Hi,

I ran into a weird problem : it seems that Visual Cron was in "pause" all day long on 01/01/2012.

The last log entry into C:\Program Files (x86)\VisualCron\log is from 2012/12/31 on 8:30PM

Visualcron reactivated on its own on 2012/01/02 without any action on our side.

Server logs don't show anything special, the server was not shut down nor rebooted during this day.

Any clue ?

Thanks.

I don't have any help to offer, other than... remember, its 2013 now (I plan on making that mistake at leat 30 times over the next few weeks) 🙂 And... what version are you running?

Hi,

The version I'm running is 6.1.0 on Windows Server 2008

It might be interesting to look at logs from log folder "log_serverDATE.txt" for the 1st and 2nd. Please send them to support@visualcron.com

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Ok I saw something :

On december the 31st, Visual Cron service crashed.

Do you know where I can find more details on the crash ? I can't see anything in VC's logs.

Thanks.

Look in the event viewer during that time (copy/paste error here). Normally, if it is something we have done you will see it in the log (as it is a .NET crash), if it is something from outside affecting .NET you will see it in the event log. It is important then to check the context - if there was anything else happening in the system at that time.

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Look in the event viewer during that time (copy/paste error here). Normally, if it is something we have done you will see it in the log (as it is a .NET crash), if it is something from outside affecting .NET you will see it in the event log. It is important then to check the context - if there was anything else happening in the system at that time.

Here is the error on "System Windows Logs" :

Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 31/12/2012 20:30:15
Event ID: 7034
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: xxxx
Description:
The VisualCron service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s).

At that time, a visual cron task was launched :

31/12/2012 20:30:14 Info Task started: xxxxx (4685)

Last log I have in Application Event Viewer is :

Log Name: Application
Source: VisualCron
Date: 31/12/2012 20:28:20
Event ID: 0
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: xxxx
Description:
The Job Every 5 minutes tasks exited at 31/12/2012 20:28
ExitCode : 0
DurationTime : 0,187

Thanks.

Should be more info in the event log. Should be something about the actual application error (if it is a crash) - here it is just saying that service did stop unexpectedly.

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Should be more info in the event log. Should be something about the actual application error (if it is a crash) - here it is just saying that service did stop unexpectedly.

Hi, I copied all the info from the Event Log : button "copy" on the event log details.

I mean it should be in other log - "Application log".

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Just for the sake of stating this... if (according to the event log) the VC service WAS stopped... then there is no way for it to have started again on the 2nd without user intervention. Unless of course you had the service set to automatically restart (rare, and even if you did it would've done so immediately and not a full day later) Either someone noticed and started the service or you have some monitoring or automation software (SCOM, Tivoli, etc...) that started the stopped service on its own.

Check the Application Logs, Security Logs, and the System event logs. All within 10 minutes or so of the crash. You mentioned Application logs, which is why I also say System and Security should be looked at too.

Brian

Just for the sake of stating this... if (according to the event log) the VC service WAS stopped... then there is no way for it to have started again on the 2nd without user intervention. Unless of course you had the service set to automatically restart (rare, and even if you did it would've done so immediately and not a full day later) Either someone noticed and started the service or you have some monitoring or automation software (SCOM, Tivoli, etc...) that started the stopped service on its own.

Check the Application Logs, Security Logs, and the System event logs. All within 10 minutes or so of the crash. You mentioned Application logs, which is why I also say System and Security should be looked at too.

Brian

Hi,

I have strictly nothing more on Windows Event Logs than :

1) Some Application logs about my Visual Cron job start.
2) The System logs stating that Visual Cron service crashed.

I extracted the logs from 2012/12/31 08h15 PM to 08h45 PM

There are no entries in the "Security" topic during that period of time.

I agree with you, about the service restart, it must have been done by someone, but at this time, I'm trying to determine why it crashed and how I can avoid it.

Maybe it's a configuration of my server, or a specific action we do, I just want to know how to investigate this in order to eliminate it in the future.

Many thanks for your help.

The reason I was interested in the security logs is... I was curious if someone was logged into the system at that time and maybe decided to kill a process using task manager that was using high CPU.... (VisualCron). For there not to be any crash events written, its almost as if the process was just flat out killed.

Just a thought.

Brian