Troubleshooting export or source media caching issues (Backburner / Wiretap)

[Robert.Adam]

Export jobs rely on proper communication between Smoke and several of its background services:

• Stone+Wire, the service in charge of managing the media cache storage.
• Backburner Manager, the service in charge of queuing the export /cache jobs.
• Backburner Server, the service in charge of actually processing the jobs.
• Wiretap Gateway, the service that provides file access to the export folder.
• Wiretap Server, the service that provides the Gateway and Backburner with access to Smoke's project and library metadata, and therefore to the sequence to be exported.

These components communicate with each other via the workstation's network. There are cases where communication between any of these components can break. 

Here are a few resources that can help you identify the point of failure and fix the issue:

-> Here is a Knowledge Base article with several tips on investigating and troubleshooting export/cache issues:

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/smoke/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Export-jo...l

-> Here's a great troubleshooting guide put together by Mike Parsons:

http://forums.autodesk.com/autodesk/attachments/autodesk/area-b173/20510/1/mikes_backburner_guide.pd...

-> Many troubleshooting procedures start by inspecting the logs. Here's a forum thread that explains where the various log files are. There's also an app you can download to view Smoke-related logs: 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/General-Discussion/Viewing-Smoke-Logs/td-p/4292984/jump-to/first-unrea...

If you still don't manage to get export / cache working after going through the above procedures, please open a NEW thread on the forum, describe the issue in as much detail as possible and post the Smoke app and shell logs as well as the Backburner Server and Backburner Manager logs.

If you are an Autodesk Subscription customer, please open a Technical Support Request.

Best regards,

Robert.