Missing 8:53 am \StartRecording task

Discussion of getting WMC to work on Windows 10 (unsupported)
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Djpasek

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Missing 8:53 am \StartRecording task

#1

Post by Djpasek » Sat Oct 09, 2021 3:00 pm

I am having a problem in Windows 10 Pro v. 21H1 with Windows Media Center v.8.8.5 not waking up properly from Sleep (S3) at the correct time at 8:53 am for a scheduled recording scheduled to start @ 9:00am (and configured to begin recording 2 minutes before the show starts at 8:58 am). Recordings scheduled in WMC for other times of the day wake this HTPC properly at the proper time (5 minutes before the recording begins, which is 2 minutes before the show begins, for a total of 7 minutes before the show begins). I am using an i5-11600 Rocket Lake CPU, Gigabyte Z590 Vision D MB, 64 GB RAM, 2 Hauppauge HVR-2250 TV tuner cards and an ASUS nVidia GeForce 1030 fanless Video Card. W10 and all drivers are completely updated. Everything else works perfectly.

After this HTPC fails to wake properly @ 8:53 am, it remains asleep until 8:58 am when it wakes up. Several minutes later it begins to record the 9:00 am show, usually at 9:01 am, missing the first minute of the show. In the Event Viewer @ 8:58 am when the HTPC wakes it registers the Power-Troubleshooter Event “Wake Source Device-ACPI Wake Alarm” instead of the expected “Wake Source Timer-Windows will execute ‘NT Task\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center\StartRecording’ scheduled task that requested waking the computer”. In Task Scheduler, in the History tab of “Task Scheduler (Local)\Task Scheduler Library\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center\StartRecording” I get a warning @ 8:58 am “Missed task started” with the notation “Task Scheduler could not launch task “\Microsoft\Windows\Media Cener\StartRecording” as scheduled. Instance “(ce56b89a…d233a)” is started now as required by the configuration option to start the task when available, if schedule is missed.”

So it appears that for some reason when I schedule WMC to record a 9:00 am show (configured to begin 2 minutes early @ 8:58 am) the StartRecording task does not launch at 8:53 am like it should. At 8:58 am however, the ACPI Wake Alarm wakes the HTPC anyway, and because the \StartRecording task missed its scheduled start at 8:53 am, it starts at 8:58 am when the HTPC is awakened by the ACPI Wake Alarm, and the show begins to record a little late at about 9:01 am.

Does anyone have any idea why \StartRecording is failing to wake this HTPC @ 8:53 am yet wakes this HTPC up at the correct times for all other recordings during the day? Why is the \StartRecording task at 8:53 am being missed?

Thanks to all in advance for your opinions and insight.

technodevotee

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#2

Post by technodevotee » Sat Oct 09, 2021 5:16 pm

Has the system always done this or did it only start after upgrading to 21H1?

Have you tried scheduling some other task at 08:53 to see if it is peculiar to MWC?

Do you have fast start enabled?

And finally, are you using Don't Sleep?

Djpasek

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#3

Post by Djpasek » Sat Oct 09, 2021 8:18 pm

Good ideas.

1) The CPU, MB, and RAM are new as of June, 2021, so I don't know how they behaved on versions of W10 prior to 21H1. The 21H1 installation was "clean".

2) No I haven't. Good idea. I will try to do that and report back.

3) Fast boot in NOT enabled.

4) I am NOT using Don't Sleep.

Thanks again.

Space

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#4

Post by Space » Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:25 pm

My first thought is have you installed the latest BIOS/UEFI for your motherboard? Waking the computer is controlled by the BIOS, so if there is some sort of bug with waking at specific times, it might be fixed by flashing the most recent BIOS. I've had a few times where I had to flash the latest BIOS on a new MB to get it to work properly (and in some cases had to wait for a bug-fix BIOS to be released).

It is a good idea to see if you can set up other tasks to wake the PC to see if they work at the time with which you are having issues.

I also see that Win10 has a "new class of wake timers" called "important wake timers". I have no idea if your issue is related to this, but you may want to research exactly what that means, although if the PC is waking up at other times to record with no problems, it sounds like it may not be related to this, but you never know.

Another thing to look at is if there are any other tasks in the Task Scheduler that may be interfering around that time. I don't see why they would, but perhaps they have priority over other tasks for some reason.

