Problem with NETRENDER: How to start a job

Hi guys,

I’ve recently discovered the Blender Net-Renderer add-on and I decided to network the machines at home to build a mini render-farm. I was successful setting the Master and enabling the service; I was also successful connecting the Slaves to the Master and sending the job(s) from the Client to the Master. At this stage, all seems to work beautifully and the job is featuring in the Master Monitor page, but it is featuring as queued (see screenshot). How can I un-queue the job and actually execute it? I must be missing something obvious: I have everything ready to go, but I cannot find the GO button anywhere!


I have checked three tutorial online and I could not find an explanation of how to actually execute a queued render job; in all the tutorials, the system just rendered the job; but I cannot find the trigger anywhere; I thought at one stage that the rendering would start automatically, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Also I found this add-on very scantily documented; is there any official documentation?

I am using Blender 2.75a.

Am I missing something obvious? Can anybody help? (I really need the render farm up and running)

Thanks in advance.

Try deleting tags on Slave (Master); press Slave refresh button and see on Info window if there is green “Master server found”.
Render job is dispatched as soon as you send it to Master.
I get “blendfile.blend” listed under job name in browser; you have just “LargeBuilding” and no extension. Have you saved blend file?

Hi Eppo,

Thanks a million for your answer. The reason why I don’t have extension is because I named the project (it only shows the extension when the job is not named). Yes, the file is saved. I don’t have any problem dispatching to the Master, that works beautifully and instantly. I can also add other jobs and it works. But once everything is ready, the queue just sits there and I don’t find any way to actually start the queue. This is my problem.

Is there any way to tell the system “Start processing the queue”? or does it happen automatically?

Once again, thank you for your answer.

Sept

Hi,
as i understand (and see on one host’s test bed) Master dispatches job as soon as it is received, job starts automatically.
Try start Slave(s) again after Master has received the job. See if there are no IP problems or firewall which prevents Slaves from receiving tasks.

Thanks Eppo. No, the firewall is OK, all the blender services are allowed without restriction. Your comment in your last post, however, made me think that maybe I need to actually save the blend again; that maybe the master needs this information refreshed; what I am currently doing is opening the file which is already saved and then the problem happens; I thought that maybe I need to re-save it for that session, un-intuitive as it sounds. And that seemed to resolve the issue.

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond and for your great suggestions.

Kind Regards.

Sept

Good to hear you’re going, good luck!