Compressor 4.1.3 Cluster

I am at a post production facility that is running 6 of the 2.7 GHz 12 Core Xeon trashcans with 64 GB RAM Each. Pretty sweet setup.
My issue is that in Compressor 4.1.3 I am having trouble replicating the speed I used to get with much older machines on a quick cluster. I can run an export of my 53 minute sequence, but it takes over an hour and a half with (apparently) 6 of the above computers setup as "shared computers" whereas, I used to be able to export an entire 60 minute show using compressor in under 25 minutes while connected to 3 total 2010 to 2012(ish) Mac Pros in a quick cluster.
I can not open the logs from the network encoding monitor, so I can't even see If I am connected to other computers (In what I used to call a cluster).
I guess my question is this, How do confirm that I am using any compressor instances on another computer? How do I get my 6 computers to act like a cluster (in qmaster) and why are my speeds so slow when the computers are 100x faster?
Another question, When I am outputting an H264 at "single pass" it looks like my distributed processors are all idle but if I do multi pass I have the option of job segmenting and it opens up the other "instances" is that correct?
I know Apple is trying to streamline compressor, but with qmaster, I always knew when I was connected to a cluster. Now it's just a massive cluster F. Please help!!!

Look at the bottom right of the Batch pane, to the immediate left of the Start Batch button. You should see a menu there to select which network cluster to use. If you don't see that, there's no cluster configured in the Preferences panes.

Similar Messages

Having difficulty starting a Compressor job using a cluster

The batch monitor will error out- something having to do with timing out before Qmaster can open it's storage area on the host machine (not sure if that makes sense). Anyway, the cluster i created, has 2 service nodes, both with Final Cut, and DVDSP4 installed. I've never been able to submit a job to the cluster. It will always error out.

Are you submitting directly from Final Cut using "Export to Compressor"? Are you using a quickcluster, or a managed cluster? Do you see your nodes in Qadministrator? Do you have shared storage? If not did you turn on "Personal File Sharing" in system preferences and enable applesharing in network prefs on both machines. Did you disable the firewall?
I'm not in front of my computers, but there is a setting in the Compressor settings that allows you to change "Always copy files to cluster storage", "Never", etc Try changing that to always. I really don't know if it will help, but it got me hung up on my setup for ahwhile. Did you change the cluster storage in sys prefs on either machine? (You shouldn't) Also try resetting the nodes by stopping the services on them, then holding option-apple and click reset.
Finally, see if you can post the exact error that you are receiving. There is a log file somewhere in "/var/log" that might help to narrow down the problem.
I use NFS with a Managed cluster, but if you are using Appleshare I think you should be able to go to the Go->Connect to Server from finder and connect to your machine by typing in the IP address or hostname.
There's some ideas to get you started.
~half.italian

Compressor 4.1 shared cluster computer not appearing - but slave can see master

On my main "master" machine, I cannot see one of my shared cluster machines. However, on the particular shared cluster machine (slave) that my "master" cannot see, the slave can see the master in the list of shared computers. So, in other words, I suppose I could launch the Compressor job from the "slave" machine [since the source file is on a network drive that all machines can access], but it doesn't make any sense.
Why can't the "master" see the "slave".
I've tried restarting the master computer, tried turning off wifi and ethernet on the master computer, tried manually inputting the IP address and host name on the master computer in the list of shared computers by hitting the "plus" button. Also tried setting the "Use network interfaces" option to either both, ethernet only, or wi-fi only, also tried resetting the compressor queue, and trashing the Compressor preferences.
Nothing works. What's strange is that this master computer was able to see the slave computer two weeks ago, using Compressor 4.1. Nothing has changed. They are both on the same 10.0.0.x network and subnet. The master machine can ping the slave machine.
Any ideas?

