Some Services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services

Question

Error "SOME SERVICES STOP AUTOMATICALLY IF THEY ARE NOT IN USE BY OTHER SERVICES" while trying to start a windows service.

I have a service that does not use the windows service config file and uses static properties - it works fine

Now, i make use of app.config file and rebuild my setup project + the service project. Now i install the service and then try to start the service - i get the following error:

SOME SERVICES STOP AUTOMATICALLY IF THEY ARE NOT IN USE BY OTHER SERVICES

Service logs on as local system.

Any input is welcome please! Thanks.

Answer 1

This is generally the result of one of two things - either (a) your OnStart() method is throwing an exception or (b) the OnStart() method is not kicking off a thread to do work.

If the problem is (a), then the obvious solution is to debug the service to identify what is going wrong. At a minimum, put a try-catch block around the contents of the OnStart() method and log an error to the system event log when an exception occurs. Then you can see the details in the Windows Event Viewer.

If the problem is (b), then you need to create a thread that actually does something. The thread needs to be a foreground thread (as opposed to a background thread) to prevent the service from shutting down. A typical OnStart() method looks like this:

private System.Threading.Thread _thread;

protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
    try
    {
        // Uncomment this line to debug...
        //System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break();

        // Create the thread object that will do the service's work.
        _thread = new System.Threading.Thread(DoWork);

        // Start the thread.
        _thread.Start();

        // Log an event to indicate successful start.
        EventLog.WriteEntry("Successful start.", EventLogEntryType.Information);
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        // Log the exception.
        EventLog.WriteEntry(ex.Message, EventLogEntryType.Error);
    }
}

private void DoWork()
{
    // Do the service work here...
}