Hey! Are you tired of dealing with Deadline and you tried to use HQueue but failed? This guide might help you!

Installing HQueue itself it's pretty simple and when you can’t get your clients connected to the main server, it's probably related to IP stuff and opening the right ports.

I'm definitely not an IT guy, but this is what it works for me. So let's go:

There are some key parts:

Network connectivity: Your machines must been able to see each other. Go to Advanced sharing settings on your Windows machines and check if Turn on network discovery and Turn on file and printer sharing has been activated in the Private section.

Opening ports: You must have port 5000 and 5001 open in your firewall as the client connect to the server through port 5000 and the server machine connect to client machines through 5001.

Search in your system for Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security and open it. Next, right-click on Inbound Rules and click on New Rule.

Select Port as the type of rule you want to create. In next window, choose TCP and type the port numbers in the Specific local ports field. In this case 5000-5001 (you can use - to select a range of ports).

Next select Allow the connection and in the next one, select the network profile, normally Private, but you can leave the three options checked. And finally, give a fancy name to the rule and finish!

Remember to do this in all your nodes!

Folder and mount sharing: There are plenty of ways of sharing mounted drives over your network, maybe you already have a server or NAS connected along your network, that’s nice! If not and you want a simple configuration, the easiest way if sharing a local folder over your network and mount that folder at the same location on every machine, like H:/ on Windows.

For sharing a folder, right-click on the folder you want a click on Properties. In the Sharing tab, click the Share... button. Click the drop-down menu and choose Everyone. Back on the Sharing tab, click on the Advanced Sharing button. In there, check Share this folder and click on Permissions. Allow permission on Full control, Change and Read. Done!

For mount this folder, go to the File Explorer and on the top , click on the dots and select Map network drive.