Scheduled show did not start

[Karenwatt]

Was late getting home, scheduled show did not start, as soon as I bumped the space bar, it started right up. Short of getting a pet monkey and training it to bump the space bar, what should I do?

[SteveMaris]

Was your computer in sleep mode? Do you have the power saver/screen saver turned off?

[Karenwatt]

I thought that I did, after the show ends I will check and see.

[Orville]

Automatic updates off? Anti-Virus disabled? Internet connection disabled? These could also cause a show not to start if Windows is updating, a viral scanner is running a scan or any other software attempts to connect and auto-update itself prior to or even during a show could halt the show in its tracks. No pun intended.

[George Simmons]

Sounds like your PC was taking a little nap alright. I suggest turning the power save options for the hard drive completely off during show season. If you want to put the pc to sleep you can do it manually. If you want to use power save options for the monitor, that's okay.

Edited December 22, 2012 by George Simmons

[Karenwatt]

I was hibernating after a few hours, I have it set to never do that now. Thanks guys, you saved me from having to get a pet monkey.

[Steven]

I was hibernating after a few hours,

If you really want to hibernate, it is usually possible to set a wake-up timer in the BIOS that wakes the PC up a few minutes before the show starts. But in most cases, it's not worth it.

I always left the auto-update turned on. It would always restart the computer and the show would run as planned. However, one night, when I was out of town, I got a call that the show didn't start. It turns out that the reboot at the end of the auto-update hung for some reason. Easy fix, but it wasn't automatic.

Lesson learned. Now I disable auto-updates during the show season.