Just posted this in this discussion forum. Might be helpful even though its specifically for Compressor V4.0.
Run through some of the the procedure if you are on Compressor V4.0 earlier.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5781288?tstart=0
As you're using Compressor V4.1, check the cluster and compressor logs for errors and network and file system permission errors:
~/Library/Logs/Compressor (new in V4.1) to see what he jobcontroller and services node are doing
check /var/logs (system log)
else for compressor V4.1 it seem sensitive to hardware configurations now.
might be of some help.
w

Compressor and Clusters - using Cluster Administrator Cores

So I was recently set the task of setting up our small post production studio's double NAT network and Mac Mini Server, FTP and, most importantly, render farm and compressor (farm?). So we have an iMac, 2 Mac Minis, Mac Mini Server and Mac Pro. I managed (with a great deal of trial and error) to get everything set up, I can go into compressor from any machine and submit a task, and the controller (set as the mac mini server) assigns available cores to start transcoding. However, the MMServer itself ONLY submits 1 core of its' own, and that's set to rendering, not compressor. When I look in Qadmin, all of MMServer's cores assigned to Compressor are greyed out stating "Comprssor (unmanaged)" and can't be used. It is set as Cluster Controller AND SERVICES but it doesn't do the SERVICES part.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Those extra cores/threads are just sitting there doing nothing!
EDIT - Just to clarify all the machines are set to "Services Only" except the MMServer, and also I do need both Rendering as well as Compressor.

Hey I came in to the office today and re-made the whole cluster again and now it's working. If in doubt... turn it off and on again.

Compressor scrambles portions of cluster video

I think this is primarily feedback to Apple re an apparent bug in Compressor, but if I'm doing something wrong, I appreciate feedback.
I have a 4 min piece of video I exported from FPC as a stand-alone Quicktime file. I have 3 computers on my network that I have set up as a cluster. I was already processing some HDV video with extremely long compression times (40 min of video -> 200+ hrs of compression time to H.264 720) that was compressing using "this computer".
I wanted my 4 min piece sooner so submitted it to be processed from HDV to NTSC format by the cluster. During processing, I noticed Compressor had separated the video into 4 sections. When it finished, I viewed the video and discovered it had reassembled the 4 sections in the wrong order. I gave up on the H.264 compression project, restarted the computer, submitted the 4 min piece again to be processed by "this computer" and everything was fine.
4 x 2.5 GHz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.7)
4 x 2.5 GHz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Hi folks,
just wanted to let you know that I believe the problem stemmed from me not choosing the DV NTSC 48 khz setting instead of 'current settings'. Once I chose DV etc... it was good to go.
Cheers,
keebler

Compressor - Droplets and Virtual Cluster

Just learned how to setup a virtual Cluster/Quick Cluster. Submitting a job to the local computer works just fine. When I submit a job to the Quick Cluster, Activity Mon and Batch Monitor do no processing. How do I point the droplet to a Virtual Cluster allowing ?

Bah, this is crazy, today it doesn't work anymore. Yesterday my cluster was showing up in the Dropdown window, and I could submit a batch to it, and it got processed over my virtual cluster.
Today, after finishing the second part of my movie, I tried it again. I didn't change anything to my settings, my machine hasn't even rebooted (just recovered from sleep mode) and my cluster isn't showing up at all anymore. Even the Qmaster menu doesn't show it
Guess, I'll have to wait out until it appears again, or try a few things out

I cannot compress my video in compressor. everything was alright until I clicked the submit button. I received a dialogue box asking for the following: Name; Cluster and Priority.I cannot click the submit button. Thanks

