I use a UPS on my windows server, router, network switches, and the HDHomerun tuners, so that may be one of the reasons for my server's reliability. I did update the BIOS to enable power on after a momentary loss, but I don't think that has ever happened because of UPS.
I have used the Powercfg command to get more detailed information about the power settings, though mostly to find out why my computer (not the Channels server) wouldn't go to sleep.
FYI. This issue happened again. I think it's related to installing Windows updates. I remoted into the channels server this morning and it reported it needed to restart due to Windows updates. I rebooted it and everything seemed to come up normally. Later when I checked on the server I noticed none of the lights were on, so I powered it back up. Prior to this it had an uptime of almost a month.
Looking in Event Viewer I saw Incorrect function when Channels started up. I didn't see anything else unusual in Event Viewer.
Here's the Channels DVR logs from this morning:
2024/07/10 04:38:13.077703 [SYS] Shutting down...
2024/07/10 04:38:13.153007 [SYS] Bonjour service stopped.
2024/07/10 04:38:13.163662 [DVR] Recording engine stopped.
2024/07/10 04:38:13.204504 [SYS] Goodbye.
2024/07/10 04:38:43.341199 [SYS] Starting Channels DVR v2024.05.07.1442 (windows-x86_64 pid:3932) in C:\ProgramData\ChannelsDVR\data
2024/07/10 04:38:43.342740 [SYS] Running as a Windows system service.
2024/07/10 04:38:43.432589 [SYS] Started HTTP Server on 8089
2024/07/10 04:38:43.913286 [HDR] Found 1 devices
2024/07/10 04:38:44.600522 [DVR] Waiting 5h21m15.3994774s until next job 1720623600-ch11.4 Curious George
2024/07/10 04:38:44.600522 [DBG] Scheduling wake timer for scheduled recording in 5h19m45.3994774s
2024/07/10 04:38:44.640488 [DVR] Recording engine started in D:\channels-data
2024/07/10 04:38:44.715085 [SYS] Bonjour service running for dvr-channels-dvr.local. [192.168.0.7]
2024/07/10 04:38:44.849955 [SYS] Created database snapshot: backup-20240710.093844
2024/07/10 04:38:44.850975 [SYS] Removing old backup backup-20240611.053734
2024/07/10 04:38:54.658767 [IDX] Pruned 1603 expired airings from USA-OTA60062 in 35ms.
2024/07/10 04:38:54.658767 [DBG] Scheduling wake timer for guide data in 5h13m35.3412324s
2024/07/10 04:39:15.285739 [SYS] Shutting down...
2024/07/10 04:39:15.396966 [SYS] Bonjour service stopped.
2024/07/10 04:39:15.408173 [DVR] Recording engine stopped.
2024/07/10 04:39:15.422357 [SYS] Goodbye.
2024/07/10 04:39:40.512617 [SYS] Starting Channels DVR v2024.05.07.1442 (windows-x86_64 pid:3956) in C:\ProgramData\ChannelsDVR\data
2024/07/10 04:39:40.514211 [SYS] Running as a Windows system service.
2024/07/10 04:39:40.636915 [SYS] Started HTTP Server on 8089
2024/07/10 04:39:41.140776 [HDR] Found 1 devices
2024/07/10 04:39:41.901459 [DVR] Waiting 5h20m18.0985404s until next job 1720623600-ch11.4 Curious George
2024/07/10 04:39:41.901459 [DBG] Scheduling wake timer for scheduled recording in 5h18m48.0985404s
2024/07/10 04:39:41.949200 [DVR] Recording engine started in D:\channels-data
2024/07/10 04:39:41.972716 [SYS] Bonjour service running for dvr-channels-dvr.local. [192.168.0.7]
2024/07/10 04:39:42.081032 [SYS] Created database snapshot: backup-20240710.093942
2024/07/10 04:39:42.082064 [SYS] Removing old backup backup-20240612.053734
2024/07/10 04:39:51.921477 [IDX] Pruned 0 expired airings from USA-OTA60062 in 1ms.
