Magic Mask Tracking Not Syncing in Remote Grading

I have an issue with Remote Grading in DaVinci Resolve Studio. I am the MASTER, and when I use Magic Mask Object tracking on my system, it works fine—the red bar turns blue. However, on the SLAVE machine, the tracking does not process and stays red, with only one frame tracked.

If I disconnect remote grading and regenerate the mask on the SLAVE machine, it works locally. But when I reconnect to remote grading, the tracking disappears and turns red again.

Is this a known issue? Any solutions?

Thanks!

It's better to contact support directly?

Generally speaking, magic mask caches the frames that are tracked and doesn't cache the reference frames. If there is a discrepancy between cached frames on the disk and source used for tracking, you will need to re-generate in order have up to date version of it. Hence the reference frames, or those that you use to make stroke do not get cached, and stay up to date, like qualifiers, while the tracked frames are saved to disk as image sequance and need the source to remain true to the moment when they were created.

Cached or tracked frames allow magic mask to work by recalling cached frames, while reference frames or those with stroke, allow repeatability, so you only need to re-generate from reference, rather than try to eyeball it.

What all this means is that for magic mask to work in full, source needs to be accessible when tracked and remain linked to magic mask and not changed.

This will apply to any time you use magic mask. In regards to remove and local grading in particular, I can't recall what the exact situation is, but there is option in the project for automatic linking or using local grades etc. So you might try those options and see if it works.

Just keep in mind that magic mask is caching tracked frames, so its behaving similar to caching or effects or nodes etc. When you change something it has to re-cache. Again, generally speaking as you would expect from caching, downstream from it you can do almost anything and not interrupt cache, and upstream you will almost always interrupt cached version.

Depending on the kind of use case you have for magic mask, you can also use fusion page for tracking which bypasses the problem since its sourcing from media pool. But if you need magic mask on the color page, keep in mind that its caching most of its frames and will depend on the source and cached frames to stay up to date.

Any solutions?

One of them would consist in "Render in Place" any MM clip you find satisfying, given that stepping back is still possible anyway...
Yes, it's just a workaround but MM cache is tricky, even for some classic use, so at least you efficiently treat the issue and can work ahead

What makes things complicated during a real-time remote session is exactly this: when you have to render in place, it requires disconnecting the Remote Grading session between Master and Slave, then re-sharing the Master project again.

Ideally—and I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request—the Magic Mask results should be cached just like any other node using the Node Cache system (Auto / On / Off), because cache behavior is already well integrated into Resolve’s workflow.

Yes, Resolve users in the whole world actually have the same regular cache request, you know...

Yes, it's weird. It forces the remote setup to work like old-school methods, relying only on a mask and lacking advanced AI tools for selection. This typically provides a great speed boost when I work locally, so losing it in remote work is frustrating.