Hqueue Configuration with NAS nightmare

[Tylox]

Hi guys, 

i'm "trying" to configure an hq server and client on several machines and it's a nightmare.... when i submit a simulation, the job starts, i see my (for now) 2 clients but every time , the job failed !! I don't even know why and when i look into the report i don't understand where the error is !!! 

I think it's a path problem but i have a NAS for the sim, all the client work and see the NAS, we have backburner since 10 years and it works but in the configuration of the hqserver.ini and the hqclient.ini i don't know what i need to put on the share path, etc....

If someone can help, it would be nice.

Regards.

job_2_diagnostic_information (7).txt

[lukeiamyourfather]

Last time I used HQueue years ago it was a hot mess. I'm sure you could get it working but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. If you have only 2 clients you might try Deadline. It's free for up to 2 clients. After that it's $48 per client per year.

[paranoidx]

You may want to try Deadline, now it's 10 clients free (included instance - split machine self resources), it can request to Hqueue built script inside to track sim and do distributed sim. 

I did set up last year with HQueue, there are job it works, there are none. So because its unstable which cause my creative pull down so heavy then I have to shift to other program. 

I leave here couple of notes that may help other people while they search for information: 

• Disable the service, use hqueue client.bat, 100% works ! 
• Windows machine, map network shared location to Z:\, which is default inside hqueue server.ini so it helps much
• Access Denied error which tell you that current machine use can not access into shared drive, use Windows Credential Manager to add that credential which can access to shared drive
• Sometimes it because the client service can not run well, hqueue client.bat  (100% works)
• When you load Hip to Hqueue: Error: The attempted operation failed > this mean you have to set your project folder with assign to network shared location in $JOB and also in aliases & variables 
• Do not you $HIP for any of your network shared 
• Error: “indie does not support generating disk files”  > production daily build need update
• I will disable Firewall from Windows Defender (but you may want to make sure assign all port relate to Hqueue into inboud/outbound) on all machines
• Host Name sometimes does not work, you may want to double check lookup for that IP by use a command line: nbtstat -a <IP of the Hqueue server machine>, you may see that Host Name not found. My solution is assign IP to all machines rather than doing technical IT network stuff with all the entire farm, you may want to assign it into configuration *.ini file
• In hqserver.ini, this work for me 
  • hqserver.sharedNetwork.path.windows = \\IP\Prj_Dir
    hqserver.sharedNetwork.mount.windows = \\IP\Prj_Dir
• In the ROP setup the path to Hqueue with "\\\" but not only "\\" for Prj_Dir location, all my goodness
• Alembic file will not work through network, you need to add this into Houdini.env at Houdini Home (usually is My Document\Houdni<version>), HOUDINI_ACCESS_METHOD = 2
• Optional, you may want Houdini 18+ write Multipart for EXR by add this into Houdini.env:  HOUDINI_OIIO_EXR = 1
• Output Driver in Hqueue simulation is the name of the cache

And after fighting with this super intelligent Skynet... ah uh no, it's Hqueue, I decide to go naked with Deadline or just simple do each machine render with a hython kick .bat file, that night I sleep well, full blossom flowers but not wake up in midnight just to make sure my render tell me any puzzle to solve until next morning or even worse, lunch.