Backburner Manager Unable to Connect

[Gary_Leonardo]

Hi.

I have just installed Max2023 onto a new Windows 10 PC and want to use Backburner (as I have done since Max2.5).

Running the Manager I get the error message:

Unable to connect to (IP address) : A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond. (0x274c).

After 10 copies of this message:

Unable to make client connection to the local manager

The Backburner server cannot find the manager, even though they are on the same PC.

Any advice greatly received. (I am old and do not understand computer acronyms or protocols so baby steps please!)

[CAMedeck]

An error like that is usually due to a firewall.  There's a piece of software that tries to block unauthorized access to your machine, and you'll need to unblock 3ds Max.  Is this a personal computer, or a work computer?  Or rather, is this something you can have IT do for you or will you be doing it yourself?

[Diffus3d]

I've gotten a similar error when it was looking at a different network connection than what I was using.   Or, maybe this article can help.  

Best Regards,

[Gary_Leonardo]

Hi, Thanks for the reply.

I had an idea it would involve a firewall problem, its a company computer and security is a one size fits all iron fist. I have no control over it and will have to contact my IT department. I'm having problems with other software that need online connection for licensing etc.

[Gary_Leonardo]

Thanks for the info. I will try that with the server but it is the manager that I am having the main problem with. Both are on the same PC.

[Diffus3d]

Understood, perhaps they are configured differently.  Worth a look.  

Best Regards,

[CAMedeck]

Gary, I'm curious how you are connecting your Manager and Server.  Are you using your' machine's IP address, the computer name, or just plugging in 'localhost' for each?  

I know someone who used computer name for years to connect to the manager, then their IT department made some changes to the network and their farm died.  He tried using IP instead, and it worked fine.  

[Gary_Leonardo]

I've tried a combination of all identification methods as I know IP addresses can sometimes be changed. The problem is with the manager not being able to start properly? Screen shot attached.

[CAMedeck]

I wish I had an answer for you, but troubleshooting these connections can be difficult.  I'm not sure what else to recommend for you at this point.

We recently invested in Pulze Render Manager.  With Backburner, we had one physical computer that was divided into two virtual machines.  One of them would never work with Backburner no matter what we tried.  It would connect, then drop, then connect again, and eventually just drop off the farm completely.  Now that we've got Pulze running, both machines have been working just fine with network rendering.  We're still getting accustomed to the changes in workflow, but we can already tell this is way more robust than BB.  

[Diffus3d]

Looks like the outbound connections from the manager are blocked.  It's accepting incoming pings (thus the failed connection) but can't send the outgoing ping.   Because of that, the server can't find a manager.  

It might be something you have to unblock in both 3rd party firewalls and the built in windows firewall.  Or possibly a hardware firewall or switch is blocking traffic on that port or IP address in a certain direction.  Certainly an issue for IT. 

Best Regards,

[Gary_Leonardo · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the info, I will pass it on to my IT department. Hopefully they can resolve the problem

Regards

Gary

[Gary_Leonardo]

Still having not resolved this issue, my IT department have asked if I can find out the answer to their questions, as follows:

How does the programme + manager communicate? e.g. what protocol / ports need to be whitelisted for this to communicate.

Can we obtain any logs / do any troubleshooting to see where this is failing?

Can anyone help shed any light on this?

Any help appriciated.

[Diffus3d]

The user guide is a bit old, but I believe it would have the info you are looking for.   Pretty sure it communicates via UDP and prefers IPv4, but it's been a while.   And here is an article about finding and reading the logs.  

Best Regards,

[darawork]

Hi,

We also run Pulze, it's bulletproof, and cheap.

Sorry I wasn't more active in this thread, truth was that I was surprised to read 'Backburner' initially.
I have never even tried to use it once, because of all the bad press maybe. 
It just always seemed primeval and complicated to me. No offense to it.

Cough/ https://www.pulze.io/products/render-manager

Regards 🙂

[Gary_Leonardo]

Hi. Thanks for the info. I tried installing the trial version of this but it doesn't run either. Can't find the PC its installed on! Must be a fundamental problem with the PC. So frustrating.

regards

Gary

[CAMedeck]

A few things to know about Pulze Render Manager.  It should be installed on at least one machine that is not part of rendering jobs, and this machine should be set as your Primary Distributor (basically the Manager).  It allows you to set Processor Affinity on your nodes (or when you enter Node Mode from your workstation), which should never be set to 100%.  Always leave one or two cores out, or it may get overloaded and drop.

@darawork I'm not so sure about "bulletproof" but it is much better than Backburner.  We're still working through some issues with ours, like nodes dropping off or stalling on a job, but reducing the Affinity seems to be helping.  The amount of control it gives you with render jobs is amazing, though.

[Gary_Leonardo]

Thanks for the info Camedeck. This rules out this software for me then. I have a very simple setup of workstation and render node, the workstation acting as render node over night. I've used Backburner for over 20 years and never had any issues until now. I don't need complex control or interrogation as to what is happening when and where, just a simple render queue so that I can do more than one job at a time.