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 manager flag.
system ("\"/usr/discreet/backburner/cmdjob\" -jobName \"exp_support_ash025444-110215\" -description \"\" -manager -timeout 120 -priority 50 -taskList \"/usr/tmp/exp_support_ash025444-110215.txt\" -taskName 1 \"/usr/autodesk/maya2011.5-x64/bin/Render\" -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!
Seems that the flag doesn't work. I got error 204 and it says -timeout is an invalid flag. I have already downloaded and using the most recent backburner 2012.
Posted by: vicenix | 09/04/2012 at 09:47 AM
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.
Posted by: mediajam | 20/09/2011 at 04:29 AM
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?
Posted by: jwilcott | 15/02/2011 at 07:45 PM