Render Nodes crashing Mac 10.9 Mavericks
That Other Persona
Posts: 381
I have Carrara installed on an iMac and a Mac mini. The mini has been used to help render.
Finally upgraded both machine to Mavericks and now cannot render on the mini.
I access the mini wirelessly using Share Screen.
Launch Carrara on both machines (mini has render only
Open Batch Queue.
Clear the list (if anything is there)
Add a file to render
Turn on Enable Network Rendering
This is where it gets funky
If I click Launch, Carrara on the iMac freezes.
If I click Manage Rendering Nodes, several times the app crashes immediately. Twice I actually saw the render node list (correct with the mini) but then Carrara freezes.
I had 10 crashes before I posted. In the interim, I relaunched apps on both machines, even restarted both machines but still had the problem.
Any ideas?
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It worked once, without my doing anything, but there was a delay which had not happened under 10.8.
Something is not completely stable. I will keep watching this and see.
Anybody else having problems?
Have you tried other scenes?
I've tried two, both individually and together. Once or twice it has worked. Often the render node sits there, available, enabled, but not doing anything. Or it crashes.
Edit:
Tried another scene.
Launch render and it starts rendering on the local host, showing the mini as available; the mini is not rendering. Pause causes a complete freeze and hang.
Wait a while and the render node quits unexpectedly on the mini.
All the scenes that I have tried I know worked under 10.8.
I tried deleting Carrara on the mini and reinstalling (I just copy the render node folder from Carrara on the iMac) Didn't help.
While the render is running and the local machine is processing, the other node sits there. If I click on Manage Rendering Nodes, there is a very long delay and then the screen appears saying the node is present.
Aborting the render then causes another long hang.
Ran a simple character render last night without the second Mac to help out. After ten minutes the iMac had rendered the video and I went to save it as H264. Kernel Panic.
Tried render as QuickTime: no luck.
Tried render as sequenced images: no luck.
Changed both applications to 32-bit app: no luck.
If I start a render and it jams up, if I then quit the node, the main machine will continue rendering after a short pause.
I have tried everything I can think of, but no luck. Now I will wait fro Daz support to get back to me.
I have a second mini on order (placed the day before problems started) to help out with rendering; I hope this is sorted out soon!
No real feedback from Daz, yet, other than to acknowledge they have received my question and passed it along to somebody.
Has anybody else run into this problem?
I was doing a search and found this old thread. Did Daz reply to the Rendernode question?
I am able to run C8.5 Rendernode on Mavericks on a 2012 Macbook Air i5 as the node. The host is a 2011 Macbook Pro i7 Quadcore. My experience with Rendernode has been very inconsistent results. In 8.5 I've had more issues than previously using Carrara 8 and Snow Leopard.
Rendernode will crash with large scenes, or freeze up. Or it will say "available" but the node never kicks in. Other times it works fine. I have been able to get two nodes working but then sometimes one node just quits in the middle of a job. The other node machines I have are 2012 Mac Mini i5 Dual Cores. So in Carrara 8.5 Rendernode sometimes works and sometimes not.
I switched all my Macs to SSD hoping that would solve the issues but that perhaps created a new problem with Carrara 8.5. I did this search to see if anyone using a Mac and SSD has freezing issues during renders. Sometimes just using one Mac a 300 frame animation will freeze up around 40 frames. Need to force quit and restart and start process over.
I never had this happen before so not sure it is a SSD issue, Carrara 8.5 issue or Mavericks issue. The crashing seems to be computer memory related but that is just a guess. 16GB RAM on the Mac.
Anyone have thoughts on this?
Daz is aware of a problem with the render nodes under Mavericks but they do not know when a fix will be out. Haven't heard back from them in a while so I hope the fix is near. [Oddly, the render node (RenderQueue?) for Poser works fine; Daz did things a different way, I guess]
Odd about the crashes you are getting. My machines right now have Fusion drives. I have a Mac Pro with all flash on order but it will get here some time next month (early or late I have no idea as Apple is being extremely vague about it).
I'll render a long animation tonight to see if I have any crashes.
Is your file complex? I usually work with fairly simple stuff so I don't know if I am just not taxing the system that much or not.
Thanks for the reply T.O.P.
My main machine is a 2011 Macbook Pro i7 and a Macbook Air and 2 Mac Minis that I use for render nodes. Its hard to find other Mac Carrara users here to troubleshoot since most are PC users. And I would surmise based on past experience you may never hear back from Daz.
