Hello all,

I'll admit I'm still very new to Houdini, so I'm likely missing something very basic here.

I've managed to get my very small farm working setup like so:

RenderNode01 (windows 7 pro - connected via ethernet)
RenderNode02 (windows 7 pro - connected via ethernet)
RenderManager (windows 7 pro - wifi- only runs the Hqueue server, no rendering)
NAS (Synology DiskStation) - (latest updates - connected via ethernet) with the following drives mapped

1. G = CurrentProjects
   
2. R = resources files (textures, sims, etc)
   
3. Z = render frame output
   

Workstation (Windows 10 home - wifi)

The workstation has a local drive called G and R that are mirrored on my NAS. The idea being that I need to work while I'm off network occasionally (it's a beefy p51 laptop) so I thought it'd be smart to have it pull from local resources whilst working/rendering while the render nodes pull from the NAS that get's updated automatically. All the drive labels match. For example the local G drive on my workstation is mapped as “G” on my render nodes.

I've set my $JOB variable to another network drive called “Z:”

I can get into and read/write into all of these drives using Windows Explorer without any issue!

However, when it comes to render time, things get strange.
The two rendernodes work flawlessly! They pull textures from the mapped NAS drive, the hip files from G, and write out to whatever directory I've specified in my Mantra out parameter on the network Z drive.

My local workstation however- not so much. It was able to write to Z but always in a strange place- not the same directory as the rendernodes. That was when I can “create intermediate directories” ticked on. So, it would render but not pull any textures or resources outside of the Hip file but the frames would complete and I could see them. I unchecked this and now Hqueue says they've rendered but I can't find them!

I suspect it may be a permissions issue. I followed the AMAZING tutorial PDF from sebkaine. That's how I got my nodes working so quickly but they're both windows 7. I've followed everything I can find but to no luck!

Lastly- I've noticed that if I open the ROP in Houdini and open the floating file chooser I can't make new folders in any of the network drives. Local folder no problem.

Very very tempted to wipe the damn thing and go to windows 7 pro.

Anyone have any similar experience/solutions?

Thanks!

So I think this isn't an issue with Houdini or Hqueue but rather one with Windows 10.
When I log into my laptop my mapped drives show up immediately but when I got to my network view my Synology drive doesn't show up! My other machines show up just fine (and I can explore them without issue)- the Synology drive is the only one that doesn't pop up.

Interestingly enough, logging into my render nodes I can see everyone on the network, including my Windows 10 workstation and the Synology drive.

The synology drive isn't doing anything special- not using any of the Synology services or apps. Tempted to use the old laptop hosting the hqueue server to also host the share drives.

Also, I've made a shortcut for .bat file to manually start the client service on my workstation. It doesn't seem to do anything!

So after about a week of fighting this and some very patient emails from the good people at SideFX support, I've finally solved it!

To be fair I'm not entirely sure what fixed it- kind of went with the nuclear option…

At any rate- I tried everything I could find and nothing worked. Using the .bat shortcut, changing the login options for the HQueue Client Service, nothing worked! Uninstalled and then installed both Houndini and Hqueue (latest version). Nope, no luck!

So I wiped my machine. Reset it!

Upon getting Windows 10 back online the only thing I installed was Houdini and Hqueue… it failed.
The good news is that this time I was able to see my NAS drive in my Windows Explorer network view- whereas before only a few PC were showing up.

I decided to try the batch script- no luck.
Lastly I thought I'd try changing the logon properties of the Hqueue Client to my local account…

IT WORKED!!

I think one or two things are at play here.
For starters, I think something got messed up in my Windows network settings to make my NAS dissappear from my network view (because I could manually go to “\\NAS\folder\folder” with full read/write permissions).

Secondly, on my previous install of Windows I was using a Microsoft account, not a local logon. In this new install I disabled all of that and forced it create a local account specific to that machine and not tied to the Microsoft stuff. That's how my two render machines are setup (only option with Windows 7 anyway) and they've worked from day one with Hqueue.

Hopefully this sticks- it'd be quite the pain to have the reinstall Windows every few months!