I have hqueue server and client working on one computer. i can submit jobs and they run and don't fail. I installed hqueue client on a second computer. using the ipadress of the first computer as the server name and the same port 5000. I thought this would work however the second client from the second machine doesn't show up in hqueue. I can ping the first computer from the second computer. using the ip address. Is there another test that will show if my network is setup correctly? what am i missing here?

I got the second client to show up in the hqueue interface by changing the firewall settings the second client is there but it is off line. Status: not available i don't now what to try to wake it up.

If you are using Houdini 18, you have to configure from the web tool, this it here, not in the hqnode.ini file.

Make sure to give access to the service. Go to “services” and find the HQueueClient and set the user and password to enable the service.

Angle, thank you for your response. Since posting this I got my client to wake up. I had to make a firewall rule for the correct port(5000).
However now all jobs sent to the client machine fail with an error that says it cant find the shared folder.
Houdini support sent me an email explaining:
The problem is that Windows services can not use mapped drives. This is a limitation which affects anything the HQueue Client executes. Could you try using full UNC paths instead of the mapped drive paths?

I changed the output picture field in the mantra rop and saved the file with the UNC path and it rendered successfully.

Thanks Nathan for the informative post.
Do you set fireall rules on both the server and client PC? I did so.

You should set firewall rules only on the server. And you have to networm map the shared folder on every client machine. And yes, use UNC paths …

Thanks
I see you had to deal with the networm too. This was a terrible experience on me. It ate all my ethernet cables, a real mess.