Monitor Service & Restart

Published: 2024-01-10

Two powershell scripts below related to starting and stopping services. Used with a particularly troublesome service that would get stuck from time to time.

SMTP Server should be an internal server
Change the other variables as appropritate

Start Service

Here we attempt to start the service and wait for 30 seconds. If we can't get it started, alert and disable the task (that presumably runs every 5 minutes) to avoide many email notifications.

$service = Get-Service -Name "ServiceName"

if ($service.Status -eq [System.ServiceProcess.ServiceControllerStatus]::Stopped) {

    $service.Start()

    $service.WaitForStatus([System.ServiceProcess.ServiceControllerStatus]::Running, [timespan]::FromSeconds(30)) | Out-Null

    if ($service.Status -ne [System.ServiceProcess.ServiceControllerStatus]::Running) {

        $sendMailMessageSplat = @{
            From = 'pwrshl_prc <pwrshl_prc@domain.com>'
            To = 'username <username@domain.com>', 'username2 <username2@domain.com>'
            Subject = 'error starting ServiceName'
            Body = "was not able to start the ServiceName service."
            Priority = 'High'
            SmtpServer = 'x.x.x.x'
        }
        Send-MailMessage @sendMailMessageSplat

        Disable-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'TaskName'
    }
}

Stop Service

Here the requirement was to attempt a normal shutdown for 1 minute. If not achieved, force a stop. If that errors out - alert.
It’s hard to test the state where you’ve requested a stop, but the executable is stuck in “stop pending”.

$service = Get-Service -Name "ServiceName"

if ($service.Status -eq [System.ServiceProcess.ServiceControllerStatus]::Running) {

    $service.Stop()

    $service.WaitForStatus([System.ServiceProcess.ServiceControllerStatus]::Stopped, [timespan]::FromMinutes(1)) | Out-Null
}

if (($service.Status -eq [System.ServiceProcess.ServiceControllerStatus]::Running) -or
    ($service.Status -eq [System.ServiceProcess.ServiceControllerStatus]::StopPending)) {

    $wmisvc = Get-WmiObject -Class win32_service -Filter "name = 'ServiceName'"
    try {
        Stop-Process -Id $wmisvc.processid -Force -PassThru -ErrorAction Stop
    }
    catch {

        $sendMailMessageSplat = @{
            From = 'pwrshl_prc <pwrshl_prc@domain.com>'
            To = 'username <username@domain.com>', 'username2 <username2@domain.com>'
            Subject = 'error stopping ServiceName'
            Body = "was not able to top the ServiceName service."
            Priority = 'High'
            SmtpServer = 'x.x.x.x'
        }
        Send-MailMessage @sendMailMessageSplat
    }  
}

<#
Get-WmiObject -Class win32_service | Where-Object {$_.state -eq 'stop pending'}
https://woshub.com/killing-windows-services-that-hang-on-stopping/
#>

Windows Scheduled Task

Can be run as two tasks:
- The first is the start service - check every 5 minutes and start it if down
- The second to stop the service once per day
How to call a powershell script form a Scheduled Task.