"Skip Assignment to Server" - Backburner

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I just started getting this error message on backburner. 

A server will join the manager and then dialog in the Manager will say...

"Successful registration from MachineX"

"Skip assignment to server MachineX"

I can't tell why, and I can't find any reference to this error anywhere at all. 

Thanks,

Dan

[Anonymous]

I have the same problem. 

I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out a solution. Half of my render farm is down because of this.

I've tried restarting the manger, the server, deleting the server from the manger, deleting the backburner files from the server and reconfiguring it, etc.... And it still does it.

I'm running Max 2015 with backburner 2015, all updated, all running on Win7. 

Jeff

[CAMedeck · Accepted solution]

Are you 100% sure all of the machines are running the same Service Packs?

If you open up your Backburner Monitor, in the lower left corner is a rollout for Plugins.  If you expand it, and it shows more than one entry for your version of Max, this usually means the machines in one group are running a different Service Pack than the machines in the other group.

[Anonymous]

Most do not have a service pack, just the standard the Max 2015 (product version 17.0)

The manager has SP1, and so does 1 server. The rest do not have a service pack.

They are all running Max 2015. Which is what shows in the version list you mentioned.

Jeff

[Anonymous]

I can confirm that they're all using the same service packs - 2014 Design SP5. 

It's so odd - it seems almost arbitrary. 

[lmpka]

I was getting a similar thing where the job had originally been assigned to a group of machines, but I later reassigned the job back to all servers (I thought) and deleted the group.  After "manager" went down unexpectedly from a power outage, and everthing was restarted, I got the "Skip Assignment" message.  I went into the job and edited the server group which was still showing for the old group (I just returned it to blank).  As soon as I did that, the manager sent a job to the machine that it previously was skipping.

I don't know if that's your situation, but maybe it will help you with your troubleshooting.

[lmpka]

I spoke too soon.  Now it's skipping a different machine. (?!)

[felix]

Yes, I can report the same issue aswell. It seems like some machines would somehow drop out a renderjob over time. Without the possibility to assign them to the job once again. Even restarting the renderjob from the monitor or restarting the BB renderservers doesn´t do the trick, so the only way would be to resend the job to the manager from the original scene. This is not always the case but often appears towards a later point of the job itself and it´s not because there are only so and so many frames left (currently working with 49 renderservers here), so that missing renderpower can sometimes be weighing. Fortunately they still accept new renderjobs, so I can continue working with successive scenes/jobs to be rendered.

Edit: Yes, they are all using the same SP.

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

Just been wrestling with this too after my farm suddenly - after rendering 470 frames of a 480 frame job - deciding to use only one server and skipping the remaining ones.

However! I found that changing the job priority to 'Critical' (right click job and go to 'Change Priority', or Ctrl + p, and check the 'Critical' box) engages all the servers and now they're all beavering away again.

Just been looking into Thinkbox's Deadline.  Feature rich and ideal but cost is prohibitive for small studios like us so a no goer for now at least.

Hope this works for you.

D

[Anonymous]

> I found that changing the job priority to 'Critical' (right click job and go to 'Change Priority', or Ctrl + p, and check the 'Critical' box) engages all the servers and now they're all beavering away again.

Yes!  This did it! Thank you!