2024/07/10 04:39:51.921477 [DBG] Scheduling wake timer for guide data in 4h39m38.0785221s
2024/07/10 05:09:01.837013 [DVR] Waiting 4h50m58.1629868s until next job 1720623600-ch11.4 Curious George
2024/07/10 05:09:01.837520 [DBG] Scheduling wake timer for scheduled recording in 4h49m28.1629868s
2024/07/10 08:28:48.581028 [SYS] Detected time jump of 49m6.6848209s
2024/07/10 08:28:48.864638 [DVR] Waiting 1h31m11.1353619s until next job 1720623600-ch11.4 Curious George
2024/07/10 08:28:48.864638 [DBG] Scheduling wake timer for scheduled recording in 1h29m41.1353619s
2024/07/10 08:28:49.795838 [ERR] Failed to refresh auth: Post "https://community.getchannels.com/dvr/api": dial tcp: lookup community.getchannels.com: no such host
Same here, it just works. There's no real fear of running a server on Win11 to me, and if you run Linux you'll have to reboot for security updates too.
Either works, use what you're comfy with.
Yeah, not anywhere close to Windows, and every Linux Server update doesn't require the server to be rebooted...
Did you check out this link by chance?
Also might be a good idea to run the windows update troubleshooter. The PC should definitely not shut down when doing updates.
Many windows updates do not require reboots. Your info is dated.
Then I guess Windows 11 falls into that dated category...
Come on man there's no need to keep going with this tit for tat. Both servers are equally viable regardless of the number of reboot updates. And I say this as a former Linux network dev and sysadmin.
It doesn't really matter that Win11 is primarily desktop, it runs channels equally well. Might take a little more ram, sure, but who really cares nowadays?
@GTFan
Finally, a sensible reply ... really, we should help in finding the cause of the problem by users running Channels DVR on Windows than suggesting a drastic change to a different operating system.
I have my Windows PC to login automatically and not reboot for updates when user is logged on ... So I will reboot and apply update when I want not when Windows wants to.
LOL, nope. Reboots are only for some updates, just like Linux. I use both, they both work. They both have good points and bad.
Please don't mention Linux on threads about Windows, and vice-versa.
Thank you. This has been the most helpful information I've seen so far. When I created this post I didn't mean to start a war between Windows and Linux. I just wanted to try and figure out why my computer shuts down after I install updates.
I also have my Windows PC set to not reboot for updates and do that when I remote in, which is what I did the other day. Unfortunately this didn't really shed any more light on my issue. It just showed that my computer rebooted twice for updates. I kicked of the first one at 4:36am. I don't know why it needed a second reboot, but oh well. What's odd is it seemed to come up fine after rebooting, but for some reason shut down a while after. Unfortunately I don't see any logs indicating why. As I'm running this machine headless I can't really tell if it's shut down or in some kind of power save mode (which it shouldn't be as it's set to never shut down.) All I know is I can't connect to it and when I look at the computer, the blue light is off, so I just press the power button. The only time I have this issue is after I've installed updates and rebooted. Once I've started it up after it somehow shut down, it will run 24/7 until the next time I reboot after installing updates.
I see that Critical Power error on your first screenshot can you post the details. It looks like Channels DVR restarted the computer for some reason @tmm1 @eric ... are You running as a service can you look at the properties and see if you have to restart the PC in case Channels DVR Shuts down ?
This is my Service ....
I am running Channels as a service. This is how I have the Recovery tab set. I'll try changing mine to match yours. Unfortunately I won't know if this worked until the next time I reboot to install updates.
I Attached a task when the PC needs to restart because of an update to do it when channels DVR is Idle. I have everything automated hate to baby sit a PC.
I should probably do that too, but I only reboot it when the DVR isn't doing anything, so that may be overkill in my case.
Anyway this is what I run when I want to reboot the channels DVR server .... You can also run it manually when you want to reboot when DVR is Idle.
:loop
curl http://192.168.50.66:8089/dvr | findstr /I /C:"busy\":false"
set notbusy=%ERRORLEVEL%
if %notbusy% EQU 0 shutdown /r /f /t 2
if %notbusy% NEQ 0 timeout 300
goto loop
exit
The critical power power error indicates the server started without a crash dump or error log entry. Power is assumed yet there are many reasons this can happen.
@Edwin_Perez Since I changed my Recovery options for the Channels service last month I haven't had any issues of my computer powering off. It appears changing my settings to match yours fixed my issue. Thank you for the help.