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restart a program?

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Hi, I'm running a few things on a client PC when it's online, and two are dropbox and teamviewer. What I'm looking to do is make sure they are both always running, and will restart it if the program crashes or is closed by the user. I've set up a sensor with a state trigger to send a notification when the service is off for more than 60 seconds, and I have the notification set to run a .bat file when the state is triggered. Problem is, while the .bat file runs perfectly fine and the program will fully restart when I tested it by clicking on it myself, PRTG seems to be blocking something, because it will start the processes, but it will not fully initialize. The process is running - which sends an OK message back to the sensor - but the process itself will not function: no notification, no online status, no sync/remote access available, nothing to indicate it's running at all except for a (smaller than normal) memory footprint and the process listing in the task manager.

What is PRTG doing with these .bat files to prevent them from running correctly? I even tried just making a bat file to call another command window with the start command I needed, but that didn't work either. I've tried 5 or 6 different ways to call these programs but none of them work when PRTG is the trigger - they only work when I physically click the batch file or run it as a scheduled task in windows. Is there a way to do this using PRTG?

notifications prtg wmi

Created on Sep 2, 2014 6:05:04 PM



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Accepted Answer

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Another thing to consider is that PRTG runs as a service and cannot launch applications that interact with the desktop.

You might want to have a look at PTF.Launcher to overcome this limitation.

Created on Sep 5, 2014 3:15:26 PM



8 Replies

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Often times this is the cause of one of two issues.

1. The PRTG service that will be executing the batch file doesn't have the right to execute the commands in the batch file

2. The batch file running windowlessly is an issue for the commands being run.

You can try and get around the first one by changing the credentials that are used for the PRTG Server service and see if PRTG is able to execute the command then but the second issue is tough to work around if it's possible at all.

Created on Sep 3, 2014 2:03:02 PM by Greg Campion [Paessler Support]



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Hi. The administrator rights isn't required to start the programs, so it most likely isn't 1. I understand the second might be difficult to work around, but would you have any idea where I might be able to begin? As it is I've never had to deal with a program that runs the batch files windowlessly before, so I wouldn't even know where to start.

Created on Sep 3, 2014 11:27:05 PM



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I can try and test this out and will let you know what I find. Have you tried to change the security context of the core service just as a test to see if they will restart properly?

Created on Sep 5, 2014 2:04:28 PM by Greg Campion [Paessler Support]



Accepted Answer

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0

Another thing to consider is that PRTG runs as a service and cannot launch applications that interact with the desktop.

You might want to have a look at PTF.Launcher to overcome this limitation.

Created on Sep 5, 2014 3:15:26 PM



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I'm not sure I follow you completely. I am sort of new to using this kind of monitoring software. What exactly are you referring to?

Created on Sep 8, 2014 6:22:32 AM



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PRTG Tools Family is talking about an EXE that he has programmed that you can use with an EXE notification to launch applications with notifications. The issue is that PRTG cannot launch applications that interact with the desktop since the PRTG Server.exe runs as a service. If you download and place the exe from his link above in your PRTG program data folder then you can set up a notification to use that EXE to launch the applications you asked about in the first thread.

Created on Sep 8, 2014 7:47:19 AM by Greg Campion [Paessler Support]



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Oh I see. I did download and try it but the trial apparently doesn't work autonomously. PRTG Tools Family, is this the same once I pay for the service? If so, it's not what I need, as I would still need to be accessible in order to fix the situation.

Created on Sep 11, 2014 8:12:46 PM



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Yes, the acknowledgment window only pops up in the trial version and the full version will work autonomously.

Created on Sep 12, 2014 9:56:40 AM




Disclaimer: The information in the Paessler Knowledge Base comes without warranty of any kind. Use at your own risk. Before applying any instructions please exercise proper system administrator housekeeping. You must make sure that a proper backup of all your data is available.