If you are working in Windows and want to run more than ten Render Nodes simultaneously, all the folders need to be set up on a machine that is running Windows Server because any other version of Windows will only allow ten simultaneous connections at any given time. Make sure you always check the "send textures" option. If you are in Linux or Mac this problem does not exist.
When rendering animations, make sure that you have plenty of free hard drive space. Each MXI file can easily be 100+ MB in size, especially if Multilight is enabled, and will quickly fill up a small drive.
MXS saved with local texture paths
Unless you use the "Send Dependencies" option when adding a network render job, both the MXS file and textures used in the MXS should be placed in a shared folder that all nodes have access to. An easy way to accomplish this is using the "Pack & Go" feature in Maxwell Studio which will copy your MXS and all the textures used in it to a folder of your choice. Otherwise you may get a texture paths error.
Alternatively, you have two options to make sure all nodes find the textures:
• You can keep your textures in a shared folder and when building your scene, you load the textures from this folder starting from Network in the File Browser so that the texture paths are in UNC format.
For example, your texture folder may be c:/mytextures, which is shared. Your computer name is "renderbox1" which is part of the Workgroup named "farm". Browse from My Network Places> Microsoft Windows Network> farm> renderbox1> my textures. The path for the texture will then be
\\renderbox1\mytextures\texture.jpg
You can also type directly in the File name input of the File Browser: \\renderbox and your mytextures folder will appear in the list of shared folders. In this case it is not necessary to also move your textures to the same shared folder as the MXS.
• You can keep your textures in a shared folder and when adding the job through the Add Job Wizard, you can specify this shared folder in the "Textures" dialog.
Using a mapped network drive
In case you are connecting to a folder as a mapped network drive, make sure you have added this folder as a mapped drive to all the servers, using the same drive letter.
Firewalls
If you are having problems detecting the nodes in your network, disable your firewall.