render window/node window

I’m experiencing something strange with the composite node editor. I’d been working fine for a while, but all of the sudden, when I goto render with composite enabled, the render window always ends up with an empty (black) image.

But it’s weird because the new rendered image shows up in the backdrop in the node window just fine.

I don’t know what I did when to cause it, but it’d be nice to be able to save a composite… All my renderlayers are enabled… composite is enabled… what’s going on here?

ALSO: I indeed have a composite output node that is receiving the composite, as that would naturally be an easy culprit.

Am I crazy for thinking this as strange behavior? Anyone?

Also, it seems to be file related. Tried it on a different workstation and got the same results. I’m getting pretty frustrated with this now :frowning: I’ll post a blend as soon as i can.

Here’s a .blend that shows the symptoms. Maybe it’s something simple, but I am going nuts with trying to figure out what’s going on with this. All I want to do is save a composite, but they only save as black images. But the backdrop in the node editor is fine! wtf.

http://studentweb.eku.edu/mark_ballenger/lightrig3.2.blend

:frowning: Could anyone at least confirm that this happens for them with the file? That would help me get grip with sanity at least.

It was a wretched stray composite output node that was my problem! Somehow I must have duplicated it way outside my workspace in the node window at some point.

For anyone that searches this thread in the future: If you have a problem like this, select “Free Unused” in the node window. It’ll get rid of any unused nodes when you execute a composite.

Geesh, I wish I had thought to do this 3 days ago when this problem started.