Mezzmo Affecting Computer Idle Time

[halexh]

This may or may not be implemented already, I do not know. Within windows, or any OS there is an option to automatically shut down the computer after it has been idle (without any activity) for X amount of time. I have always had this option turned off, because I just assumed that Mezzmo streaming a video did not reset the timer. Sometimes I forget to turn my PC off after I finish streaming something to my TV before I go to sleep. This results in my computer being on for ~8 hours without use.

Does Mezzmo restart the computer idle timer when streaming data?

If not, would implementing something like this be possible? That way I can just set the timer for a hour or so, and it will turn off an hour after I finish streaming, rather than having to guess something like 4 hours, and assume I watch 3 hours worth of TV/movies.

[JohnM]

The problem would be that Mezzmo may simply play the next video in the list (it does for me). What you can do is use the OS to create a scheduled task to shutdown your computer at a specific time. The two programs you will use is Schtasks and shutdown. You can use help to look up the syntax for creating the task. Shutdown itself would work but the brainiacs at Microsoft limited it to a 600 second delay (ten minutes). But you can use Schtasks to set a schedule that can run at a certain time every night to shutdown the computer. Given a little thought it would be easy enough to create a desktop icon that would create a task to run once at xx time to shutdown. But simply creating a task to shutdown the computer every day at say 02:30 would work as long as you didn't normally work then. Give it a little thought when you pick the shutdown parameters, you can do it nice or hard. Nice would save your stuff before pulling the plug. A better option would be to have shutdown start a 600 second timer AND send a message that it will shutdown. That way you can save everything you are working on. It can also be aborted with a shutdown -a.

[Paul]

JohnM's suggestion for scheduling a task may be the best option for you.

When you think Mezzmo is idle (i.e. not streaming/etc.), take a look at Windows Task Manager and go to the Processes tab. View all processes and you should see "Mezzmo.exe" and "MezzmoMediaServer.exe" listed there. Check the CPU usage. They both should be about 0-5% usage if they are idle. If they are higher, then they may be busy finishing up your library maintenance if you had previously maintained your Mezzmo library. If you think Mezzmo is too busy when it should not be, then it's best we see a set of logs and we'll see what it is doing. Turn on logging (see http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread.php/419-FAQ-How-to-turn-on-diagnostic-logging) and restart your Mezzmo server. Exit Mezzmo and restart it again. Let Mezzmo run for 5-10 minutes and then stop your Mezzmo server and exit Mezzmo. Zip up all the logs and email them to us at support [at] conceiva [dot] com.

[halexh]

That sounds like a good suggestion. I am still confused on the answer to the original question though. Does mezzmo restart the idle computer countdown just by streaming? If not, I am fine with just having my computer turn off after idling for 4 hours.

[Paul]

When Mezzmo server (running as a Windows service) is streaming media to your devices on your home network, it does reset the idle timer on your computer to inform your computer that Mezzmo server is in use. This prevents your computer from entering sleep modes whilst Mezzmo server is streaming media. Without this interception by Mezzmo server, we experienced that computers were going into sleep mode whilst Mezzmo server was streaming - which is not what users want. If Mezzmo server is not streaming media, then the idle timer is not reset and your computer will enter sleep mode after the period you specify.

[mezzmo4me]

Yesterday I just activated the energy saving functions (after 60 Min idle) on my Win XP computer running Mezzmo. Suddenly the computer was shut down yesterday while viewing (streaming) a video. Has this behaviour to do with XP or is this problem the same in Windows 8 (an update is planned in the next 2-3 weeks)?

[Paul]

Mezzmo server (running as a Windows service) explicitly tells Windows to not enter sleep mode whilst it is streaming, so it is strange that your computer shut down. We'll test it here on Windows XP and fix it if we experience the same problem.

[mezzmo4me]

Thanks again Paul for a quick reply. So I don't have to care about (if everything is fine) that 'problem' because the idle-timer begins to start when mezzmo-streaming has finished (not mezzmo itself) and if I have 60 minutes these should start after streaming (viewing movie) ends. Right?

[Paul]

Just discussed this here and we think there is one use case scenario where the Windows idle timer may be triggered - which is what may be happening to you. We'll fix this up now for the next Mezzmo release. Thanks for reporting this :)