Help

Hi Bill, again just trawling these forums in search of another prolem solution and ran over your post. I'm not sure if every problem reported in these forums requires removing the app's preferences or running a third party product that does it as well.. Sometimes it will work. Usually there's a process somewhere in Compressor or its subcomponents used in the OS that need to kicked in the arse or terminated and restarted or is handed a flawed structure it can't handle entirely and fails.
These failures are sometime echoed in /var/logs/folder/... or ~/Library/Logs/"this_application's.log" or ~/Library/LogsDiagnosticReports/"this_application's" dump. Yep u can view these with the /Applications/Utilities/Console.app or jump in to Qmaster through the Share Monitor.app as well.
Anyway not all these events get logged so sometimes it's difficult to know where to look especially with compressor and qmaster. Qmaster has its logs also in a temproary place then then are magically moved to /var/logs.
A good practice is to see if you can determine one of these flaws before getting the chainsaw and axe out for a "hack and bash session". Chances are you will have this again.
Elsewhere in these Apple Support forums and on the creativecow forums is a wealth of knowledge on compressor or Qmaster and other products. Always worth a simple Google search
Now, I'd propose that is likely that the current structure used by compressor and qmaster are in a less than optimum state!. Most of these are rebuilt if they are removed. All except the SETTINGS and LAYOUTS. So if you have any of your own settings, layouts or destinations and you dont want to lose them, go and make a second instance of these else where of fetch and reinstate them from Timemachine.app once you have restarted everthing after some suggestion I'm going to propose to you shortly.
The probable sources of state information may be deleted and Compressor and Qmaster can be started again. However before embarking on this easy walkthrough ......
Step 1: Stop Apple Qmaster your current host. (Compressor.app/Application Menu Apple Qmaster/Share This Computer / Setup tab/ and untick "Share This Computer").
count to 10 slowly and all the compressord tasks will stop. Qmasterd is still active...thats cool.
Step 2: QUIT Compressor.app on your current host.
Step 3: Make a second instance of your Compressor.app Settings , Destinations and Layouts: As stated a tonne of time in so many threads , that in Compressor 4, these structures for Qmaster and some of Compressors have been moved into the users home domain (i.e. ~/) in the ~/Library/Application Support/Compressor/Settings and ~/Library/Application Support/Compressor/Layouts directories. If you dont have any then move to the next step....
THerefore simply DUPLICATE or COPY them to another place such as your ~/Desktop. U can use the FINDER or simple unix cli commands such as:
cp -Rv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Compressor/Settings ~/Desktop
cp -Rv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Compressor/Layouts ~/Desktop
Step 4: remove | purge | delete compressors Lion/ML saved state.... ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Compressor.savedState
You can also remove the the saved state entry for Compressor.app so tha you wont be bothered with it trying to resstablish where it was when it failed or you last quit it.
rm ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Compressor.savedState or just selct and +del it in the trash (hold the OPTION key and select the Finder GO menu to access your homes ~/Library/)
After doing this you can basically destroy | delete | purge | remove your ~/Library/Application Support/Compressor and also your ~/Library/Application Support/Apple Qmaster directories
OK if you're up to it I will refer you to a post where this procedure is comprehensivley detailed. I'm fairly certain that when you follow this procedure and remove these compressor and Qmaster structure and restart then re-set up any clusters and networking, tha compressor will work amazingly well again.... probably like it used to.
Step 5: click over to ths apple forum post and follow the steps in there. No need to duplicate its contents here. The link is at https://discussions.apple.com/message/17356372#17356372%2317356372
Step n: well if you have returned to here hopefully compressor V4..app with Qmaster is running and its like brand new. 9 of 10 times this is the case.
Basically you have purged your current folders:
~/Library/Application Support/Compressor and
~/Library/Application Support/Apple Qmaster
Now a few more things to consider as mentioned in the post at https://discussions.apple.com/message/17356372#17356372%2317356372 is not to be too impatient. THese compressor and qmaster components take a little time to communicate and ready themselves. You will be able to see this via teh activity monitor.app and also right-gear-down on the compressor.app icon n the dock. Look for SERVICES. If you only have one, add some more in the qmaster prefs.
ALso make sure you c=can use Compressor.app / File /Mount Cluster Storage and tha you get a voluem for your cluster apearing in the list box.
No volume then qmaster is not set up.
You may have to do all the above again.
Lastly, the NETWORK settings used between hosts for Qmaster are often a point of noise and frustration. If u can disable your network just to get compressor/qmaster going on a single host. Often the comms causes a great deal of "waiting"scenarios in Compressor. U can see these in the Share Monitor.app.
Please report back you progress so tha others my benefit..
HTH
warwick