It's my understanding that the way the sleep wakeup timer works is that Windows determines the next time the PC needs to wake up and tells the BIOS (not sure when it does this, if it is just before it goes to sleep, or earlier than that). The BIOS only has the ability to schedule itself to wake up at one time, so there are not several wakeup timers in the BIOS (corresponding to the Windows Tasks), just the one. After it wakes up from that timer, it then sets the next wakeup time in the BIOS before it goes to sleep again.

What this means to me, is that if for some reason it "misses" waking up at the time it was scheduled to wake up (should never happen) it will then never wake up due to any subsequent "wakeup" Tasks in Task Manager, because that was the only wakeup time it knew about. Of course once the PC is woken due to other reasons, it is able to set the next wakeup timer in the BIOS.

This (to me, at least) means that something is either wrong with the BIOS (bug), or something in Windows is overriding the setting of the wakeup timer to the correct time.

These are just the things that came to mind, I'm certainly no expert on this subject, so take my suggestions and thoughts as just that, suggestions and throughts.

Djpasek

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#5

Post by Djpasek » Thu Oct 21, 2021 3:20 pm

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. Since your post, I have run a few experiments on this HTPC following your ideas.

After creating a new scheduled task to wake the HTPC at 8:53 am and run eventvwr.exe, this task will NOT wake the HTPC at the proper time.

This task is configured: 1) Run only when the user is logged on. 2) Run with highest privileges 3) Wake the computer to run the task 4) Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed.

With this task enabled, and WMC configured to record a 9:00 am program, nothing happens at 8:53 am. But at 8:57 am, the HTPC wakes, and at anywhere from 9:00 am to 9:02 am, the scheduled recording begins to record, usually a minute or two late. At this point (9:03 am), the scheduled task to run eventvwr.exe runs, with the notation "missed task started", because the scheduled start (at 8:53 am) was missed.

So my problem is not unique to WMC, apparently. For some reason this HTPC is not waking properly in the mornings to either record WMC shows or run scheduled tasks.

Any other ideas or insights would be appreciated. Thanks again.

technodevotee

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#6

Post by technodevotee » Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:06 pm

I would have expected a task to need to be set run whether the user was logged in or not to be able to wake the PC.

I have a task named StartRecording in \Microsoft\Windows\Media Center on one of my PCs that is set to run tomorrow at 14:53.

The programme starts at 15:00 and recording is scheduled to start 2 minutes early so it actually wakes the PC nice and early.

run whether the user was logged in or not and wake the PC are enabled but run with highest privileges is not.

The task is configured to use the NETWORK SERVICE account, which made me think: I had to add NETWORK SERVICES to the administrators group recently even though the requirement for that was done away with ages ago.

Might be worth checking that out.

Space

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#7

Post by Space » Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:20 am

WMC sets the PC to wake up about 5 minutes before a recording is supposed to start. So for a 9am start, it should wake the PC at 8:55am. Your machine is obviously not doing this.

You can supposedly see what "wake timers" are currently enabled with the "powercfg -waketimers" command. This may show a clue.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/630 ... -10-a.html

I've used this command on win7 and don't think it ever showed any timers, but it might work on win10. As I've said, I'm not sure when the Task Scheduler notifies the BIOS when to wake up. It might not do it until right before the PC goes to sleep (although the above referenced webpage does seem to show a task that may have been scheduled by the Task Scheduler), in which case it may not show using this command. It makes more sense to me that it would tell the BIOS when to wake up as soon as it can, because then it would still work even if there was a power failure (and you did not have your PC set to boot up as soon as the power was restored, and had a working battery for the clock on the motherboard). Although thinking about this now, if there was a power failure and the PC did not boot again until the timer woke it, the boot time would probably delay whatever you had scheduled to run (I believe there is a setting in the Task Scheduler to tell the task to run as soon as it can after a missed scheduled time).

There is also a powershell command in the above link I posted that will list all the tasks that have the "WakeToRun" property, that might be helpful.

I've already mentioned looking to see if there was a more current BIOS for you motherboard, but you can also look at your BIOS config to see if there is anything in there that might be causing issues, although I don't know what would prevent the BIOS from waking your PC at certain times, but not at others.

stuartm

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#8

Post by stuartm » Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:37 am

My PC has always woken up at 5 minutes + padding before starting a recording. For a 9am start it wakes up at 8:53am. AFAIK it has always done this for recordings.

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