WorkerNode command line script problem

[Tim Jones]

Just a shot in the dark here, but what if you escape the $ in the variable:

mv "/Volumes/maxxraid1/Media_Encoder_Watch/Output/$g.mov" "/Volumes/maxxraid1/CatDV_Previews$p/"


Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Jeff Schaap]

That looks exactly the same as the command line I had posted that I already tried. Or am I am missing something?

[Tim Jones]

Ugh – HTML “fixing”. There should be a backslash before each of the $ characters.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Jeff Schaap]

If you pretend my #’s are backslashes then this is what I did:

mv “/Volumes/maxxraid1/Media_Encoder_Watch/Output/#$g.mov” “/Volumes/maxxraid1/CatDV_Previews#$p/”

and unfortunately, it returned exit status 1, so, thanks for the idea but that didn’t solve it.

[Bryson Jones]

Jeff, the Worker is full of dark mysteries.

We use single quotes, or “ticks” to escape spaces etc.

Don’t change the variables, there’s no need to escape the “$g” or whatever, that’s not your issue.

We find that more advanced functions are best served by taking things out to a shell or Python script where you can get some control over things.

Hope this helps you a bit. Make sure you reach out to your dealer or Squarebox support, they can offer advice with a clear understanding of your environment and systems. I’m just some guy with a beard and an internet connection. 😉

bryson

bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com

northshoreautomation.com

[Jeff Schaap]

Hey Bryson,

Your beard is awesome.

Thanks for the input, yes there is some deep mystery in WorkerNode at times…

Replacing the ” with ‘ gave exit status 1. I would imagine because a ‘$g’ is interpreted literally as $g and not a variable.

It seems crazy that I have to write a script to do one mv operation… but at this point I am willing to try almost anything. From a terminal window, when I set g equal to the correct file (g = “My File” and p the the destination path (p = “/Volumes/maxxraid1/Footage/Domestic/Personnel/Creson Bob” and do this:

mv /Volumes/maxxraid1/Media_Encoder_Watch/Output/”$g”.mov /Volumes/CatDV_Previews/”$p”/

It works and moves the file. Even with the spaces on the name and path. I was thrilled and figured I would just write a script that looked like this:

#!/bin/sh
mv /Volumes/maxxraid1/Media_Encoder_Watch/Output/”$g”.mov /Volumes/CatDV_Previews/”$p”/

and I called it from Worknode by doing this under Command 1:

/Volumes/maxxraid1/Scripts/move_proxies.sh

But, that didn’t work because I later found out that my variable weren’t being passed to the shell. So I did this under command 1:

/Volumes/maxxraid1/Scripts/move_proxies.sh $g $p

and changed my script to:

mv /Volumes/maxxraid1/Media_Encoder_Watch/Output/”$1″.mov /Volumes/CatDV_Previews/”$2″/

And exit staus 1… ARGH. Not sure what to try next. I can contact support as you suggested.

[Bryson Jones]

I think I see what’s up here.

This is not well documented in the Worker Read Me. We’ve spent forever dialing this in and basically there are syntax rules, such as calling bash or sh when you enter commands. I imagine that’s what you’re missing.

Hit up support and I’m sure they can sort you out.

They don’t doc this part of things deeply and I’m pretty sure it’s because they traditionally did the heavier deployments themselves or with a known team of dealers.

bryson

bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com

northshoreautomation.com

[Jeff Schaap]

Thanks Tim and Bryson for your responses. I did figure out what was going on and unfortunately, it had nothing to do with spaces in the filenames or paths and my original mv command was working properly. Sorry for the wild goose chase.

The issue is a Mac/PC environment. We began as an all Mac environment but now are a mix of PC and Mac. Files that were ingested on a Mac are getting paths like /Volumes/maxxraid1/Footage/… and the same file, when ingested from a PC gets Y:maxxraid1Footage… and herein lies the problem.

For operations within a client I can set up original media search paths to account for the fact that files maybe located under /Volumes/… or as Y:…. That works great. But in WorkNode, it’s a problem. Apparently it doesn’t (can’t?) use that same information to search for original media when running jobs.

So, when I have files that were ingested over a PC and the paths start with Y: you can understand why, when executing a mv command in a Mac environment, it becomes a problem. The mv command can’t find the file because it’s being referenced from a PC mapping, the path is slightly different and the slashes within the path are reversed.

I also noticed that variables change…(figured this out from status emails I had the Workernode send me). $g is supposed to be the base part of the file name (i.e. my_clip rather than my_clip.mov). But when dealing with a file ingested from a PC this variable becomes the WHOLE path and the file name (without extension):

$g from Mac ingest file = IMCFTG3471_Creson Bob and Dallas_0002

$g from PC ingested file = Y:FootageDomesticWycliffe PersonnelCreson Bob and DallasIMCFTG3471_Creson Bob and Dallas_002

I don’t get that at all… is this a bug??

It probably is time to talk to support but I wondered if I might be missing some simple thing that would make this work. I can’t be the only person with this problem.

[Tim Jones]

Hi Jeff,

A very thorough bit of research on your part. I did a bit of experimentation on this and have submitted a feature request to the Square Box team to handle these situations a bit more logically.

My recommendation is to internally store everything with forward slashes and prepend a forward slash on drive letters from Windows systems. For example:

F:\A Folder\Some Path\A Movie File.mov

becomes

/F:/A Folder/Some Path/A Movie File.mov

The leading slash could then be dropped and the forward slashes would be converted to back slashes for human-readable display on Windows.

This would allow Server and Worker Node scripts to work on any platform regardless of the host platform of the media file(s).

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Bryson Jones]

Back to my “dark art” comment, there’s a lot to consider when you start to automate. Great work for digging in like that.

Bigger issue, it’s a best practice to use UNC paths in CatDV and Worker. Mapped drives can create issues with Quicktime (google that for some fun) and also are more confusing for writing scripts.

In defense of the system, not many systems (any?) will dynamically allow you to send a command based on a Mac or PC path being auto sensed and it’s fairly easy to have 2 scripts that run depending on the root of the path if you get outside of the Worker itself.

Great work and let us know how you do with the mts files. (an even bigger mess) We can’t seem to get them to span correctly or carry TC when we just raw process them via a watch. Has Adobe sorted this yet?

If so, we’ll get to work rolling out some CLI scripts for Media Encoder so people don’t have to drop and move files.

bryson

bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com

northshoreautomation.com