Watch Folder Problem

[Bluepony04]

My farm seems to work slowly but pretty much flawlessly. I have 2 main work stations where I build AE projects. I work and save my project and all resources associated with the project on a drive on a server. The farm consists of 5 old computers all running the light AE render module and have all been kept up to date with the fonts and plug-ins that are on the two main work stations. I have a folder on that same network drive that I have my project files and resources on called Watch Folder. I point all the of the old farm machines to watch that folder. I then set up my render queue with all the output modules I need and then I do a (collect files). I choose only to collect the project because I found that working from the same network drive as my project and assets, the files do not need to exist twice and the farm has no trouble finding what it needs. Once the project is collected, it fires away and gets gobbled up by that farm. I have had a situtaion recently where a farm machine loaded a watch folder item and then quit but did not “fail” the render. I checked the .html logs and learned that a font I used it the comp was not present on that farm machine. After I resolved that issue I had to restart the watch on that machine so it would try to pick the project up. And it is rolling as I type.

I know that explanation may not help, but maybe it will offer some perspective. I am not sure how your network is configured.

Good luck.