ocean mesh and foam particles are cached out. I hit render to disk, and it will randomly stop rendering. No error. It even still has render dialog up. However, the file size on frame it is "rendering" currently doesn't change and there is no mantra checkpoint. It just stays sits and does nothing. I have to keep starting the job again and again. Once I start it again it keeps rendering till it randomly stops. What could cause that? This has happened to me before on other  simulations.

 

Thanks.

[Guest tar]

First thing to check is by turning up the verbosity and using hbatch to render. That both adds render info and takes away the GUI part.

[evanrudefx]

30 minutes ago, marty said:

First thing to check is by turning up the verbosity and using hbatch to render. That both adds render info and takes away the GUI part.

Thanks mate, I will look into this. 

[merlino]

Sometimes you can have a read error loading the cache, you can try selecting "no geometry" instead of "report error" at "missing frame". That way it will be rendering your frame without your geo, so you must pay attention later.

[J_R_Boddie]

Render in the Backgrond seemed to mostly fix this issue for me.  It still failed once, though, and now I just render in smaller chunks--four 100-frame sessions, for example.

 

[evanrudefx]

Thanks all for the suggestions.

[evanrudefx]

3 hours ago, merlino said:

Sometimes you can have a read error loading the cache, you can try selecting "no geometry" instead of "report error" at "missing frame". That way it will be rendering your frame without your geo, so you must pay attention later.

I never saw this before setting before. I believe this was exactly what I needed. thanks. I tried it, and it rendered the frame with out the geo. Must be because the network location to where the cache is located is causing trouble.

Edited August 9, 2017 by ejr32123

[Guest tar]

6 hours ago, ejr32123 said:

I never saw this before setting before. I believe this was exactly what I needed. thanks. I tried it, and it rendered the frame with out the geo. Must be because the network location to where the cache is located is causing trouble.

Can you send that in as RFE to SideFX. It seems that a better failsafe or error message would help many people.

[merlino]

Good idea the RFE

Another option is to manage that with thinkbox deadline, for one (and maybe two) pc is free. And you can also manage dependencies and so on ... it's really useful for me

Edited August 9, 2017 by merlino

[evanrudefx]

I just noticed I am also getting another error. It says error writing data to image device then it stays stuck on the same frame and I have to send it again. What would cause this? Seems weird considering if I send it again it works. Also, why wouldn't it either try again or move to next frame?

[Guest tar]

There is nothing that says Mantra or Houdini can't be deadlocking. You really should send this stuff into SideFX to fix.

https://sidefx.com/changelog/?journal=&categories=&body=deadlock&version=&build_0=&build_1=&show_versions=on&show_compatibility=on&items_per_page=

[evanrudefx]

Thanks again for help/suggestions

 

[alldin]

I have the same issue here, my scene just stops randomly to render and does not proceed with the mantra checkpoint file.
So i hope to find some solution aswell here!