PowerChute Serial Shutdown v1.2 issues

[crawfish]

I just installed PSS 1.2 in Windows 11 Pro, enabled hibernation as the shutdown mode, and it works. However, when the system is powered back on, the HTML interface is unavailable for a couple of minutes, and that's because the service has terminated/crashed. There is an Event 7031 in the Windows System event log that says:

"The PowerChute Serial Shutdown service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service."

Once it's restarted, it works normally. However, despite being configured with all the default logging settings, the PSS Event Log is empty. The service is making entries into the Windows event log, but not its own. These glitches are reproducible, two out of two tries.

[Teken]

I hate to tell you this but choosing hibernation mode is a recipe for disaster. As you see the system does not cleanly terminate or reload all of the services / processes.

I understand why people use the hibernation mode vs reboot / restart / shut down. But, Microsoft has been touting this feature for three generations and it relies on both the third party software developers and Microsoft to follow defined integration.

A break fix is to have the application (service) load after a defined time. This is something I saw done as a band aid on several target sites that wanted to use hibernate mode. Going off memory one site created a script vs the other modified some of the DLL’s in the application. 

[crawfish]

Hibernation works fine on my systems, which currently range from a 5800X to i5 4670 to N100 Mini PC. I've been using it with UPS software for probably 20 years, and I consider it an essential feature. This crashing problem is isolated to the PSS service and is not a general problem with hibernation. Fortunately, the service does get restarted after a minute or two, but it shouldn't be happening at all, and it's concerning that the tray icon stays its healthy green color instead of noticing the service has gone away. I expect they'll be able to fix these things without too much trouble.

[BillP]

@crawfish 

Check the browser setting. That may be the issue with the PowerChute event log.

See Schneider Electric FAQ FA400494 https://www.se.com/us/en/faqs/FA400494/

As for the service issue. I agree with @Teken. Try setting a delay for the service start to see if that fixes the issue. 

[crawfish]

Event log solved.

As for the service problem, changing to Delayed Start doesn't help. Hibernating manually, the sequence of (relevant) events is as follows, with 1-4 hibernating and 5-6 resuming from hibernation:

1. Windows System Log - 4/3/24 8:03:00 PM - Kernel-Power - Event 187 - "User-mode process attempted to change the system state by calling SetSuspendState or SetSystemPowerState APIs."
2. Windows Application Log - 4/3/24 8:03:02 PM - APCPBEAgent - Event 1000 - "Monitoring Stopped"
3. Windows System Log - 4/3/24 8:03:02 PM - Service Control Manager - Event 7031 - "The PowerChute Serial Shutdown service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service."
4. Windows System Log - 4/3/24 8:03:03 PM - Kernel-Power - Event 42 - "The system is entering sleep. Sleep Reason: Application API"
5. Windows System Log - 4/3/24 8:04:24 PM - Power-Troubleshooter - Event 1 - "The system has returned from a low power state."
6. Windows Application Log - 4/3/24 8:05:22 PM - APCPBEAgent - Event 1000 - "Monitoring Started"

The problem is somewhere in events 2 and 3, which occur when hibernation is initiated. It seems the APC service is not handling the hibernation event correctly, whether I initiate it manually, or it does so itself on power failure. It's the only service crashing during hibernation.

[crawfish]

Turns out they already know about the service restart problem. Under "Known Issues", the Release Notes say:

PowerChute Serial Shutdown v1.2 Release Notes (schneider-electric.com)

"When Windows OS is resuming operations after hibernate/sleep,
the PowerChute Serial Shutdown agent service will restart. The
Web UI will be unavailable for one minute after returning from
hibernate/sleep and your OS will be momentarily unprotected"