ok first off lets cover the basics. 2 machines, running XP Pro. Both have Poser Pro Base and Queue Manager installed. Machine 1 (Cerberus, Master) is running Poser Pro. Machine 2 (Delenn) is running the Queue.

Networking for the machines is setup and working correctly. (I can share files no problems and able to use Input Director to let me use 1 mouse / Keyboard from Cerb to control Delenn).

so to be clear on the last - networking between the machines is NOT a problem. each are working just fine there.

both running Comodo firewall with ports 4418 and 11523 (*edit seems it wants 11527 and 11528 as well)  open.

now to the problem I start a job on Cerb and only Cerb is rendering the job. Delenn just sits there showing : "Discovery query from 192.168.1.101 (port 4418) 1 Procs availible'  and thats it.. no rendering taking place. Now I know Delenn is talking to Cerberus.. Cerberus is 192.168.1.101 you see... so...

Queue Manager on Cerberus just shows 'Waiting' - it is set to send jobs to the network and accept them. Render Locally is off at this time to allow for testing.

Queue Manager on Delenn is set to accept from the network.

ok.. so any ideas? networks working.. the machines are talkin'... Render Queues see each other... but nada on the rendering...

PS

tried with Comodo off and unloaded on both machines. no change.

You may want to just disable firewall on both boxes to see if it works at all (or is Comodo your firewall software?)

did that already - Comodo Pro is the firewall.... ran naked and it just stayed at how I described.. which is nuts cos the slave machine is showing it's recieving a 'are you ready?' ping from the master!

I vaguely recall something like this from Poser 7 and somebody's 3rd party network rendering setup, which may not be at all related but is worth a try: do you have "Render in a Separate Process" enabled? if so you might try turning it off.

no effect... :( still nothing happening on the queues.

Are you familiar with Telnet? can you telnet from the client PC, to the port that the queue manager is supposed to be listening on?  If not, can you telnet from the listening PC, to itself, on that port?  That's only really a diagnostic step to see if you can get across the network at all, and may not work, but it's something I would try.  If you're not familiar with telnet I can give you some detail.

erm... pardon me if I seem dense but....

if the machines are talking - the master Queue is sending an 'Are you ready' signal to the slave and the Slave is showing thats recieved and answered... so the ports are open surely not?
and as to getting across the network, I'm doing that just fine.. I can copy/read files off the machines from each other, I use Input Director to control Delenn using Cerberus's keyboard and mouse across the network just fine.......

Quote - if the machines are talking - the master Queue is sending an 'Are you ready' signal to the slave and the Slave is showing thats recieved and answered... so the ports are open surely not?

Not necessarily, that's why I'm asking you to try Telnet.  Or if you don't think this is going to be helpful that's okey dokey with me too.

well looking at the firewall I can see that Delenn is sending a reponse to 4418. a port that is most definately open on Cerberus... and I can see that Cerberus is doing the same back to Delenn.
 
in comodo on both machines I've made sure that they are set to trusted application and that the ports are open..

basically I'm at a loss here since this should be working fine and is working fine for other applications setup the same way in the firewall. (eg my personal office webserver, Input Director, VNC....)

well, good luck then ^^ if you decide you want to try what I'm asking you to try lemme know.

 You have SR1 installed on both machines, I hope? Different versions of the queue won't distribute renders to each other.

BINGO! thanks Stewer!

for some reason the updater wasn't updating the manager on Delenn - even after I ran it twice!

I had to uninstall it and reinstall it from scratch....

have a crate of beer!