Maya 2017 Arnold Batch Render Crash

[Anonymous]

Let me start by saying have mercy on me! I am a college student learning Maya for the very first time so assume I know absolutely nothing. 

With that said, I am trying to complete a batch render for my final project of the semester. I start either a Batch Render or Render Sequence and either with render anywhere from 4-10 frames before either Maya completely freezes or Maya states that the render is complete via the Script Editor. 

I recently updated my Arnold plug-in, I was on 1.3 something if I am not mistaken, because I was able to render the entire sequence but I had a strange issue with shadows and some frames were rendering completely black. After updating, those issues were resolved. However, now I cannot get through the render at all as said before after about 4-10 frames it just gives up. 

When observing Batch Render progress in the Script Editor see that the last frame it attempted to render it got to maybe 10-15% before the render failed.

I have no idea what I am looking at when looking at the mayaRenderLog. It looks like a number of issues. I have included that file as an attachment to this post. 

My desktop:

2015 iMac

4GHz i7 Processor

32GB DDR3 Memory

AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4GB GPU

Here is what I have tried: 

1) Rendering smaller amounts of frames. Issue persists. 

2) Rendering previously saved scene files. Had the same results

3) I have partitioned my hard drive and installed a copy of Windows 10 Pro with Maya and the updated Arnold Plug-In. No luck

4) Started a Batch Render on my MacBook Pro....same problem. 

At this point I feel that I have ruled out it being a Windows vs. macOS thing, a hardware issue, or an issue with Maya and Arnold. I'm certain it's something I have messed up in my scene but I just cannot figure out what it is. 

I really appreciate any advice anyone can offer. I apologize in advance, I will probably need someone to spell the solution out for me as I have never done this before. 

Thank you!

- Ron

[Stephen.Blair]

Yes, there's a lot of errors before rendering even starts.

Maybe this might help?

• https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Maya-Erro...

I don't know about those fontNode errors. Try hiding any type you're using, and see what happens.

For Arnold, can you increase the log verbosity to Warnings + Info? (Render Settings > Diagnostics tab)

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the article! I went through and changed the object names. I still see the object name errors in the log, many of the objects in my scene were created by other classmates (not that this is helpful information), so I have a feeling its something weird with their scene that i will have to explore further. 

I believe these are the diagnostic logs. Let me know if there is any other files I can provide to help. 

Thanks for taking a look at this with me. 

[Stephen.Blair · Accepted solution]

The third render does crash, but I can't tell why from just the log.

You can always try disabling textures, shaders, displacement, subdivision (Render Settings > Diagnostics) to see if that's the problem.

Or try to find if it's some object in the scene, using binary search:

https://xsisupport.com/2011/11/30/the-case-of-the-scene-that-wouldnt-play-back/

[Anonymous]

Discovered it was one of my objects.

Thanks so much! I appreciate your help.