Maya headless command line rendering

[Anonymous]

Hi all,  

We have an issue with trying to render on networked macs via the command line.

We're using the Render call, generally located at /Applications/Autodesk/maya2018/Maya.app/Contents/MacOS/Render on OSX with s, e, proj and rd flags.

The error we're getting currently is:

_RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection to the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL.
Assertion failed: (err == kCGErrorSuccess), function +[_NSCGSTransaction initialize], file /BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/AppKit/AppKit-1561.60.100/CGS.subproj/NSCGSTransaction.m, line 241.

This error only occurs if a user isn't logged in - we know apple released a security update back in March 2018 that prevented access to the window server while on the login prompt. 

Does anyone know a way to work around this? Is there some flag we can tell Maya to not access the window server so we can run it in an headless state?

[Anonymous]

Hi @syracoj,

I don't see any reference to MAYA-93696 in the Maya 2020 fixed issues or known issues list in the release notes.  Do you have any new information you can share regarding this issue?

https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2020/ENU/?guid=Maya_ReleaseNotes_release_notes_html

[syracoj]

Looks like the internally logged item may have snuck past us during release note phase so apologies for that. Try it now with Maya 2020. The ticket has been closed as fixed for Maya 2020. Let me know on here if you encounter any issue with it please.

[mattgidney]

For 2020???

That sucks, renderman isnt available for 2020 yet.

this thread started on maya 2018 and the fix found its way out in 2020......... sheesh.  Luck I didnt need to render anything on the farm.

[syracoj]

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-forum/is-maya-2020-compatible-with-renderman-23/td-p/9245257

cg_oglu notes in the solution

"

Renderman 23.1 will support Maya2020.

https://renderman.pixar.com/answers/questions/13636/does-rendrman-23-support-maya-2020.html

"

[Wobbek]

Just to provide an update: the issue is indeed fixed in Maya 2020 and we have our backburner setup back up and running.

[syracoj]

Glad to hear Wobbek!