Task Scheduler stops working ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim Matthews
  • Start date Start date
J

Jim Matthews

I use Task Scheduler to run daily backups, as well as antivirus updating
several times a day.

Every once in a while, it stops working.

No error message - it just stops working.

The service shows it is "started", but not only don't the scheduled tasks
run, but they cannot even be invoked by right clicking and selecting "RUN"

The service cannot be restarted either.

A reboot seems to fix it, but I would like to get to the root cause.

Any ideas ?

TIA
 
It would be helpful if you could quote some error messages, e.g.
- What does the Event Viewer show?
- What exactly do you get when you run this command
from a Command Prompt:
net start "Task Scheduler"
 
Thanks for your reply

The answers to your questions

1. No messages in the Event Viewer - that I can tell - I can't tell exactly
when it stops working
2. "The requested service has been already started"

All looks ok, but the tasks just never start (?)

Thanks again
 
Hi Jim - I've seen this before, and one cure for it is to take each task,
open Properties, and then re-enter and Apply the necessary password again.
Then OK out. Give that a try and see if it helps.

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
This puts an entirely different light on things. Your intial
post suggested that the Task Scheduler service was not
working. Now it seems that it is working very well, but
that you believe that your tasks don't work. How can you
be certain? Follow Jim Byrd's suggestion, and if this does
not work, add some basic diagnostics to your task so that
you can see what's going on. Embed your program in some
batch file like so, then use the Task Scheduler to launch
this batch file:

@echo off
echo %date% %time% Start of task > c:\test.log
echo User=%UserName%, Path=%path% >> c:\test.log
c:\Tools\YourTask.exe 1>>c:\test.log 2>>c:\test.err
echo %date% %time% End of task >> c:\test.log

Now have a look at your log files and all will become clear.
 
Thanks, I will try that

Unfortunately, this only happens sporadically, so I may have to wait a while
for it to fail again.
 
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