So, you’ve set up your .ray3hosts file, got the raysat services running, and ping and telnet show that there’s no connection problems. But satellite still doesn’t seem to be working. What to do?

• Check that the raysat service running on the master too. (it has to be running on both the master and the slaves)
• Use the mental ray diagnostics to check whether the satellites are being used. In the mental ray renderer settings, click the Diagnostics tab, and select the Info and Progress checkboxes.
  If satellite is working, you should see something like this:

  // INFO : JOB  0.n  progr:    89.8%    rendered on MTL-SATELLITE:7020.6
  // INFO : JOB  0.13 progr:    90.9%    rendered on MTL-MASTER.13
  // INFO : JOB  0.6  progr:    91.9%    rendered on MTL-MASTER.6
  // INFO : JOB  0.n  progr:    92.9%    rendered on MTL-SATELLITE:7020.7
  // INFO : JOB  0.12 progr:    93.9%    rendered on MTL-MASTER.12
  // INFO : JOB  0.n  progr:    94.9%    rendered on MTL-SATELLITE:7020.2
  // INFO : JOB  0.n  progr:    95.9%    rendered on MTL-SATELLITE:7020.4
  // INFO : JOB  0.10 progr:    96.9%    rendered on MTL-MASTER.10
  // INFO : JOB  0.n  progr:    97.9%    rendered on MTL-SATELLITE:7020.0
  // INFO : JOB  0.n  progr:    98.9%    rendered on MTL-SATELLITE:7020.5
  

• Use Process Monitor on the satellite machine to confirm that the master is actually connecting to the satellite.
• On the master machine, in Softimage, open the script editor (ALT+4) and run this JScript:

  LogMessage( XSIUtils.Environment.Item("MI_RAY_HOSTSFILE") );
  

  This will log the .ray3hosts file that Softimage is using.
  Is this the same .ray3hosts file that you created?

  On Windows XP, UserTools creates the .ray3hosts file in the “wrong” location
  (UserTools puts it one place, but Softimage reads it from another place).

‘ ERROR : FATAL: DB 1.0 fatal 041500: interrupted by exception code 0xc0000005 (access violation)

The exception code 0xc0000005 (access violation) indicates this is probably a memory access error. The software is trying to access a region of memory that it shouldn’t be accessing. In general, this could be a problem in the code (for example, a NULL pointer), faulty RAM, or even a bad device driver.

If you get this error with any scene (for example, with one of the sample scenes that ships with Softimage), then that may indicate the problem is specific to your computers. Or if you get the error only with a certain computer, that would indicate a possible problem with that one computer.

If you get this with just some scenes, then that points to a problem in the software (or perhaps the scene). It could be that something about the scene triggers certain conditions in the software, and the software then causes the error. In general, I would try breaking down the scene to try and isolate the root cause. It could be the overall complexity of the scene, or a specific element of the scene.

In one case I had recently, the user got this 0xc0000005 (access violation) error and then an endless series of bad message…0xbad0bad errors. We traced the access violation error back the number of different animated objects that were being instanced through ICE using assemblies.

Assemblies are used when an ICE trees use one of these compounds:

• Set Instance Geometry
• Set Particle Instance Animation Time
• Control Instance Animation
• Control Displacement Instance Animation

Using assemblies can be memory-intensive, so it appears that when you’ve got a lot of particles and a lot of animated instances of many objects, satellite rendering may fail with a memory access error (actually, the frame was rendered, but XSI was hung up after because of the errors).

Ref: Access Violation? How dare you …