[davidhard]

I have run into this problem once before. The 8 render nodes I have installed on my network will freeze whenever I launch the network manager. The last time I had this problem, it was the network switch that was the culprit. All I had to do was power cycle the switch and everything was back to normal. This time, I don't know what's causing the problem. The only things that have changed since the last time is I have updated the Maxwell software to v3.2 and I updated the OS on my local Mac to El Capitan (10.11.1). Is there an issue with Maxwell network rendering and El Capitan? All of the Mac Pros that I have the render nodes installed on are running older versions of Mac OS X. But they all have the same version of Maxwell installed. It wasn't an issue before that they were not running the same OS so I doubt that that's the issue. I have checked each node and they are all the same version of Maxwell and are all showing that they are properly licensed. I tested the node that I have installed locally on my Mac and it works fine when I render with it using the network manager and monitor. So it is an issue seems to be my network. I have set the preference in each mode to Deep Debug, but I don't see any unusual message or error when I launch the manager. The nodes just freeze and I have to force quit each one. Also, We don't have a firewall on our network. So not sure what else it could be.
Please help!

[davidhard]

I was able to get my render network working again by configuring each node to connect to a specific IP address. (Maxwell Network Preferences> Connection> Always connect to this manager> IP address of Manager).
But it doesn't work 100%. It renders just fine. But I am unable to get it to show me a preview of the renderings I have rendering on the network. It's not a huge deal. But I need that feature in order to check on rendering to see that they are rendering properly and check to see if I can stop a rendering when it looks done enough.

[dk2079]

But I am unable to get it to show me a preview of the renderings I have rendering on the network.

network preview was broken for a while.
it should be fixed in the last early build:

3.2.0.2
MAXWELL
- Fixed some threading issues that could be affecting stability
- Fixed some details in hair material assistant
- Onshape connection: fixed bugs in several areas

STUDIO
- Fixed procedural textures were not working with new stereo lenses
- Fixed some gui issues and default values in lens extensions (StereoFish and Lat-Long Stereo)
- Fixed HDR Light Studio v4 was not loading correctly

NETWORK
- Fixed issues with batch renders when Monitor and Manager where running Windows and nodes were running Linux
- Fixed preview jobs was not working

[davidhard]

Ahhh. Thanks! I'm using 3.2.0.0.