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Win 8.1 HTPC logging off by itself

4K views 10 replies 3 participants last post by  Lobo 
#1 ·
Hi everyone. Hoping someone might have an idea as to what's been going on with my HTPC recently. It's running Windows 8.1 and I just recently swapped out my a/v receiver with the Pioneer Elite VSX-LX101. Ever since then, I've noticed that whenever I trigger the activity that puts all inputs to watch on HTPC (via Harmony 650) that Windows has seemingly logged itself off from the last time it was used. I have to manually enter my password to get back into Windows and then it runs all of the usual start up activities like starting MC and the Emby media browser.

I'm not sure what's triggering this activity as this has never happened before. The Harmony is configured to always leave the HTPC on and the power on/off buttons don't actually do anything for the PC. Is the behaviour reminiscent of a logoff or a sleep? Could this receiver be sending some kind of command that puts the HTPC into this condition?

BTW, the HTPC is connected via HDMI to the receiver for both audio and video.

Thanks.

LoboTiger
 
#3 ·
The first thing I would check are the power settings and power plans on the PC. It's possible something has changed. Set the power and sleep buttons to either sleep or do nothing. Check the active power plan to never turn off the monitor and to either never power down or sleep after a set time. Turn off hibernation. How to disable and re-enable hibernation on a computer that is running Windows

Another possibility is that the PC is being turned off by a HDMI CEC command from the receiver or TV. Turn CEC off for all device when using a Harmony remote to control power. Many TV makers use a different name for CEC so it might take a little research to find the term used.

Windows events, like rebooting or critical errors, can be found by examining the Windows log. To see blue screens and prevent rebooting, uncheck Automatically Restart under Control Panel, Advanced System Properties, Startup and Recovery.
 
#5 ·
Look for Kernel-Power events under Event Viewer > Windows Logs > System. Not sure if it will provide the detail required though.

Some HTPC software has shutdown and sleep options built in. That's the next place to check.

If it's not software, the next thing to check is hardware status. Monitor temperatures and voltages. It's possible the system is shutting down or turning off due to overheating or PSU failure.
 
#6 ·
Seems to still be happening. Today I found that it had happened three times. Once when I checked at 8am, then 12pm and finally at 6pm. Each time the screen was basically the login screen / lockscreen. One thing I have been keeping track of is the system uptime. After I rebooted this morning at 8am, my systeminfo.exe report shows the system as being active since 8:04am. Even after the next two events it's still showing 8:04am. To me this means that Windows is not crashing and rebooting. And even if it did, I have it set to auto login my username so I would expect to be fully into Media Centre.

I run Media Browser and Plex as plugins within MC but I've set those apps so that they don't sleep or logoff the PC. The event viewer logs show some info but I'm not 100% sure if it correlates to what's happening. For example, after watching a show via Media Browser at lunch time, there are logs in the Security section showing Logon and Logoff for an account that I have no idea about (DWM-2). After that, nothing until I login at 5:50pm with my normal account. I can post a pic if it will help.

Thoughts???

LoboTiger
 
#7 ·
DWM-# is a system account used by Desktop Windows Manager. It's not an issue.

Couple more things to check. Open the screen saver options. Uncheck 'On resume, display logon screen.' I would also disable the screen saver. Under power options, disable 'Require a password on wakeup' and make sure sleep is fully disabled on all power plans.

This is a long shot but try disabling hibernation. Open a command prompt as administrator and type 'powercfg -h off' <enter>.
 
#8 ·
I've been doing some experiments this week to try and narrow down the culprit.

All week I've been exiting out of Windows Media Centre and leaving it on the desktop. Then I manually power off the a/v receiver and TV. I do not use the Harmony remote to power down things. Each time I want to watch something off of the HTPC I will manually power on the a/v receiver and then the TV. In each instance, the HTPC has always been on the desktop and has never logged itself off.

Last night I decided to leave it on the MC application but still manually powered off the receiver and tv. This morning I found the HTPC back at the login screen. So it seems like it could be something running within MC that is the cause of this. The only apps that I run within it are Plex Home Theatre and Emby. I've check the settings for both of those servers and there doesn't appear to be anything that would make it log the system off.

Oh and I also played around with disabling HDMI CEC on the TV and receiver but neither made a difference.

Lobo
 
#9 ·
It looks like WMC is putting the PC to sleep. That's a fairly common feature of media center software but it can probably be disabled in the settings. I use Kodi and it has a number of sleep and screensaver options. Haven't used WMC enough to know where they are in that. The fact that it is on the login screen makes me think that either the 'On resume, display logon screen' or 'Require a password on wakeup' options are enabled in Windows. WMC could have a similar option.
 
#10 ·
I think I'm going to format and re-install Windows 8.1. I tried removing Plex and Emby from the PC and left the screen on MC and powered off manually. This morning I go to check and it's back to the login screen so I think you're right that it's something within MC that's causing this. Sadly I've gone through all of the settings in there and there's nothing that would cause the system to logoff.

Lobo
 
#11 ·
Well, disappointed to report that even after a restore from an older image from July, I still experienced the same problem. I even uninstalled Plex, Emby and also disconnected the HDMI cable from the back of the PC and left it on the MC screen. I've downgraded back down to Windows 7 and everything is working just like before.

Lobo
 
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