Compressor 4 cluster problem

I have just set up my MacBook Pro and iMac with Compressor 4 as a cluster. Everything looks fine, but when I send the file out to render it fails with an error "error reading source.....no such file or directory". The file renders fine when I don't tick the "this computer plus" box.
I've followed the path Compressor is using and it points to the alias in the events folder which goes from the "original media" folder back to the actual location of the .mov files. Sure enough, in Finder, OS X tells me the alias has failed. However, when I try to fix it and browse to the original file, the "OK" button lights up but nothing happens when I click it. This seems to be the case for ALL .mov files in every project I have edited.
The weird thing is that FCP X can obviously see all of these files as everything works fine - I can edit and render with no problem. The issue only arises when I choose "this computer plus" or pick a cluster.
So it looks like the aliases do point to the correct files but cannot be accessed directly from the Finder or when Compressor 4 looks for them in cluster mode.
I hope that makes sense.
Hopefully someone has seen similar behaviour.
Thanks,
Jack.

Hi Studio X, not sure how to do that but I just worked it out. It was (as you seem to have worked out) the alias that was the clue.
I had put together these FCP X projects on a different USB drive. As I wanted to be more organised I copied over all the projects to a new 1TB USB drive which I'm only using for storage and editing. The good thing about this is that I can simply remove the drive and plug it into a different Mac and FCP X sees everything - events, projects, original files. However, there must be some reference to the name of the old USB drive as part of the alias which Compressor doesn't like when in cluster mode. I started a quick project on the new drive and Compressor 4 worked as a 3 machine cluster with no problems.
I can't quite understand why FCP X finds the original video at all if it is looking for the drive name and not just the path to the files, but it seems not to care.
Anyone have any ideas about this?

Compressor 3's QAdministrator hogging cluster

Hi Folks,
I'm on latest version of Lion, FCX, Compressor 4 and latest for Compressor 3 from FCS3.
I can create a cluster just fine through system preferences, but Compressor 3 " hogs " it and won't let Compressor 4 see it.
By that, I mean, I can go into QAdministrator from within my Final Cut Studio folder and it sees the cluster. Then I can adjust and create my cluster, go into Compressor 3 and after clicking Submit, I see it as an option.
If I bypass Qadmin from FCS and go into FCX and choose share - send to compressor, version 4 launches, but if I go to Apple QMaster on the menu bar, it will not see the cluster. Therefore, I can't use it upon submitting.
I tried trashing QAdmin from FCS, but that did nothing.
Any thoughts? very frustrating b/c I used to export a self-contained QT from FCP7 and used BitVice to compress m2vs for DVDs as it automatically recognizes all cores.
Unfortunately with Compressor 4, i still have to tweak settings so it will use all cores - but that doesn't seem to be working either!
I'd use Compressor 3, but of course, when you share - compressor from within FCX, it goes to the new version.
Any ideas?
Cheers,
Keebler

