Render Glitches

mimsey · partially protected Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 9

I was just wondering if anyone has heard of any strange render issues associated with Xsan 1.3
I'm having these problems only when rendering to my San when I render local it doesn't happen.

here are images of my glitch - http://www.mimsey.com/renderglitch.html

The render problem is intermittent so sometimes less sometimes more, always the same split screen with grey boxes.
This reproduces the same on SD and HD, the pix are DVCpro HD.

Please let me know if anyone has seen similar.
Thanks
aj

ron · Knows DNS is the answer Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Posts: 30

Look at the performace settings in Raid Admin. Do you have "allow host cache flushing" unchecked?

Just a guess.

mimsey · partially protected Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 9

all my cacheing is enabled. DOH! Controller, Host and Drive. I do have UPS connected but my powers always wacked out in my office.

It's been this way since 1.1 and I hadn't experianced these problems, but then again we're talking about Xsan here.

Here's the million dollar question. If I modify those settings, do I lose the raid? or is it just a preference?

Let me know if you have any insight.

Thanks Again
aj

mimsey · partially protected Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 9

So I've talked to some people and they reassured me all would be okay if I uncheck host flush. You never know what small detail will make the xsan turn from good to evil. I've unchecked and now I just need to test it out.

I'll let you know what I find.

aj

aaron · Site Admin Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Posts: 405

A user on Apple's Xsan-Users list notes the same rendering problem, so I think we can stop calling it a "glitch." Confused

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mimsey · partially protected Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 9

yeah, I switched off host cache flush and no luck. So, anyone have any problems downgrading to 1.2? or has anyone done that yet? or, as the song so nicely states, "Is there anybody out there?"

I'll try to grin and bear it another day and then I'll try to downgrade.

aj

aaron · Site Admin Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Posts: 405

Let us know how it goes. I have not yet upgraded our customers, and am waiting for a response from Apple before we do. Thanks for keeping up the postings...
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mimsey · partially protected Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 9

I figure we're all in it together and the Apple boards are sure not helpful. I have to sort through 1000 posts that say, "I've got my Intel Macbook running as MDC and 3 avid clients but I can't get Xsan to work... what am I doing wrong?"
So yeah, I'll keep the thread updated. I was thinking about rolling back my clients but leaving my MDC's on 1.3. I've read about people that have done it but on the Apple boards. I'm just worried cause I've got four 2TB LUNS and I'm not sure if the 1.2's will play nicely.

Anyone running this config?
just wondering.
aj

boblenon · Been around the blocks Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 25

I too appear to be suffering from this problem. Upgraded last week to 10.4.6 and 1.3. Everyone is fine - except 2 FCP projects that generate grey boxes on renders. It appears as though they are always in the same spot on the exact same frame - the last frame of a transistion between two images.

Am going to downgrade one workstation to 1.2 to see if that resolves the issues today. mimsey have you had any luck with this?

mimsey · partially protected Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 9

to be honest I've been too scared to try it. I've got three jobs running right now and things are working to an extent. I'm worried that rocking the boat may induce a cataclysmic force that tears through the office like the giant "Lost" magnet.
I'd love to hear if you have any luck. I've got about 2 more days in the trench with these jobs and then I can experiment.

aj

boblenon · Been around the blocks Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 25

well ... it seems no one here has the time to try their project out on the 1.2 machine - did get it downgraded with no problem though.

And apperantly over the weekend more projects started having issues with this.

Also, forgot to mention that when I first upgraded to 1.3 i also had those cache settings on my raids - which i changed to no avail as well Smile

MattG · Xsan Master Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 456

I can confirm that I have reconfigured at least 4 systems now back to 1.2, and in all cases, multiple issues surrounding writes have disappeared on the downgrade. I've seen panicing clients during ingest and I have too seen the grey box issue upon playback of rendered files.

I mention the phrase "back to" pointedly, since all of these examples were volumes originally created in 1.2 or earlier. 1.3 involves many new additions to the .cfg file, specifically having to do with UID mappings, so the following recipe only works for downgrading systems whose volumes were originally created in 1.2 or earlier:

In a dual MDC situation, one can uninstall 1.3 and reinstall 1.2 on the secondary, soft-fail the volume over to the secondary running 1.2, and then do the same to the primary. During this operation, all clients should be down. Downgrading the clients to 1.2 can be done in the same manner. You should of course back up the entire /L/F/X/config folder of the primary MDC before attempting this, and at all costs, a backup of that precious .cfg file should be somewhere off the system.

As far as 1.3 volumes that were created "fresh" in 1.3, our technique so far has been to archive the data off the SAN, recreate the volume in 1.2, and copy the data back over.

boblenon · Been around the blocks Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 25

MattG - the downgrade has only been sucsessful with downgrade of both clients and MDCs?

One of my users has just started seeing the same problem with AfterEffects too.

MattG · Xsan Master Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 456

IMO, all nodes should downgrade to 1.2 for this issue.

billm · JBOD Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 1

We are seeing corruption when saving Photoshop files to XSAN.

XSAN 1.3, OSX10.4.6