@James The latest build on the Blender.org website does appear to be working. Crisis averted! :D

Where does one find that information? It's not under the Splash Screen..

I did earlier today... and unfortunately it did not work. I will try again tomorrow.

Oh I agree... not a long term solution. This is a Blender 2.8 bug and they need to fix it before the final release.

I see the port setup in the CrowdRender preferences... that isn't the problem. They have ALL OF THE PORTS BLOCKED! Minus the ones being used (i.e. Filesharing). I still have access the the server room, so I think I'm just going to set up my own switch and make my own network. What they don't know won't hurt them. I'll set my Node up as a DHCP server... BAM... Done.

Yes... all the nodes are on the same subnet.

I figured it out. The lowlife, 3rd party IT group that we hired found the ports I was using and blocked them on the network switches. I found a way to get around them by setting up an ad hoc WiFi network. Slow - but it works. I'm looking for a better work around.

@James Yes

Particle test HD

OK... It did render all the way through this time, and all frames seem to match, but it seems to be back to doing this. What would make it do this?

Hi James, Yes - There is DOF, but it is applied and save to the .blend file. Also - I always do several saves and syncs before hit "render" just to make sure. But I will try again this weekend.

I was having the same problem rendering on iMacs. I'm not sure if this helped, but what I did was MAKE SURE any of the Mac's Power Saving settings are OFF! Including the Node you are rendering from!! No sleep... No Hard Drive Spin Down... Ect. I did this and I finally got my animation to render all the way.