I am able to get Rendernode working both host and nodes using Carrara 8.5 so if I can help you troubleshoot glad to help. One temporary workaround you may try is using Carrara 8.1 as your renderer. Carrara 8.1 Rendernodes will run on Mavericks but you need to get Carrara 8.1 working as the host app. Carrara 8.1 was crashing in Mtn Lion but worked as a Rendernode host as long as you don't try to manipulate content. Have not tried this in Mavericks yet. Use C8.5 as your build tool, 8.1 as your renderer.
The issue I have is C8.5 in Mavericks freezing up in the middle of rendering whether one machine solo or using rendernodes. I will install Carrara on my node machines to see if the problem is my new Sandisk SSD. My scene is very basic, a Poser character with a BVH or Aniblocks on a plane with lighting that runs about 5 seconds.
I use Poser, C4D and Lightwave on Mavericks and have no issues except with Carrara. But I like Carrara for animation work so need it to work properly.
When you get the Mac Pro, please post some of your experiences using it and with Rendernode. I plan to install Carrara on a Mac Pro at a local Apple Store to test it out so I can see the performance/stability before buying one.
render as uncompressed image sequence, there is no 64bit quicktime support. not daz fault but apples'
Changed this post:
Render node worked today perfectly for an hour then went back to its old antics. Freeze. Work. Crash. Crash. Freeze. Nothing. I then I gave up.
I am really looking forward to the new Mac Pro and will certainly put it to work and will post some results here.
Note that the nMP has the dual GPUS, but that Carrara does not utilize them. I plan to create animations in Carrara and then edit, combine do other stuff to many of them in Final Cut Pro X, thus I ordered the D700s.
That and I know of one 3D app for Mac where the developer also ordered a nMP hex with D700s and announced that he will start work on harnessing the GPUS for rendering; he hopes to have it working sometime this year.
Hopefully, Daz will follow suit and have Carrara and Daz3D make use of the GPUs without need for any 3rd party renderer. I want an easy to use system that is fast.
render nodes would really help with that.
Can you say which software you are referring to? When I searched extensively last month I only found GPU software that was relying on CUDA enabled cards (not what's in the MacPro).
dotbat: thanks, yea QT 10 was "converting" every output .mov file then I read about AVFoundation and ProRes422 compatibility which I believe is related to your 64bit point but I don't fully understand the technical aspects. Carrara would output a .mov file that gets "converted" but I should try the ProRes settings to see if that helps. Mac freezes during render whether sequenced image or mov file. I tried various seq img output types same result.
T.O.P.: sounds like we are having comparable issues with render node, what you describe happens to me too. Incidentally the freezing seems to come and go as I was able to output a mov and img seq without that happening. Seems there are some rendering stability issues on Mac with Carrara 8.5 that I never had using Carrara 8.1. BTW I also use FCPX 10.1.1 same workflow.
It would be interesting to try doing a 4K animation in Carrara on a Mac Pro. Need to determine what MacPro config works best for Carrara, Lightwave, C4D and FCPX. I will install my apps on the Apple Store demo units to try before I buy... BTW my local Torrance, CA (LA area) MacMall Store has two in their inventory for sale so these are finally shipping out.
The app is Cheetah3D (Mac only); in the forums, the developer states he ordered a new Mac Pro with D700 GPUs and that he intends to make the app use the GPUs sometime this year, hopefully.
It sounds promising; hopefully his efforts will lead others into doing the same. But you have to know that lots of pros will be buying the Mac Pro, so if you want pro users who use Macs to buy your apps, they will probably need to support the dual GPUs.
3DPixLA: I tried a couple of animation renders yesterday on one machine and had no problems even at over 1000 frames. Are you sure the checkbox for Network Rendering is off? I tried the network as I said, but won't again until Daz comes out with a fix or new version (9, anybody?) that has the network rendering working.
Regarding the MacPro: the sweet spot is the 6-core., especially considering price and general performance. The 8 and 12 core configs are just too expensive and have the trade off in single CPU speed. From other posters , I have gathered that the 6-core is, for some tasks like rendering, 12% faster than my 2012 iMac. For other tasks, it is slower than the iMac. For people with older machines, it is an easier choice. For me, I plan to use the iMac as the display for the MacPro, so I will have the best of both. When network rendering returns, I will also have a pretty fast dual system with 10 cores.
FCPX has been updated to specifically take advantage of the GPUs, so tasks in FCPX are much faster on the MP than even the latest iMac.
Once my machine arrives (was told today it might be March) I will post some testing results.