[CLOSED] Make UMS a singleton / limit to a single instance

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knicknak
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Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:13 pm

[CLOSED] Make UMS a singleton / limit to a single instance

Post by knicknak »

An old suggestion I made for PMS that applies to UMS as well:

Can you put in code to limit UMS to a single instance?

I run it as a service, but if I want to mess with the settings, I launch the GUI - which in turn starts another instance of UMS. If I launch the GUI again, another instance pops up.

It would be nice if I could get to the GUI to change settings without having to launch additional instances. Would also be nice if changes made in the GUI were picked up by the service without having to restart.

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Looks like there are some implementations here:
http://yuvadeveloper.blogspot.com/2009/ ... -java.html

It would be nice if you could launch UMS and if an instance (or the service) was already running, it just brought up the GUI.
Additionally if you clicked on the restart HTTP server and if PMS was running as a service, restarting the service.
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SubJunk
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Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 4:12 pm

Re: Make UMS a singleton / limit to a single instance

Post by SubJunk »

Why not just uninstall the service and have it run normally? You can make it startup with Windows and start minimized (both options are in the GUI) so what reason is there to use the service?
knicknak
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:13 pm

Re: Make UMS a singleton / limit to a single instance

Post by knicknak »

SubJunk wrote:Why not just uninstall the service and have it run normally? You can make it startup with Windows and start minimized (both options are in the GUI) so what reason is there to use the service?
Then the question can be asked why does UMS support being run as a service? If the product is going to support being run as a service then it should do it well.
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SubJunk
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Re: Make UMS a singleton / limit to a single instance

Post by SubJunk »

It's being kept around for users who have very unique needs but we certainly don't recommend it unless you have a reason to use it. If we recommended it, it would be the default setting.
nicomess
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Joined: Fri May 17, 2013 6:58 am

Re: Make UMS a singleton / limit to a single instance

Post by nicomess »

@knicknak 's suggestion really makes sense.

Bringing up the GUI for the service running or at least asking wether to attach the GUI to the service or start a new instance with some other profile would be a really nice feature.
The only reason one would have 2 instances of UMS running might be using parental control or sharing different stuff with IP whitelists. For example one instance for me and one (on another port) for my daughter.

Ideally there would be the possibility to share different folders for different IP's or even better MAC-Addresses/renderers from ONE single instance. With this option there would be no need for a second instance ... ever.
( at least not more than one instance per user if file permissions and stuff play a role for sharing the media )

But even in this case it would be good to be able to attach the GUI to a running service. Can you follow?

Running UMS as a service has several advantages and the feature should not be removed. A simple use case:

Given i have UMS installed as a service. This gives me the possibility to start UMS even before a user has logged into the system.
I have set up WOL ( Wake on LAN ) for my home server. The system will hibernate or i shut it down several times a day in order to save energy.
I wake the system up when i am being with customers but after wakeup ... you need to log in again.
WIthout UMS running as a service i would need to VNC ( via SSH running - both running as services ) into my machine in order to login and have the autostart of UMS happen.

With the service running on startup ( before login ) i only have to use WOL from my phone and can ( after waiting a few seconds ) instantly use UMS without logging in.

But all of this would become unnecessary if we had a REST API
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SubJunk
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Re: Make UMS a singleton / limit to a single instance

Post by SubJunk »

I won't remove the feature and I'm happy for others to work on it to make it better :)
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