Restarting Sage in service mode

[NCAL]

Is there a way to restart Sage in service mode from a placeshifter client? I have been using placeshifter a short time now and it will sometimes lock up on me while doing one thing or another. When this happens nothing functions on Sage until I can get to the server to stop Sage in service mode and restart it. I can still access the server when this happens but Sage playback functions will not work. If there is no other way I may set up remote desktop and restart it from that direction. Has anyone else run into this and if so what has been your method to resolve the problem?

[GKusnick]

If you can VPN into your home LAN, you can restart services remotely using MMC as described here.

You could also presumably create a batch file to restart the service using net stop and net start, and then link the batch file to a Sage menu item using the dynamic menu plugin.

That said, in your shoes I would spend some time with debug logs trying to figure out why it's locking up in the first place.

[timnelsonic]

A different but related question: what's the easiest way to do a recurring, automated stop/start of the Sage service? I'd like to do this once a week or so in the middle of the night. Thanks.

[GKusnick]

Pretty much the same answer: create a batch file that calls net stop and net start, and set it up as a Scheduled Task in Control Panel.

But again, if your service needs weekly restarts to run reliably, that could be a symptom of a deeper problem.

[timnelsonic]

Thanks for the input. I'm not having issues that require a restart, I was just thinking a periodic restart would be good practice. Maybe I'm overthinking things.

[matt91]

I do a once weekly net stop / net start, during which I backup my wiz.bin and .properties files.


I do this at like 3 am - a time when I have never seen anything being recorded. If I had shows that might be scheduled during this time, I would possibly rethink this strategy. However, it seems a very safe time of day for me.

I'm going on ~90 days of (headless) server uptime, so it seems to be working pretty well.

Just my 2 cents.
Matt

PS since I don't have autoscan enabled for imported media, new videos would be detected as the service is coming back online. I don't think that I'd otherwise ever detect new videos.