I'm trying to launch my houdini indie renders in the AWS cloud, but they are failing with the errors at the end of this message:

I'm using Mac OS 10.10.3, and Houdini Inde 14.0.444.
In the HQueue Render node/Cloud/Machine Type, I had selected:

1 EC2 Compute Units, 1.7GB, 160GB HDD.

Please find attached a very simple test scene file of a cube moving from left to right.
Also find attached a text file of the output errors.
Note that in the error log, it appears to be using Houdini 14.0.248 on the AWS side, as apposed to the latest 14.0.444 build.
Any assistance would be much appreciated.

thanks

The Houdini 14.0.248 environment has been initialized.
shopvisible: can't find clerk OGL
shopvisible: can't find clerk OGL2
PROGRESS: 0/1
mantra Version 14.0.248 (Compiled on Feb 18 2015)
Generating Image: /mnt/projects/jeroenlapre_indie.cloudTest.v001/render/indie.cloudTest.v001.mantra.0001.exr (1280x720)
Plane: Cf+Af (16-bit float)
1879: Fatal error: Segmentation fault (sent by pid 0)
– TRACEBACK BEGIN –
Traceback from mantra 14.0.248 (Compiled on linux-x86_64-gcc4.4):
stackTrace() <libHoudiniUT.so>
signalCallback(UTsignalHandlerArg) <libHoudiniUT.so>
UT_Signal::UT_ComboSignalHandler:perator()(int, siginfo*, void*) const <libHoudiniUT.so>
UT_Signal::processSignal(int, siginfo*, void*) <libHoudiniUT.so>
_L_unlock_15 <libpthread.so.0>
VRAY_Scene::renderThread(VRAY_Scene::vray_RenderThreadData&) <libHoudiniRAY.so>
VRAY_Scene::doRender() <libHoudiniRAY.so>
VRAY_Scene::render() <libHoudiniRAY.so>
VRAY_SceneIO::doRender(CMD_Args&) <libHoudiniRAY.so>
CMD_Manager::runCommand(char*) <libHoudiniPRM.so>
CMD_Manager::internalExecute(char const*) <libHoudiniPRM.so>
CMD_Manager::processInput(CMD_Source*, char const*) <libHoudiniPRM.so>
CMD_Manager::internalSendInput(char const*, bool) <libHoudiniPRM.so>
CMD_Manager::sendInputNoLock(char const*, bool) <libHoudiniPRM.so>
VRAY_Scene::load(UT_IStream&) <libHoudiniRAY.so>
std::basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char> >::uflow() <mantra-bin>
__libc_start_main <libc.so.6>
std::basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char> >::uflow() <mantra-bin>
– TRACEBACK END –
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/opt/hfs14.0.248/houdini/scripts/hqueue/hq_render_from_hip.py”, line 4, in <module>
hqlib.callFunctionWithHQParms(hqlib.renderFromHip)
File “/opt/hfs14.0.248/houdini/scripts/hqueue/hqlib.py”, line 1848, in callFunctionWithHQParms
return function(**kwargs)
File “/opt/hfs14.0.248/houdini/scripts/hqueue/hqlib.py”, line 1011, in renderFromHip
_invokeRopAndCatchErrors(rop, project_name, frame, True)
File “/opt/hfs14.0.248/houdini/scripts/hqueue/hqlib.py”, line 441, in _invokeRopAndCatchErrors
raise e
hou.OperationFailed: The attempted operation failed.
Error: Command Exit Code: 139

I found a work around. If I change the Machine Type to:

20 EC2 Compute Units, 7.0GB RAM, 4 x 420GB HDD

Then it works!

Would anyone know why this would be the case?

thanks

Hello,

I was able to reproduce the problem and switching to 4 EC2 Compute Units, 7.5GB RAM, 2 x 420GB HDD fixed it for me.

I suspect that Houdini has grown to the point where the 1.7GB RAM instances are no longer enough to run simple render tests.

Cheers,
Rob

It turns out that the problem is actually caused by the number of CPU. In your mantra node, the Render -> Use Max Processors parameter is set to “Use All Processors Except One”, and in “1 EC2 Compute Units”, there's only one CPU. This means no CPU gets used, and mantra wasn't handling that, so it crashed. For now, you should be able to workaround the problem by setting the option back to “Use All Processors”, which is the default.