UMS not showing the GUI when starting as a service

[SoReT]

Hey there!

I've just recently decided to use UMS as my only media server for everything. I've been looking closely at the features of all the available ones out there, but haven't really tried out anyone until now, because the most important thing to me is that the server starts unattended, that is, to be run as a service, and that's the first part I'm having trouble with. I'm running a pretty big Windows Server 2012 R2 which up until now I've only used for development and virtual machine management, but then I figured "hey, everyone needs some entertainment every now and then..." and then installed UMS . You can only imagine the patience I needed with all the reboots...

Anyway, after searching around the forum, I could see that this topic has been treated several times before:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8569
viewtopic.php?p=21782&sid=264739a25ce4d ... d0a#p21811
However, I'm quite confident that the problem I'm having has nothing to do with firewalls and whatnot.

After installing UMS along with the latest version of JRE, I was able to open the "Main Panel". The only single test I've done to test the server is to browse the HTML console from another computer, and I was able to do that up to this point, so I did nothing else. Then I installed UMS as a service, configured the service a bit, and rebooted, but after that I was no longer able to open the "Main Panel", although I was able to browse the HTML console. This is why I think my problem is different; because the service seems to be running well. It's just that I'm unable to access the "Main Panel" when UMS has started as a service.

Of course, at first I tried the obvious; uninstall, reinstall, different versions of Java, disable firewall, bla bla bla... I don't recall which tests I've done exactly nor the times I rebooted the server. But! There was this one time I noticed two Java processes running, "javaw.exe" and "java.exe", the first one taking much more memory than the other. Every time I clicked on the UMS shortcut, an additional "java.exe" process was created showing nothing on screen. Then I realized that, if I stopped the service or killed all these Java processes mentioned, then the next time I clicked on the UMS shortcut the UMS would start up entirely again, only this time showing the "Main Panel" without problems. At first I thought that it could have something to do with the "starting with Windows" option, but discarded that because Windows Server has StartUp items disabled by default. Then I thought I needed to run the service as the same user that runs the "Main Panel", but that also turned out to be irrelevant. Then I thought that I needed to enable service interactivity, but that wasn't the problem either.

So my current situation is this: The service works fine, but if I need to access the "Main Panel", I need to stop the service and start it up using the UMS shortcut. I'm happy to have found out a solution, but I'm pretty sure you'll agree with me that this is not a normal behavior. Is there something I'm missing?

Please understand that I was unable to extract the debug information due to the particularity of not being able to access the "Main Panel".

Thank you all for your help in advance, and congratulations developing this incredible software.
Greetings from Spain!

[atamariya]

Can you post the wrapper logs at C:\Program Files (x86)\Universal Media Server\service\win32\ ? May be we could find something useful there.

[SoReT]

Sure thing! Here you go!

[atamariya]

The wrapper service script is not free for 64-bit JVM http://wrapper.tanukisoftware.com/doc/e ... nloadNote1. You should try a 32-bit JVM.

[Triplefun]

I am running ums as a service on server 2012 essentials r2. To access the console you need to first go into services and 'stop' the ums service. Then run ums.exe to modify the settings. Once complete you quit ums and 'start' the service.

[SoReT]

The wrapper service script is not free for 64-bit JVM http://wrapper.tanukisoftware.com/doc/e ... nloadNote1. You should try a 32-bit JVM.

I understand. It seems pretty clear now.

Forgive my ignorance in Java platforms, but what exactly does this service wrapper involve? I'm guessing that, if the wrapper is run in 32 bit and the JVM is 64 bit, then the only real problem is the UMS panel not being able to contact the service, right? I mean, the service seems to be running fine in 64 bit despite the wrapper throwing out an error...

I guess another way of asking is; which performance features from UMS will be affected from running in 32 bit compared to running in 64 bit? If the differences are noticeable, then I'm thinking I would much rather restart the service every time I want to use the main panel (which isn't going to be a lot of times) than running it in 32 bit mode. Would you?

Thanks again for all your help!

[atamariya]

The wrapper is responsible for system level interactions for running as a service only. It's independent of the core application functionality. However, since it's written for 32-bit OS, it's behaviour on 64-bit OS is not well tested and predictable.

Bit compatibility between OS and application will definitely result in better performance in a high-computing application. However, for normal usage, I don't think you'll see any noticeable difference.