Hi Kleeber, quiet an interesting problem. I dont have the same environment as you do so I'm going to suggest that these might be places you could look.
it seems compressor.app V4 administers all Apple Qmaster itself via the Compressor.app | application menu Apple Qmaster and maintains this state information in ~/Library/Application Support/Apple Qmaster. (getting tired oft yping this in .. ). This is unlike Qmaster V3 that was managed autonamously via the system preferences/Qmaster and maintained it goodies elsewhere... you know all this..
so back in July 2011 this made me think that the two compressors (V3 and V4) were not meant to chat to each other.. any ideas?
further the CLI interfaces for qmasterprefs, qmaster and compressor are now buried in the content of the new FCPX apps.. yep fine with that but they had Links (ln / alias) in the V3 and FCP 7 days where one could simply invoke these form the cli via terminal.app ... all this you probably know too. Interestingly Apple have documented very well in detail the use of the compressor cli command in the Apple Compressor Users Guide V4.. yes all this is known.
what appears to be missing is the use of the qmasterprefs and qmaster cli commands in the documentation of Apple Qmaster V4 (see the pdf). this strikes me as that this is no longer a supported interface for qmaster and tha one MUST USE the Compressor.app | application menu Apple Qmaster UI.. any clues on this welcomed!
so?? well this strikes me as a bit odd. I would think a CLUSTER is a CLUSTER... I too use Apple Qadministrator and make use of managed clusters.. seems more stabel that the Quickcluster in FCPX/Com.app V4).. for me any way.
Thus, I would think that in a rendering sense (Nuke etc) you could submit a render to a Qmaster cluster regardless of it origin (Compressor V4 + Qmaster V4 or Qmaster V3 and Compressor V3.5)... just a thought. Same with the transcoder.
I can try and account (guess?) for why Compressor V4 cant see the Cluster you created via Apple Qadminstrtor V3.. Maybe because the state information for the cluster(s) is now maintained in ~/Library/Application Support/Apple Qmaster (user directory btw!)... So Id imagine that FCPX / Compressor V4 are expecting goodies in here. I just checked and its seems not. Instead Apple Qadminitrator is using many ports to see whats aorund. Theres loads of undescribed file handles opened as well.. Thus unless the application has radically changed from qmaster 3 and Qmaster 4, then I'd imagine that Apple Qmaster4 and V4 should be able to see the clusters! Someone reading this may enlighten us.. please do.
In short its most possible that FCPX + compressor V4 + apple qmaster v4 are tied together more that I have tried to describe above. Its very strange that the cluster you created under Apple Qadministrator cannot be found when using the workflow:
FCPX:send to compressor ; compressor V4:submit to cluster: cluster not in the list.
In the Compressor V4.app are you able to Mount the Cluster Storage? (+shift+m)? If so then thats a good sign because it uses ports to find these it seems.
do you have any further developments?
warwick
Hong Kong

Could not find cluster

I have one type of file that fails out in a weird way when attempting to transcode to h.264. Sometimes. Occasionally we get this error in Search All Jobs...
ERROR: E_REQ_ERROR Encountered error using Compressor: Could not find cluster "Render Cluster".
I know it's not very imaginative, but our cluster is named Render Cluster.
Node 1 is the controller and a compressor.
Nodes 2, 3 and 4 are compressors only.
All files transcode well. Usual source codec are DV25 (NTSC and PAL), DVCProHD, ProRes 422 LT, h.264, MPEG-4 and MPEG-2. The one file that sometimes gives us that weird error about not being able to find the Compressor cluster is
AVC Coding, 640 x 480, Millions
AAC, Stereo (L R), 44.100 kHz
We have the AVC component on the FCSvr server, as well as each of the Compressor nodes. Restarting the nodes hasn't helped. Restarting the FCSvr server hasn't helped. Some files are just cursed.
The files that transcode successfully have the exact same properties as the ones that won't transcode. The files that won't find their way to the compressor cluster consistently fail out. It's not a "sometime this file works and sometimes it doesn't" situation.
The strangest part of this problem is that other files before and after will successfully transcode.
Thank you.
-Cory

Hello Akhtar,
Have you tryed to delete the heador row from your file?
I received the same error when loading a csv file, but when I delete the heador row it worked.
Best Regards,
Juliana Genova

