Error: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION when rendering using Network Render Addon

[byrnes]

When rendering, I often get the Error: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION, and blender quits completely. This happens every 3 or 4 frames when rendering, on nearly any file I try to render. This happens when using fullscreen as well as the image editor view, and also happens when using the network render addon.

[rlguy]

Hey ConnorB123,

Do you mean that this workaround is not preventing crashes for you?

- Ryan

[byrnes]

Yes, that workaround does not work for me. Sometimes my renders will not crash, but most times they do.

[rlguy]

Hey ConnorB123,

Thanks for reporting this! This is actually the first report of the workaround not solving render crashes so I would like to get some more information so this can be solved for you and anyone else who may be experiencing the issue. I have a few questions that would help me learn more about this:

1. What is your system information?
   • Operating System
   • Blender System Information (attach file: Blender > Help > Save System Info)
   • Addon Version
   • CPU Model
   • GPU Model
2. Are you using an official release version of Blender? Or an alternative build such as a nightly build or custom branch?
3. Are you using the the denoising feature? - The denoising feature can be unstable and cause EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION errors with certain setting configurations.
4. Do you notice any patterns that relate to the frequency of crashes? Examples:
   • Increase when rendering whitewater
   • Decrease after a system restart
   • GPU rendering vs CPU rendering
   • High resolution vs low resolution simulations
   • Low samples vs high samples
5. Do the crashes occur at the same stage of rendering?
   • During render initialization (right before rendering)?
   • During rendering?
   • After rendering completes?
6. Do the crashes occur when rendering from the command line? Command line rendering seems to be the most stable method of rendering

Command:

/path/to/blender.exe -b /path/to/blend_file.blend -a

For example, my command looks like this (using Windows CMD):

"C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe" -b "C:\Users\ryanl\Documents\Blender\my_blender_scene.blend" -a

Thanks for providing any additional information, and sorry for the inconvenience! Hopefully I'll be able to gain some insight to what could be the cause of this issue.

- Ryan

[byrnes]

The crashes don't occur often when rendering via the blender GUI, but they happen every few frames when rendering using blender's network render add on, which does the actual render via the command line. I also use the command line to start up the network master server and slave. I'm using the latest release version of blender and the add on. I am using the denoising feature, but the crashes happen when I don't use it as well. I haven't tried rendering at low resolution/low samples, so I don't know if that would help. The crashes happen when I use CPU or GPU rendering. The crashes always seem to happen either just after a frame finishes rendering, or right as the next one starts, I can't tell which.

PC used for baking/modeling:
AMD Ryzen 7 1700
32GB DDR4 3000mhz
GTX 960 4GB
Windows 10 Pro

PC used for network rendering:
AMD FX 4350
20GB DDR3 1600mhz
GTX 1080ti
Windows 10 Home

[rlguy]

Thanks for providing this information! I'll need to try using the Network Renderer addon to see if I can reproduce this issue. I'll need to wait until Monday to have access to multiple systems for testing. I'll keep you updated.

[byrnes]

Hi,

Any update with this? If I could use the network render it would help speed up my workflow a lot.

[rlguy]

Hello ConnorB123,

I only had a chance to test this very briefly last Monday, but was not able to reproduce this issue. I still want to test this more extensively using a higher resolution simulation. At the moment, development and bug fixes for the FLIP Fluids addon is on hold. I am currently in the process of moving homes and do not have access to my desktop system used for development. Development should resume as normal within the next few days however. Sorry for this inconvenience!

I would like to test this issue using the exact Blender builds that you are running. Would you be able to attach the Blender System Info files for both of your systems. This file can be retrieved through Blender: Blender > Help > Save System Info. This file will give me more info on your Blender setup.

- Ryan

[rlguy]

I will be closing this issue due to inactivity and to clean up the issue tracker. If there are any further updates, feel free to add them here or send us an email at flip.fluids@gmail.com

[his0car]

Same Issue here in Blender 2.8 and Flip-Fluid from 14.02.2019. Currently, the only well working workaround is to render from console.

Issue: When trying to render as animation or as image, while initializing blender crashes. It seems to be more likely to work, when rendering a single image.

[rlguy]

Hi PascalSchimmler,

Thanks for the report! I have a few questions that could help me understand this issue:

• Are you able to render successfully without using Network Render, or does this only happen when using the Network Render addon?
• Does this happen when rendering with EEVEE, or with Cycles, or both?

- Ryan

[Krapisa]

Hi,
can confirm for me Cycles is crashing upon starting a render, single frame or animation does not matter, rendering from command line seems to work.

Im not using any Network Render atm and haven`t tried it with Eevee yet

Cheers,

[gradynelson]

I'm having this issue in heavy particle animated scenes and this is my fix: if I use the command line for rendering, keep the auto-ram cleaning open and instead of getting all the frames with " -a " in cmd I use a for loop to open separate shell for each frame.
I've been experimenting and when you try to batch render frames in one shell it crashes. And if you have other blender instances running they very most possibly will try to occupy the same memory addresses so keep your running tasks list clean.