Allowing Emby Server to sleep/shut down.

[socketman 1]

So i will start with some background first

I have been using WMC on an Xbox 360 with Emby for a long long time. During this time i used a program called Green IT lightsout to keep my server running and shut it down by monitoring the ehshell activity while a movie is playing.This has worked great for a long time but recently i bought a firestick after cutting the cable. 

So i set up said fire stick and got it all working life is good, then i thought to myself i wonder if i could watch my movies from my server since the xbox is noisy and really is lousy at streaming a good picture. So i said hey what about Emby so i researched found the app put it on my firestick and boom it works right out of the box and the picture is amazing. Now for the issue.

 

It would seem that the movies are pulled right off the server and all processing happens in the fire stick so there is no activity other than the disc activity on my server so now i dont have any way to keep the server running with my Lightout program. Of all the things it can monitor like cpu and network and process's it doesnt monitor disc activity which mean i have to leave my personal computer on and tell the server to stay awake as long as my desktop computer is on. I hope this makes sense.

Is there any way anyone can think of to keep some kind of activity going while im streaming a movie so i dont have to leave my desktop computer on. what are other people doing to keep their server awake while watching a movie and then having it shut off afterwards. I still have other xbox's on the network in other rooms so i would like to keep my program. Could i turn on transcoding possibly.

 

Looking forward to suggestions thanks for looking.

[Carlo 4561]

Well, what many do is just let the computer run.  Modern computers throttle down the CPU to a low voltage.  HDDs can spin down, etc so the computer is still running but using far less electrical power. We just chalk up that leaving the server running will cost a couple of bucks a month for 24/7 availability and call it a day.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

In my opinion your server should not have any other regular tasks except what is needed to support itself as an Emby server. It is also my opinion that servers should never sleep.

A server is a specialized device and while the Emby developers try very hard to make Emby as able as possible to run with other programs it is impossible to assure stability when a computer is asked to do too much.

Also, except for some specialized cases, the server must be running for Emby playback to happen. Emby is a client/server system and both parts are required for functionality. The media files live on the server and the server supplies them a piece at a time to the client.

I have all my servers (3 of them) running 24/7 and they have all lasted longer than a coupe of others that have been regularly power cycled. Both computers and hard drives are designed for continuous and sleeping or any other version of automatically powering down is mostly just a placebo to make users feel better.

So my advice is to make sure your computer never sleeps and the only part that turns off at all is the monitor and that mainly to darken the room.

[socketman 1]

Honestly i dont use it that often which is why i prefer to have it shutdown. may go months without coming on.then get used for a week.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

9 minutes ago, cayars said:

Well, what many do is just let the computer run.  Modern computers throttle down the CPU to a low voltage.  HDDs can spin down, etc so the computer is still running but using far less electrical power. We just chalk up that leaving the server running will cost a couple of bucks a month for 24/7 availability and call it a day.

I do not even believe hard drives in a server should spin down. I do not believe that the savings in power is large enough to warrant the extra wear caused by allowing the drive to spin up and down.

[Carlo 4561]

I don't allow my HDDs to spin down either.  I find they wear out faster doing this especially when you have many drives in the same enclosure.  The spin up/down causes oscillation and vibration that is not good for them with many drives like that.

They're all kept busy anyway converting files that have h.264 over to h.265 for the massive storage saving.  For about 2 years I haven't had to increase storage as I've been able to keep freeing up storage with the conversions while still adding new h.265 content but that's a story for another day.

[pwhodges 2012]

I've also never allowed hard drives to start and stop while the computer is running, except in laptops, I guess.  But I am now halfway through my project to replace all my rotating-rust storage with sold-state drives, which removes that issue. 

I don't let my computers sleep either, but as I don't chase performance like a gamer, I also select the lowest energy using cpu which has the capabilities I want or need - admittedly, that means that my streamer takes twice the energy of the machine that runs all of my virtual servers.

As effectively all the energy used by a computer ends up as heat, in climes where heating is used for the greater part of the year, it merely contributes to that anyway!

Paul

[ebr 16184]

Hi.  The Emby server should handle this for you.  Just set your sleep settings in Windows how you want them.  The server will not allow the machine to sleep if you are actively watching something.

[socketman 1]

Thank You kind sir, nice simple answer without judgement. Much appreciated.