Notification of Recording Service not active via GUI

[dinki]

Perhaps this is possible already, but it would be nice to have something display on in GUI's main menu that would notify the user that the recording service is not running. I have had the recording service die on me and not known it until I tried to either enter live tv (a rarity) or view GBPVR info via EWA. I use the program daily for watching web streams and recordings, but I have no idea of the status of the recording service until I either stumble upon it via the methods above or by noticing that things are not being recorded. I know that I should be able to track down the source of the problem and resolve it, but in the meantime it would be nice to have 'heads-up' that nothing will be recorded.

If the status is available for the skins could someone please tell me the variable name so I can add it to the skin I use?

Also, on a similar front, is there a way to automatically restart the recording service if it should happen to die? When I notice that it has stopped running, a simple restart recording service works fine.

Thanks guys....

[bgowland]

I know that I should be able to track down the source of the problem and resolve it,...

You're right, you probably ought to fix the problem but I agree that an indication of some sort could be useful. How about if the systray icon showed the 'G' symbol in red if the service wasn't running?

Also, on a similar front, is there a way to automatically restart the recording service if it should happen to die?

You could always try the 'Recovery' options....

Right-click 'My Computer' then select 'Manage' and find the 'Services' sub-tree. Right-click the GB-PVR Recording Service and select 'Properties'. On the 'Recovery' tab you can tell the OS to automatically restart services that fail. Be warned - it doesn't always work depending on how a service crashes.

Cheers,
Brian

[dinki]

You're right, you probably ought to fix the problem but I agree that an indication of some sort could be useful. How about if the systray icon showed the 'G' symbol in red if the service wasn't running?

That may help some, but would not help me. I run in fullscreen mode at all times.

You could always try the 'Recovery' options....

Right-click 'My Computer' then select 'Manage' and find the 'Services' sub-tree. Right-click the GB-PVR Recording Service and select 'Properties'. On the 'Recovery' tab you can tell the OS to automatically restart services that fail. Be warned - it doesn't always work depending on how a service crashes.

Didn't know about this, will give it a try. Thanks for the tips.


My request still stands for some type of OSD when the recording service is not active.

[howdy]

I fully agree. This would remove another source of missed recordings .

[ricklous]

You could always try the 'Recovery' options....

This sounds useful, never knew you could do this.

I run in fullscreen mode at all times.

For running fullscreen, maybe you could set the Second Failure to run NirCMD and have it popup an Alert box if restarting from a first failure doesnt work? might be a workable sollution for the timebeing....

[dinki]

For running fullscreen, maybe you could set the Second Failure to run NirCMD and have it popup an Alert box if restarting from a first failure doesnt work? might be a workable sollution for the timebeing....

Never heard of NirCMD. I guess I'll be googling it in a few seconds

Thanks for the tip ... Still would like an integrated solution ...

[bgowland]

This sounds useful, never knew you could do this.

It's always worth trying but as I said, it depends on how the process crashes. If it drops out completely, the OS can detect it is missing and attempt a restart. If it crashes in a 'hung' state though, the OS will still think it is there and so won't do anything about it.

Cheers,
Brian

[Jeff]

If you are using the video archive panel, here is a little panel widget that will monitor the recordings process and pop up a priority message if the process exits or is detected as not running.

The widget checks for the recordings process when it starts. If it finds it, it sets up a windows event to monitor the process of exits. Also, just to be safe, it sets a timer and checks every 15 minutes to make sure the process is still running. if it gets an event from Windows or finds that the process is not running during one of its checks, a message is posted to the panel and the widget begins to check more aggressively to see if the process is restarted. It checks for a restart every minute. Once the process is restarted, the message is cleared from the panel and the check rate goes back to 15 minutes.

Jeff

[dinki]

Thanks Jeff, sounds exactly like what I'm looking for.