BackBurner renders fail after 60 minutes - Part 1

Have you noticed your BackBurner jobs failing for no specific reason after 60 minutes?  Well, There is a simple explanation for this.  BackBurner has a default timeout function set to it.  After 60 minutes if the the frame or task is not completed BackBurner will send a kill signal to the job and restart.

If you are noticing this on your renders, there is a simple solution to get around it.  While there is no timeout option in the BackBurner submission window.  You can set a timeout flag manually by clicking the "Use Custom Command" box and then clicking the "Populate Command" button at the bottom of the Submission Window.  This will build a long command to be sent to BackBurner and begin the job.

This is where we need to add the -timeout flag.  Below is an example of the entire command with the timeout value set to 120 minutes. I generally set this after the taskname flag.

system ("\"/usr/discreet/backburner/cmdjob\" -jobName \"exp_support_ash025444-110215\" -description \"\" -manager -priority 50 -taskList \"/usr/tmp/exp_support_ash025444-110215.txt\" -taskName 1 \"/usr/autodesk/maya2011.5-x64/bin/Render\" -timeout 120 -r file -s %tp2 -e %tp3 -proj \"/home/assist/maya/projects/default\" -rd \"/home/assist/maya/projects/default/images\" \"/Lnx-ubuntu/public/CustomerCases/renderash/exp_support_ash.ma\"")

 Hope this helps with any of your future renders!

 

Comments

[jwilcott]

I've been doing this work around for a few months now. It's pretty crazy that the default timeout is only 60min. Is there a way to change this default value so I don't have to add the -timeout flag every time I send off a job. Maybe in the backburner.xml file?

[mediajam]

Is there any way to reset the timeout of a job while it is running? I am approaching 6 hours and it's looking like it's not going to be finished.