Q100489: Multiple Nuke processes created on launch

SYMPTOMS

When launching Nuke via the GUI or within Terminal mode, Nuke displays multiple processes within the Task Manager (Windows), System Monitor (Linux) or Activity Monitor (Mac):

multiNuke1.PNG

CAUSE

With the release of Nuke 11, the Frame Server has replaced the Background Render when rendering image sequences. 

NOTE: For rendering video files like .mov, the Background Render is still used.

The Frame Server allows Nuke, Nuke Studio and Hiero to reduce render times by using multiple instances of Nuke to render with. This can be achieved via additional render processes launched on the local machine or external machines.

The amount of processes created is determined by the frame server processes option, within your Preferences window:

frameServerPrefs1.PNG

Depending on how many processes you have set to use, multiple Nuke processes will be spawned and appear in the OS process manager. (e.g Task Manager on Windows, System Monitor (Linux) or Activity Monitor (Mac))

WORKFLOW

Since the Frame Server is responsible for the additional Nuke processes launched, if you're not planning to use it you can disable it to prevent Nuke from creating these additional processes on start-up.

To disable it use the --disable-nuke-frameserver flag within your Nuke launch command, for example:

Windows:  C:\Program Files\Nuke11.3v3\Nuke11.3.exe --disable-nuke-frameserver
Mac:  /Applications/Nuke11.3v3/Nuke11.3v3.app/Contents/MacOS/Nuke11.3v3 --disable-nuke-frameserver
Linux:  /usr/local/Nuke11.3v3/Nuke11.1v3 --disable-nuke-frameserver

FURTHER READING

For more information on disabling the Frame Server and Command Line operations, please refer to the following articles: Q100378: How to disable the Frame Server for Nuke, Nuke Studio and Hiero and documentation link: Nuke Online Help - Command Line Operations

To learn more about rendering using the Frame Server, please refer to: Nuke Online Help - Rendering using the Frame Server

If you are seeing issues with custom Python scripts launching multiple times on launch, please refer to: Q100499: Custom scripts execute multiple times on launch