Troubleshooting VRED render issues

This guide will explain how to run VRED as if you were the Deadline Worker. This allows you to isolate render problems from the environment Deadline puts VRED into for rendering to see if the render issue problem persists.

If we do not reproduce this issue while running the following steps we know the render issue is caused by Deadline Worker application. If it is not then we focus on the scene file or the render computer itself. VRED presents a unique challenge as we dynamically create a Python script for every task that must be fetched. In other application plugins we’re able to copy and paste the command Deadline builds without the extra steps.

The steps here use Windows paths, but the same steps apply on a Linux render computer:

• First we need a copy of the script used for rendering. To do this, requeue the job that fails and after a Worker creates a failing task report mark the Worker disabled from the Monitor.
  • • First become a power user from the Tools menu at the top of the Monitor.
      • Being a power user allows you make configuration changes to the farm as a whole.
    • Right click the Worker and choose 'Disable'.
      • We do this to preserve the Worker's temporary directory as we'll need to pull a file from it.
• From a task report find the line starting with 'Full Command'.
  In this example case, that line is:

2023-10-10 16:07:17:  0: INFO: Full Command: "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\VREDPro-16.0\Bin\WIN64\VREDPro.exe" "C:/ProgramData/Thinkbox/Deadline10/workers/worker-name-goes-here/jobsData/6525d8cd0c7423a9f8e261e9/test-file.vpb" "C:/ProgramData/Thinkbox/Deadline10/workers/worker-name-goes-here/jobsData/6525d8cd0c7423a9f8e261e9/thread0_tempF8Fgq0/VRED_RenderScript.py" -nogui

• Go to the C:/ProgramData/Thinkbox/Deadline10/workers/worker-name-goes-here/jobsData/ directory on the render node. It’s important we test on the render node that the job failed on, in case this is a local configuration issue. Within it is a folder the Worker uses as a temporary working space for jobs being rendered. Inside it or in one of its sub-folders will be VRED_RenderScript.py. Make a copy of that file on the render node and make a note of where.
• • The VRED_RenderScript.py is the file that is written dynamically for each submitted job.

With the executable path, the scene file and that script you can now impersonate the Worker on a command prompt:

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\VREDPro-16.0\Bin\WIN64\VREDPro.exe" "\path\to\test-file.vpb" "\path\to\VRED_RenderScript.py" -nogui

• Check the resulting output for errors or warnings. If the render succeeds without issue, make a copy of the text log - it will help the support team find out what is going wrong.
• Re-enable the Worker that was disabled in step 1.a by right clicking the Worker and choosing ‘Enable’.

If that still fails then the issue is not due to the Deadline Worker. Make sure that this scene works outside of Deadline when run on the render computer. If the issue does persist, please contact AWS Thinkbox support and we’ll help figure out what’s going wrong.