AppServer Stop/Start and RR status

[VipinMadathum_P]

Hi All,

We are on BP 7.1. We have the Blue Prism Server and SQL Server services set to automatic start under services. Each time we have a server upgrade(windows updates) and we need to restart the server, we do it in this order. 

Stop App Server (under services)

Stop DB Instance (under services)

Restart DB Server

Restart App Server

The issue that we are facing is that all the RRs will go offline once we do this and then we need to restart all the VDIs manually for them to be connected in Control Room. 

We have also tried this with some RRs in Logged Out status and some RR in Available status. But still once the AppServer is restarted, all of them go offline and does not reconnect after that. We have waited up to 30 minutes.

Could some one suggest what could be causing this and how to resolve this? Or is this the expected behaviour? I think in version 6.6 RR used to retry and reconnect to AppServer which I think no longer is happening in ver 7.1?

Thanks,

Vipin

[wagnervasconceloos]

Hi @VipinMadathum_P,

I faced similar issues before. One suggestion is to use the execution of a script to initialize the RR. You can schedule this in the Windows Scheduler to start along with the system or create a routine in your Azure/AWS environment to automatically start this service. This can help ensure that the RRs are properly initialized after server updates, preventing them from going offline and requiring manual intervention.

You can use the following command in CMD: "C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\automate.exe" /resourcepc /public /port 8181 /sso

Or a PowerShell script:
echo createobject("shell.application").shellexecute "cmd.exe",,,"runas",1 > runas.vbs & start /wait runas.vbs & del /f runas.vbs "C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\automate.exe" /resourcepc /public /port 8181 /sso

This will help automate the initialization process, ensuring a smoother transition after server updates and minimizing the need for manual intervention.

[VipinMadathum_P]

Hi @wagnervasconceloos,

Thank you for your suggestion. The only difference between our startup script and the one you suggested is that we do not mention the port. Do you think that is what causing this issue? My concern is that once app server is back and running why the RRs are not re-establishing the connection to the app server?

C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\automate.exe" /resourcepc /public /sso

Thanks,

Vipin

[Walter.Koller]

Hello Vipin,

Thanks for bringing this behavior up since this very likely will affect us. We are currently using 6.9 and rarely had issues with RR reconnecting to our servers. 

If this behavior changed than we may have downtimes more often and much longer.

Specifying (or not) the port should not make any difference since 8181 is the default port.

As I understood your situation, you have planned downtimes. In this case you can write a script to restart all VCI remotely. eg by using shutdown command

shutdown | Microsoft Learn

shutdown /r /m \\remotehostname 

So you at least don't have to manually restart all RR 

You can also probe regularly if those machines are still responding and if not restart the services/machine automatically. There are countless ways to do so, eg HTTP requests or by using automateC ... (Command line options (blueprism.com))

[VipinMadathum_P]

Hi @Walter Koller

Looks like RRs not reconnecting is not the expected behavior. I'm working with BP support on this currently. I will keep you posted.

Thanks,

Vipin

[Walter.Koller]

Thanks a lot for the updates!