Emby Server doesn't run Scheduled Tasks

[hansolo77 11]

I have Emby Server installed on my server at home, running Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard.  I have set up all scheduled tasks to run within about 10 minutes of each other around 11:00 am.  I have it set to perform the Check for Application Updates, Plugin Updates, and make a Backup at 11:00.  I then have it set to restart the server at 11:05 am.  Then at 11:07 am I have it set to do all the Library Scans (Chapters, Subtitles, People, and Library).  I can run all of these manually, and they complete fine.  But if I leave the server to run on it's own, it apparently doesn't do it.  When I come home from work everyday (typically around 8:00 pm) and check the scheduled tasks tab, it shows the last run's were the manual ones I did last night.  Specifically, the Restart Server task says "Aborted by Server Shutdown".  Since I'm not at home, I can't really see what it's doing.  I did, however, create a Windows scheduled task to wake the computer and move a file into a path I'm watching in Lights-Out, and wait 3600 seconds (1 hour) before erasing it.  This will wake the computer up and prevent Lights-Out from turning the computer off again until after the time has elapsed.  I figured 1 hour should be plenty of time to do all the Emby tasks, since doing it manually only takes like 2 minutes tops.  To be safe, I created the Windows task to run at 10:55 am, to allow the computer time to be ready to perform the Emby task, but they're not running.  If I check the Windows Scheduled Task log, it show the task completed successfully, so as far as I know, the computer WAS awake during the time it needed.

 

Is there something I need to do, like have a user logged into the desktop, or maybe run the Server as a service and not a taskbar app?

[ebr 16186]

Sounds to me like maybe you have them all too close together and the server restart is aborting the ones you told to start before it and the server isn't coming back up fast enough for the others to run.  That's total conjecture but a reasonable scenario.

 

Try giving more time between the tasks and the server restart (on both sides).

 

BTW - the aborted message for the restart plug-in is not a problem.  It aborts itself because it re-starts the server.  That was fixed a while back but a new server version created it again and, since the plug-in is very little used, I just haven't gotten around to doing anything about it again.

[hansolo77 11]

Ok, thanks!  I'll try adjusting the times a bit and see what happens.

[hansolo77 11]

I adjusted the times yesterday morning, and while I was logged into the Emby Server Dashboard (website) I was able to watch everything work exactly like it should.  However, today when I came home from work, it once again shows everything as being last ran a day ago, rather than 11 hours ago.  Does the Dashboard maybe only record a certain number of hours before it says "a day ago"?  Are there logs I can look at to see if it did in fact run today? 

[ebr 16186]

The normal server log.

 

It sounds like maybe the machine is asleep during your scheduled time.  I know you said you put something in place to wake it up, but that's what it sounds like...

[hansolo77 11]

Today is my day off.  I woke up around 10:15 this morning.  At 10:50 the server magically "woke up" (based on my Windows Task Schedule) and ran for 1 hour then went back to sleep.  I just manually woke it up and Remote Desktop'ed into the server and checked to see if it ran any of the tasks.  it didn't, and now says they were ran 2 days ago.  So it's definitely not running them.  When they ran before, it was in Remote Desktop, with the web dashboard UP and on the Scheduled Tasks page.  If I'm not, it doesn't run.

 

Is it maybe not running anything because it doesn't have a user logged into the machine?

[ebr 16186]

If a user is not logged in then you would need to be running as a service.

[hansolo77 11]

I thought about that...

 

Is there something I need to do, like have a user logged into the desktop, or maybe run the Server as a service and not a taskbar app?

 

The only problem is, I think one of the plugins said it won't work if it's being run as a Service.. could be the Restart plugin.  I'll give it a try and see what happens.  Thanks for your help ebr, I appreciate it greatly!

[ebr 16186]

Yeah, restart won't work as a service.

[hansolo77 11]

Still waiting to see if it solved the problem tomorrow, so this is a bit offtopic..
 
Couldn't you configure the restart plugin to just send a command line request to restart the service?  Something like:

net stop [service name] && net start [service name]

or

sc stop [service name] && sc start [service name]

I wonder if I could just erase your plugin and just make a Windows Task Schedule to perform that.