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[robt]

I have my MC server (which is also used for playback) set to sleep after 4 hours inactivity. Obviously I can change that but I am out of the house a lot and leaving it on 24/7 would be excessive and wasteful of energy.

If I fire up a client in a different room and watch a film, if the server reaches the 4 hour restriction, it goes to sleep. That doesnt affect the playback of the film, but when the video finishes and I return to Theatre View, it is completely unresponsive. The video, as with all my data is remotely stored on a NAS and there is no transcoding required.

Is there anything that can be done with the client to keep the server awake while there is live activity such as a video playback? I appreciate I can change the timings on the server but I really do want it to sleep, except when there is activity on the client.

[RoderickGI]

I assume that the Client can see the NAS as a mapped drive or UNC?
Do you have the setting "Play local file if one that matches the library server files is found" switched on?

If both the above are true, when playing a movie on the Client from the NAS directly, because it has access to a "local" file, nothing is really happening on the Server. So it goes to sleep. Although if it is set to 4 hours that is one very long movie!

Anyway, this is why many of us have been asking for quite some time for a Client to send WOL messages if it finds that the Server has gone to sleep underneath its connection.

Brad was named WOL expert. Anything happening on this front Brad? 

[mattkhan]

Is there anything that can be done with the client to keep the server awake while there is live activity such as a video playback? I appreciate I can change the timings on the server but I really do want it to sleep, except when there is activity on the client.

what do you mean by "live activity" exactly? If I read your post correctly then there is no live activity at this point because the client is not actually using the server at this point in time hence going to sleep is ok as long as the next operation on the client (that does need to server) causes the server to wake up. Is that what you want to happen?

[robt]

As I said, if a film is playing then the server sleeping is not an issue. But when the film finishes and MC returns to the Theatre View, if the server is asleep and remains asleep, the Theatre View is completely unresponsive.

So, either something to keep the server awake during playback, or something to wake it at the end of the video would do the job. I imagine that keeping it awake would be the better option as the lag between returning to Theatre View and waiting for the server to wake (probably just a few seconds with a server running Windows on an SSD) would still be quite annoying.

I suppose to summarise, if any client is running then I would like the server to stay awake. I do know that starting a client from cold will cause a sleeping server to wake but starting a client from sleep will not, and that is not ideal either.
I was thinking about using a fixed schedule for the server to be on or off would be do the job (mostly) but using WOL would be the most power efficient.

[mattkhan]

I suppose to summarise, if any client is running then I would like the server to stay awake.
I do know that starting a client from cold will cause a sleeping server to wake but starting a client from sleep will not, and that is not ideal either.

I don't follow why you need the server to stay awake if a client is running but doesn't need it to be running, if the last issue were fixed then the only difference is a few seconds (or however long it takes to wake) lag while the server wakes up isn't it?

[robt]

Yes there are the two options of staying awake or waking on demand. Either will do but I imagine that the delay in waking when waiting to navigate via theatre view would be unacceptable to some.

I have waited for the gui to respond and it is annoying and the kind of thing that makes the product seem flawed. Some users wouldn't understand what is happening and would see it as a problem. So I'd rather it kept the server awake and gave me the immediate response I would expect from a pro product.

But either would be better than having to go to another room and wake the server, or get my phone and send a "magic packet". Both of those (current) options are "kludges".