Having a look at pdg and tractor after a few months away from the farm. We're running it at a university, so using the educational license, saving .hipnc files.

After a few hours of shouting at the pdg, tractor, our IT guy, the universe, managed to get pdg to at least start on the farm, but then erroring out. Looks like it's assuming it'll find hip files:

*** Starting: /opt/hfs17.5.327/bin/hython /mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/pdgtemp/46248/scripts/top.py --report none --hip /mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/farm_render_v04.hip --toppath /obj/topnet1 [SG update_context_variables] Ignoring update context variables, hdefereval not defined, most likely you are running a job in the farm and this automation is not needed. Loading .hip file /mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/farm_render_v04.hip. Cannot find file /mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/farm_render_v04.hip Traceback (most recent call last): File "/mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/pdgtemp/46248/scripts/top.py", line 177, in hou.hipFile.load(hip_norm, ignore_load_warnings=True) File "/opt/hfs17.5.327/houdini/python2.7libs/hou.py", line 35858, in load return _hou.hipFile_load(*args, **kwargs) hou.OperationFailed: The attempted operation failed. Unable to open file: /mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/farm_render_v04.hip

That last line should be looking for a hipnc, not a hip. Going with mostly defaults, using $HIP and $HIPNAME on the rop fetch and the scheduler.

If I look at the command that tractor is being told to run, it ends in .hip:

/opt/hfs17.5.327/bin/hython %D(/mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/pdgtemp/46248/scripts)/pdgtrcmd.py –norpc –setenv PDG_TEMP %D(/mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/pdgtemp/46248) –setenv PDG_RESULT_SERVER %D() –setenv PDG_DIR %D(/mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt) –setenv PDG_SCRIPTDIR %D(/mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/pdgtemp/46248/scripts) –setenv PDG_JOBID_VAR %D(TR_ENV_JID) %D(/opt/hfs17.5.327/bin/hython$PDG_EXE) %D(/mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt/pdgtemp/46248/scripts)/top.py –report none –hip %D(/mnt/ala/mav/2019/sandbox/studio3/Tech/matt)/farm_render_v04.hip –toppath /obj/topnet1

Temp local fix,

$HFS/houdini/pdg/types/schedulers/prtractor.py

line 556, change


to


And on to the next weird pdg issue…

Sorry about that…but glad to see you've found a work-around. I've logged Bug 98923 to address this.