ahhhrrggg!!!! some issue with Mantra renderer!

i'm, (for once) really frustrated with the way things have been happening now..

Houdini has always been a continuos learning journey and it remains just that way even when I felt i was getting better..

ISSUE IS: (here are the screen shots to make this clear)

I was trying a simulation with the new Pyro tools....its real cool..gotta admit!!

but i cant, seemingly render using the new Mantra render.

if i hit render (using the new Mantra) absolutely nothing happens! (the process of rendering does not initiate....no mantra window comes up....no error message shows up!!)

I was pretty surprised, so I checked it using the H8 Mantra..guess what, it rendered....

but that does not end the issues....I noticed that the H8 Mantra renderer was not rendering SHADOWS!! There are no Shadow details!

In something like a Fire and Smoke Simulation, where Shadows play vital role, its SIMPLY NOT THERE!!

The IRONY IS: the default view renderer (for which we dont need a Mantra ROP) renders the image ALONG WITH Shadows!!

Now, how do I render an image sequence using this!! :(

anyways....I guess there's some issues with scripts i guess??

lets see what comes up now *ROLLING UP THE SLEEVES*