10.5 machine cannot send to cluster

I have a cluster set up that works fine when other computers running OS 10.4 submit to it. However, there is only one machine that is running 10.5 on the network and whenever I try to send a job to the cluster with that machine it just gets stuck on Copying Source File. I don't know why this happens - the computer has access to the cluster storage, and the Compressor preferences are set to Copy as Needed, and I have tried the Copy at Submission (High) checkbox but it still does the same thing. I have tried exporting to Compressor directly from FCP, as well as sending self-contained files to the cluster as well. Same problem either way.
Cluster details:
Node 1 - G5 Quad-Core @ 2.5 GHz, OS 10.4.11 FCP Studio 1, Compressor 2.3.1
Node 2 - G5 Quad-Core @ 2.5 GHz, OS 10.4.11 FCP Studio 1, Compressor 2.3.1
Node 3 - Mac Pro 8 Core @ 3 GHz, OS 10.5.5 FCP Studio 1, Compressor 2.3.1
Cluster Controller - Xserve Dual Core @ 2.3 GHz, OS 10.4.11 Server, Only Qmaster Node package is installed
Computer trying to submit with:
OS 10.5.5 FCP Studio 1, Compressor 2.3.1
I am stumped as to why this isn't working. I have tried all the usual tricks: restarting services on the nodes, rebuilt the cluster a couple of times, permissions seem to be correct on the submitting machine, etc. Any thoughts or ideas on why this is occurring would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Figured it out. In my System Preferences > Apple Qmaster > Advanced I had to select which interface to use. It only shows one interface in the drop-down, but ifconfig shows several others being used by VMware Fusion for my virtual machines. Console logs showed that qmaster was trying to use one of the VM interfaces rather than my main ethernet connection, which was causing these problems. All good now.

Can't get remote cluster machine to encode video - getting 'Media Server application unexpectedly quit'

Hi
Using Compressor 4 / Apple QuarterMaster admin etc, I have set up a Cluster and it works well to Share > Export Using Compressor Settings. That took some doing, and I'm happy that it works.
If I do all my processing in the foreground, or alternatively in the background on my FCPX computer, ie without running or using any cluster in the background, it all goes well. Quick, error free.
If I activate the cluster and only put my local machine's compressor services into it, and then send my compressor batch to the cluster, it works perfectly well. But that defeats the point of having a cluster. I want the remote machine to do all the work so my local machine doesn't slow down.
Unfortunately, if I add the remote machine's services into the cluster, the encoding always fails with 'Media Server application unexpectedly quit' in the error log. I know that the cluster is distributing segments of the file to the remote machine - this can be seen in the Share Monitor, but they never get processed and sit there waiting until I get the error message.
The remote machine is a modern 4G core 2 duo MacBook. It's never been used for this before. It has Compressor 4 and the Pro Apps Update installed and both appear to work. Both machines are running 10.6.8. The remote machine has Compressor services initialised in Apple QMaster sharing. The QMasterAdmin sees these services. They are accessible over Bonjour and appear in the Cluster. Compressor services from both the local and the remote machine are configured exactly the same way. The same QT codecs exist on both machines. I've restarted, shift-restarted, etc etc.
So I am at a loss here. The remote machine just won't compress anything it is sent.
Any ideas? Must both have FCPX installed?
Anyone actually got a remote machine in a cluster to work with Compressor 4? I can't figure it out.
Chris.

