Maya batch errors!_pls help

[project_68]

xp_x64 Maya 2009_sp1
recently something hapend and maya will no longer render from the command line.
however maya batch render from within the GUI works fine.
error as follows:

Starting "E:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2009\bin\mayabatch.exe"
mental ray for Maya 10.0
mental ray: version 3.7.1.27, Jan 26 2009, revision 30548
 File not found.:
Error: Cannot load scene "D:\path\file.mb;". Please check the scene name.
// Maya exited with status 209

about a month ago it worked just fine!
I even tried to reinstall maya to fix the problem, but had no effect.
nothing has changed in my network, or environment vars.
kinda at the end of my rope here, I really need command line rendering!
Thx
Scott

[project_68]

ok, i think I solved this one.
My problem was that at some point I altered my custom batch building script to include  + ";" after the filename instead of  + "\n".
and there was a script in my usersetup.mel that that i use to populate the $gMainWindow  menue  with my custom tool set that seemed to cause an error. which is funny cuz it works fine in maya mode (i realize that mayaBatch has no UI, but i thought it would just skip the UI and HUD creation). apparently mayaBatch will not tollerate this kind of behavior.

if someone could clarify for me (and others) how one goes about either:
A. skipping the declaration of a script in usersetup.mel if maya is in batch mode. or
B. if there is a mechanism to have mayaBatch skip the usersetup.mel altogether.

much appreciated!
Scott

[joojaa]

ok, i think I solved this one.
 which is funny cuz it works fine in maya mode (i realize that mayaBatch has no UI, but i thought it would just skip the UI and HUD creation). apparently mayaBatch will not tollerate this kind of behavior.

It does, however your subsequent code might crash because of this and obviously once crashed theres no way to go forward.  So if your code assumes thet theres a return then your code is wrong. Put it inside a try block.

But yes its extremely easy to test. 

if(size(lsUI -windows)==0)
  print ("then i have no GUI, and am in batch mode")

B. if there is a mechanism to have mayaBatch skip the usersetup.mel altogether.

yes, you can point the user profile elsewhere with environment variables, either so the user setup is not seen or tahta empty one gets run. Oh this only works in windows and linux but not on mac.

you cam also jsut rename te user setup, or change how it gets called in the main mel code.

PS: dont assume test!