Export jobs fail and/or don't appear in Smoke's background tasks window

Issue

You are attempting to export media from Smoke and jobs are stuck in "waiting" status, or fail before completing.
Additionally, export jobs may not appear in Smoke's "Background Tasks" window, but are listed in the Backburner Web Monitor at http://localhost/backburner
 
Note: this article only applies to cases where the Smoke software and all of its background components are installed on the same workstation.

Solution

Why did my export job fail?
Export jobs rely on proper communication between Smoke and several of its background services:

• Stone+Wire, the service in charge of managing the media cache storage.
• Backburner Manager, the service in charge of queuing the export jobs.
• Backburner Server, the service in charge of actually processing the jobs.
• Wiretap Gateway, the service that provides file access to the export folder.
• Wiretap Server, the service that provides the Gateway and Backburner with access to Smoke's project and library metadata, and therefore to the sequence to be exported.

These components communicate with each other via the workstation's network.
 
There are cases where communication between any of these components can break. This is often due to one of these components (especially Backburner) attempting to reach the others via the computer's external network hostname (for example User's MacPro) rather than the internal hostname (localhost). Having more than one external network interface active at the same time (e.g. wired and wireless) can further complicate things.
 
 
Start by checking the status of the job and the latest error
 
Use the Backburner Web Monitor to confirm that the export job has indeed been created, especially if it's not listed in Smoke's background tasks window.

1. Open Safari and go to http://localhost/backburner
2. Log in using "backburner" as the user name and password.
3. Select your computer in the "Manager" drop-down list.
4. The main table on the page lists recent backburner jobs.
5. Find the job stuck in "waiting" and double-click it. A job details page opens listing the latest error message.
6. Don't close the Web Monitor yet. We'll use it to attempt to restart the stalled jobs.
7. You can also get detailed information on the error by opening Terminal and typing the following commands:
   tail /usr/discreet/backburner/Network/backburner.log
   tail /usr/discreet/backburner/Network/backburnerServer.log
8. These commands will display the end of the Backburner logs. The errors returned by the logs should give you an idea of why the job has failed.

Verify and restart background services

1. The easiest step you can take towards troubleshooting the export job is to open the Service Monitor app from the Applications > Autodesk > Smoke Common Utilities folder and restart the Wiretap Server and the two Backburner services.
2. If any other service shows a red light, restart it and then go to the Backburner Web Monitor, select the job in "waiting", click the Action button and select "Activate".
3. If the job does not restart, or briefly starts but immediately falls back into "waiting", restart your Mac and try activating the job again.
4. If the job still won't restart, try the following troubleshooting procedures.
   

Ensure there are no disconnected media storage cache folders.
If the logs contain errors similar to "Could not determine file system type for", that means that a drive that has been defined as a Smoke media storage location is not connected to the computer.
You must disable the drive in the Smoke Setup app.

1. Open the Smoke Setup app from Applications > Autodesk > Smoke > Utilities
2. Go to the Media Storage tab.
3. Click Manual Edit.
4. The storage configuration file opens in a text editor.
5. Find the [Partition] section that corresponds to the path mentioned in the Backburner log.
6. The section contains a Name= line and a Path= line.
7. Add a # sign before the Partition, Name and Path lines. For example:
   #[Partition7]
   #Name=AutodeskMediaStorage
   #Path=/Volumes/storage/Autodesk Media Storage
8. Click OK, then Yes and then Apply.
9. The media storage partition is now disabled.
10. Open the Service Monitor app and restart the Stone+Wire and Wiretap Server services.
11. Go into Backburner Web Monitor and delete all stalled jobs.
12. Open Smoke and attempt to export your clip again.

Ensure services communicate via "localhost"
The following tasks will force backburner services to communicate via the computer's internal network. 

1. Exit Smoke and open the Smoke Setup app from the Applications >  Autodesk > Smoke > Utilities folder.
2. Go to the Backburner tab and make sure the value of the "Manager" field is set to localhost.
3. Go to the General tab and click the Manual Edit button.
4. A configuration file opens in a text editor.
5. Scroll to the end of the file and find the #BackburnerPreConfigManagerHostname localhost line.
6. Remove the # at the beginning of the line.
7. Click OK, then Yes and then Apply.
8. Close the Smoke Setup app.
9. Open the Terminal app.
10. Type the following command and press Enter:
    sudo nano /usr/discreet/backburner/Network/backburner.xml
11. Enter your password when asked.
12. The Backburner configuration file opens in a simple text editor.
13. Use the arrow keys to scroll through the file until you reach the <ManagerName> and <ServerName> parameters.
14. Make sure the value of both parameters is localhost
15. Also check the <ServerMAC> and <ManagerMAC> parameters.
16. If any of the MAC values is set to 0000000000, open System Preferences > Network, select your wired network, click Advanced  and copy the "MAC Address" value from the Hardware tab (without the colons) into the SeverMAC and ManagerMAC parameters in the Terminal.
17. Press control+o and then Enter to save changes.
18. Press control+x to close the editor.
19. While still in the Terminal, type:
    sudo nano /usr/discreet/backburner/cfg/manager.host
20. The manager.host file opens in a text editor.
21. Make sure the value in the file is localhost.
22. Press control+o and then Enter to save changes.
23. Press control+x to close the editor.
24. Open Service Monitor and restart the two Backburner Services.
25. Go into Backburner Web Monitor and delete all stalled jobs.
26. Open Smoke and attempt to export your clip again.

If the above procedure doesn't fix the issue, check that the /etc/hosts file has not been manually altered:

1. Open Terminal and type:
   cat /etc/hosts
2. The command output should contain a single line for "127.0.0.1", as in the example below:
   ##
   # Host Database
   #
   # localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
   # when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
   #
   127.0.0.1       localhost
    
   255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
   ::1             localhost
   fe80::1%lo0 localhost
3. If there's more than one "127.0.0.1" line, or if the 127.0.0.1 line points to any other host name than localhost , type sudo nano /etc/hosts to open the file in a text editor and remove all other "127.0.0.1" lines except the one highlighed in the example above.

Make sure that you are running the correct Wiretap Version

1. Open the Terminal app from the Applications > Utilities folder.
2. Type in the following command:
   /usr/discreet/<SMOKE_VERSION>/bin/selectWiretapVersion.py
3. You will get a prompt like below.
   Wiretap Versions
   1) 2012.1
   2) 2013.0.1
   3) 2013.0.4
   4) 2013.2
   5) 2013.2.1
   6) quit
   Select new wiretap version
4. Select the version of Smoke you are running and press Enter.
5. Restart your computer and attempt the export job again.

Disable additional network interfaces

1. If the export job still won't work, open System Preferences > Network and make sure only one network interface is enabled, preferably the one that was enabled when you initially installed Smoke.
2. Then select the network interface in the left-hand pane and click Advanced in the right-hand pane.
3. Make sure Configure IPv6 is set to "Link-local only" in the TCP/IP tab.
4. Also, if you have installed Parallels Desktop, VMWare, Oracle VirtualBox or any other application that creates virtual network interfaces, try to temporarily disable those interfaces to see whether export starts working.
5. Restart your Mac if you made any change to the network settings, then delete all stalled Backburner jobs and attempt to export again.

Avoid port conflicts and blocked ports

• If your Mac's firewall is turned on, open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Firewall and turn it off, then restart your Mac and see if the export job resumes successfully.
• If you have installed Autodesk Maya with the Backburner option enabled after having installed Smoke, uninstall all Maya components, then uninstall and reinstall Smoke, delete all failed export jobs and retry exporting your clip.