OK... finally sorted it out.
It's a bug, as far as I can tell.
Any job entered directly into Compressor 4 in the normal Compressor manner will be successfully rendered by any working cluster from any machine that can access the cluster. That's good. It means that the underlying distributed processing model works well.
HOWEVER - any job forwarded to a Compressor 4 cluster that includes non-local compressor services (ie compressor services not resident on the same machine), using Share > Export Using Compressor Settings direct from FCPX will fail.
To confirm this bug, I made a cluster on a remote machine. It was a dual core machine, so I enabled 2 compressor services on that machine, and that's all the cluster was. Simple.
I then manually entered a video file (ProRess 422 720p) into Compressor on the remote machine. I did this by physically setting up new job using the compressor user interface. A bog standard ProRes422 720p file rendered fine this way on the remote machine. As did anything else I gave it. Good.
Then on my main machine, I opened Compressor and made a job based on the same file and settings, and sent it to the remote machine's cluster. No problem at all! Great!
So now I know that both Compressor versions, and the clustering model, are working fine. In fact I can send all sorts of files to the cluster, from any other version of compressor, and have them processed on the remote machine, and get the result back on my desktop later on. Excellent.
But, if I try put this same file into a FMPX timeline, and go Share > Export Using Compressor Settings.... and select a cluster with remote (non-local) compressor services, it does not work. Rendering the video segments on the remote machine times out and fails, every time. It doesn't matter what file format I use, it just fails.
So it's a bug.
From what I can tell, Final Cut Pro X somehow messes up the Share > Export Using Compressor settings where the cluster includes non-local compressor services, causing all jobs to fail. The same Share > Export Using Compressor Settings will work quite happily if all the services on the cluster are on the same machine as FCPX, or if the job is sent to This Computer in the background. But any attempt to send files to a cluster using any remote services will fail.
I hope this saves some people from wasting as much time as I have!
One workaround is to export to ProRes then put this file manually into Compressor, sending the job to the remote cluster. This is a two step process with a large intermediary ProRes file. If one goes Export as QuickTime movie, generating the intermediary file prevents further FCPX work being done.
To get the intermediary in the background one could use Share > Export Using Compressor Settings via either This Computer, or to a cluster using only local services. Then once complete, manually add it to a compressor job.
So this is a FCPX bug as far as I can tell.
Chris.

IP over Firewire AND Ethernet connected cluster?

Does anyone have any experience with IP over Firewire and Qmaster? What I'm trying to do (for now) is to have a file server connected to a bunch of Firewire HD's, then that connected to two other macs via IP over Firewire, and all that be a cluster.
The file server is the controller. Or I want it to be at least. Connected to this cluster are two workstations, connected to the file server via Ethernet.
So it's File Server with several external Firewire HD's connected to it with the video data. Connected to this file server are two macs via IP over Firewire which will be services only nodes. Connected to ALL of this over ethernet are two editing workstations. Qadmin can't seem to see the two mac nodes connected via IP over Firewire.
The problem is that Qadminstrator can't see the two macs connected to the file server via IP over Firewire. I'm wondering if for some reason data can't go from Ethernet to IP over Firewire and back again.
Any tips or suggestions? I'm just about out of ideas for now.

