mysterious [texturesys] errors when using ass

[Daniel_Mikolajcak]

Hello, I still have issues when using ASS in my files. I get [texturesys] error about textures, used in ASS, not existing although they definitely exist and are properly linked.

for example:
[c4dtoa] 00:01:46 21550MB ERROR | [texturesys] /Smooth_Metal_3|oaktramonto597267-edit: Invalid image file "Metal_009_COL_6K.tx": Could not open file: Metal_009_COL_6K.tx: No such file or directory

The last time I reported this it was not resolved. I am not going to investigate further due to the complexity of the scene. It would be helpful if Arnold reported not only texture but also affected ASS so this could be solved.

Perhaps you can look into it if it pops out with someone else.

[Stephen.Blair]

You can grep or findstr the ass files to find the reference.
You do have the name of the material.
On Windows, you can run Process Monitor to see where Arnold is looking for that texture.

The fact that it's just the file name, with no path, suggests a problem with the texture search path.

[Daniel_Mikolajcak]

One Ass file rendered fine in a new blank file with identical search paths that were copied from the scene where it caused render error, very mind-boggling. I am positive paths are set correct

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

I remember the issue and could not reproduce it properly. It happened randomly right, with different textures? Is it the same this time, or is it always the same texture which fails?

Does setting Max open files under Textures in the Render Settings help?

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

Are your textures/procedurals stored on a network drive?

[Daniel_Mikolajcak]

It is weird because if you paste ass into a new blank file and set the same search paths it works without an error message, everything is on built-in drive. Could this be MAC issue?

I cranked up Max open files to 5000, did nothing.

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

It seems like the problem is not related to the file itself, but exists only in a procedural/texture heavy scene. I'll take another look at your old scene on my Mac.

[Daniel_Mikolajcak]

It is very probably not related to texture files or ASS assets as both render fine in the smaller scene. I hope this information helps.

[Daniel_Mikolajcak]

I wonder if you could build in an option for Arnold to ignore this error and render it through anyway, I have seen an option in an ASS text file to ignore missing texture.

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

The image shader has the Ignore Missing Textures parameter. There's no global flag specific to this error, if I recall correctly. But you can disable the Abort On Error checkbox in Render Settings / Dignostics. This will render regardless of any error in the scene.

[Daniel_Mikolajcak]

that is an interesting option, I will try it out.
I still get abort even unchecked.

[Daniel_Mikolajcak]

Could the use of c4d Shader instead of Arnold Image shader cause the trouble?

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

Working fine for me. When unchecked, missing textures are rendered red (Texture error color).

I noticed that the selected Render Settings on your screenshot is not the active one.

[Daniel_Mikolajcak]

Well Peter, sorry for this storm, but you are right, my search paths were set in inactive render settings, those in active render settings were not set. I will let you know if the issue persists, for now, it works.

[jimKUQZ5]

Any real solutions or causes for this error?

I just bumped into the same problem where my render gives the [texturesys] errors.

Looks like it happens with ass files that link to tx files. But the ass files themself render properly in simple scenes. Loading them in production scenes give me random erros on different tx files.

[Stephen.Blair]

Do these tx files exist, and is the folder reachable? If yes, and the tx files themselves are not corrupt, then it's most likely some kind of system problem. Especially if the tx file works fine when you copy it locally.

[jimKUQZ5]

What kind of system problem can it be? Its realy hard to debug.

[jimKUQZ5]

This additional error is also popping up:

[texturesys] "FileNodeName": "TextureFileName".tx: Error fetching directory count

[thiago.ize]

I've never seen that error before, but looking online I see that it seems to be a tiff error message http://www.libtiff.org/man/TIFFWriteDirectory.3t.html:

Error fetching directory count. A read error occurred when fetching the directory count field for a previous directory. This can occur when setting up a link to the directory that is being written.

So your tiff file (the .tx is really a tiff file in this case) is probably corrupt. If it's happening only occasionally, my guess is that you have one process overwriting your .tx file while another is writing to it.

[Stephen.Blair]

Seen it twice in support, over the last decade.