Restart server after crash

I have had some crashing issues likely caused by plugins crashing and taking everything out with it. My question is whether there is a method to restart the server immediately after it crashes. I get a crash once every few days and all I have to do is click "start local server" when it does crash and everything works fine until the next time it goes down. Does anyone have a way to do this?

I would focus on managing why it crashes and not how to recover:

1. check the system log around that time
2. check cpu/ memory usage of plugins

does it get slow before and how does it "crash" the indigo server or the client stops running if yes there must be something in the system log?


Karl

Not sure if it slows or not, It's usually in the middle of the night. I'm just now starting to research it to try and nail down the cause. Right now I'm pretty buried in my paying job and don't have as much time to work on it as I'd like. Until I can figure it out I'm just looking for a quick fix so my girlfriend doesn't call me when I'm on a business trip saying "None of the lights work, what's wrong with having a normal house with normal light switches??"

[jay (support)]

If the server crashes the OS should relaunch it. If the client crashes it shouldn't matter because the server is running anyway.

If this behavior isn't what's happening, then you likely have some other serious OS issues, which might also be the cause of your frequent crashes. We architected the plugin mechanism so that they run in separate (sandboxed) processes, so if one crashes it should not effect the server. The behavior you're seeing implies something more systemic with your Mac.

It's definitely the server that is crashing. I have Indigo running on a Mid-2009 MBP that does nothing but Indigo. I leave the client running so when I'm traveling I can screen share in to make changes or whatever. When it crashes, all of the automation ceases in the house and when I go to the MBP the client is showing the box to Start Local Server or Connect to Remote Server and no other errors. When I click on "start local server" everything starts normally. The crashes have happened overnight or while the house is unoccupied and no access to the Indigo Touch app is being made or triggers firing so I'm having a trouble nailing down exactly what is causing it.

I was just making an assumption it being a plugin.

The OS is definitely not re-launching the server.

If the server crashes the OS should relaunch it. If the client crashes it shouldn't matter because the server is running anyway.

If this behavior isn't what's happening, then you likely have some other serious OS issues, which might also be the cause of your frequent crashes. We architected the plugin mechanism so that they run in separate (sandboxed) processes, so if one crashes it should not effect the server. The behavior you're seeing implies something more systemic with your Mac.

[matt (support)]

We really need to see the crash reporter file for the Indigo Server crash to help troubleshoot the problem. The only outstanding issue we have reports of right now (in regards to crashing) is related to the framework Indigo uses to scan/read emails. If you are using Indigo's email scanning then you might try to disable that (for troubleshooting) to see if that prevents the crash.

I've been using the Better Email for a seldom used trigger. I'll disable that and it's triggers and see if that helps.

This has actually bitten me twice this week - the house was cold when I came home because the HVAC schedule is managed in Indigo, which had crashed and not restarted. Both times in the com.collaboration-world.Pantomime library, per the stack trace, which I think is the known issue mentioned (I don't have email scanning enabled; this is email sending in response to an event).

I expect that the state of the world will be different once I get around to installing Indigo 7 in a week or so (don't really feel like doing a major upgrade right before I leave for the Thanksgiving trip), but what should I expect about restarting after the server crashes?

[matt (support)]

Once upon a time the Indigo Server would automatically be restarted when it crashed. We had to stop using that macOS capability though because of a workaround trying to get AppleScript to work more reliably.

The crash you saw is in the Pantomime framework, which is what Indigo uses to send (and scan emails). A more reliably approach would be to use the Better Email plugin. Eventually here we'll be removing Indigo's dependence on the Pantomime framework, since it is one of the reliability hotspots of the server (probably the only once besides AppleScript).