I was also NOT ABLE to use both nodes connected in a MIX of ETHERNET and FIREWIREover IP.
I WAS able to get a 4 x NODE cluster working using SHAKE & COMPRESSOR/QMASTER using all GbE EThernet - I went out and bought a cheap 8 x PORT ethernet GbE hub and all my problems went away.
HEre's what I had initially and what I did and it DIDN'T work consistently..:
Hardware Initially:
• g5 QUAD and 2 x MBP Dual Core 15's + 1 x MBPDC 17inch.
• G5 QUAD GBE1 connected to #1 x MBPDC 15 on its EN0 with cable
• G5 QUAD GBE2 connected to #2 x MBPDC 15 on its EN0 with cable
• G5 QUAD FW0 connected to 1 x MBPDC 17 on its FW1 with 6 pin FW cable
• G5 QUAD is set as CONTROLLER+SERVICES
• MBPDC's are all SERVICES ONLY.
• thus 3 x SUBNETS
SETUP#1- problem symptoms
• via QMASTERADMIN - G5 CONTROLLER could see MBPDC 17 and ONE of the MBP15;s but not all of them.
•tries various configs on each FW and EN0 for boths FW and EN paths.. never consistent view..
• removed some FW disks from FW400 path that were attached to CONTROLLER G5 host ... could then see ALL as a MIX of THERNET and FW. (Same happens using FW800 - although avoided this because of sperious DISK issues wth external FW800 disks on G5 QUAD).
• created cluster (not a quick cluster)- sent simple long I-FRAME based DV-PAL to smaller DVPAL) codec test to compressor and set the CLUSTER to the QMASTER on I defined.
• set QMASTER controller sys pref to use ALL NETWORK PATHS and disbaled the AIRPORT subnets on each MACHINE)
• PROBLEM was only G5(controller+services) and TWO of the services nodes (MBPDC's) were processing - NEVER all three! It didn't seem to matter what IP path was onnected (EN or FW).
• - all the above was a NO go waster of time. (aggh)
so..
HARDWARE SET UP #2 and what worked first time!
• purchased 1 x GBE Ethernet hub (8xport) w/P/supply and four 1m ethernet cables
• g5 QUAD and 2 x MBP Dual Core 15's + 1 x MBPDC 17inch.
• G5 QUAD GBE1 connected to GBE HUB
• #1 x MBPDC 15 on its EN0 with cable to GBE HUB
• #2 x MBPDC 15 on its EN0 with cable to GBE HUB
• #1 x MBPDC 17 on its EN0 with cable to GBE HUB
• G5 QUAD is set as CONTROLLER+SERVICES
• MBPDC's are all SERVICES ONLY.
• thus 1 x SUBNET....!
WORKS EVERY TIME First time
• all machines work to render or transcode.
• for SHAKE RENDERING, each CPU has a process.. so there seems to be as many as (4 x 1)+2 + 2 + 2 rendering processes at any one time.
• less for COMPRESSOR as one per HOST (4 in my case)
Also.. in QMASTERADMIN - always:
• have the SOURCE and TAGET disk volumes|directories ou need MOUNTED (NFS works for me) and
• set to NEVER COPY.
• set QMASTER sys prefs/Advanced/"USe NEtwork Interface = EN0 (or whatever one you want to use. 'd imagine that a FW hub would also do the job (IPoFW).... but for me I had all free ETHERNETs NICS so I used them.
• oh .. enable all your airports NICS.. .. in the above QMASTER wont use this subnet.
This speeds the WORKFLOW up enormously because the source material does not have to be COPIED to each host (well I think that what it means).
So the solution in my case was to have ALL the HOSTS on a SINGLE subnet..
works for me.
hope that helps
W

Qmaster Compressor and Shared Storage

I've got Qmaster working on my compressor encodes and everything is working fine. What I want to know is whether there is a way to cut out the extra copy of data for the encode. All of my machines in the cluster have the same shared storage mounted on the desktop, but still my jobs get copied first and then encoded.
Is there anyway to configure qmaster, compressor and the cluster machines so they all use their local path for source files? And avoid the extra copy of the source files to the controller system?
Thanks in advance.

You want to make sure in Compressor, under Preferences, the Cluster Options field says Never Copy Source to Cluster. Assuming you have all of the correct permissions set and have the Shared Storage configured properly then it should work. "Should" being the key word.

Service nodes are greyed out

I am trying to create a cluster between my i5 iMac and my MBP.
I am following the instructions in the manual but when i get the the last part, after creating a cluster where I am supposed to drag service nodes in from the bottom of the Apple Qadministrator panel I can't do it because the services nodes are greyed out (see image). Any thoughts? Thanks all!

Hi - I eventually figured this one out. Took a while!
In the dialog where you set up the original 'service nodes' on the client machines (where you go Apple QMaster > Share this computer) there is a checkbox 'Require this service to only be used in Managed Clusters'. It seemed bad to be so I didn't check it. Nothing in the instructions says to. But you must.
Once you do this, the service lines all magically go black, and you can drag them by their header up to the box.
It then all worked fine for me, but only for jobs loaded via compressor.
So far no-one has confirmed the bug I noted that jobs I enter into compressor and send to a cluster work reliably, but this does not happen when from within FCPX I try to do the Export > Send to Compressor and choose a cluster.
If you could let me know how this goes I'd be grateful.
Chris.
PS - I think at this stage that just about no-one in the whole world is actually trying to do any of this. Must just be us two. :-)

Compressor 4.1.3 Cluster

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