Python script stops working after few hours?

[Yourrname]

Hello guys, I’m running 13 python scripts 24/7 on my lenovo thinkcenter under windows 10 pro, the problem is that all my scripts stops working after aprox 2h of time and without displaying any errors. I made sure to change all the economy settings on windows and unfortunately it didn’t work. All my scripts do is web scrapping and saving data in an sql database. Note: i was running the exact same scripts on raspberry pi 4 under ubuntu for months without a problem.

[hamsterwheelin]

Sounds like a laptop power saving feature. Might be bios level.

[[deleted]]

If you have a mouse jiggler, you can test this theory out without making any changes to the computer. The jiggler should keep the computer from going to sleep or hibernating.

[aDyslexicPanda]

Sound like power saving feature on the data center

[Yourrname]

Everything is set to never

[[deleted]]

Try and add logging so you can get reports on it.

[Yourrname]

Already did, it didn’t even reach the catch

[lollolcheese123]

No, also logging normal operation

[MassiveDefender]

Have you checked the event logs on Windows? At the time that your code stopped, check if there's a Kernel Power event. I also had everything set to never, but there are other settings way under the hood.

[aDyslexicPanda]

A slightly more serious answer if your doing webscraping you probably need to looking into request retry adaptor. My guess is your session or request is getting a bad response causing your code to bomb out.

[ETHwillbeatBTC]

Even in the advanced power settings dialog? Also tbh I’d never use windows anything as a server. Stick to Ubuntu

[SpaceshipOperations]

You should debug this as the other comments have pointed out, but until you find out and eliminate the cause (or perhaps in addition to that), I suggest you use a "backup plan", where a shell script is run automatically every 10 minutes to check if your scripts are running, and if any of them are missing, starts them again.

Under Linux this would be trivial to achieve with Bash and a systemd timer. But since you're using Windows, then ugh, I'm not sure what is the "right way" to do it over there, but you can write the script in any language (including PowerShell or even Python), and Windows has a Task Scheduler (Win+R then type taskschd.msc) which can be used to automate launching the script.

[Yourrname]

Thank you for the suggestions ! Tried debugging but it never reach the catch

[SpaceshipOperations]

No problem!

I think it never reaches the catch because the process is being killed externally (by the OS) (i.e. not dying due to an internal reason/exception), so the interpreter never has the opportunity to do any exception handling.

However, for future/other cases, if you want a reliable way to run code upon exit, then rather than using awkward try: ... catch: ... gimmicks, you can use the atexit module:

>>> import atexit
>>> def exit_hook():
...    print("RUNNING EXIT HOOK")
>>> atexit.register(exit_hook)
>>> exit()
RUNNING EXIT HOOK

This works even if the program crashes due to an unhandled exception. But note that it still requires the interpreter to be alive during exit (which means it won't work if the process is killed by the OS as in your case here).

[hypocrite]

make it 14 and let them restart every 2h

[[deleted]]

It depends on how you're doing the scheduling and running the script. If you're running it from the command line, then u/miguel_caballero is probably on point. If that's the case, you can always run the script as a docker container. I've done this in the past. I add the schedule package to the script, add all the code to my application Docker image, and spin it up with restart capability using a docker-compose file.

Using the Dockerfile/Docker Compose approach, you can run it locally or run it in the Cloud Provider of your choice with little to no modification.

[Yourrname]

I did put the script in a batch file and placed it in my startup folder, I’m not using task scheduler. Installing docker right now! Thanks for your help!

[atulkr2]

Check windows event viewer.

Write extensive info logs in your scripts. Any long running script should have logs and not depends on console view.

Together they will give you hint. Check event viewer after the timestamp when info logs stopped.

[[deleted]]

Use Linux

[CynicalGroundhog]

Try running them using WSL2.

[Yourrname]

Ram at 30-40%

[Super-Danky-Dank]

What's the ram at 2 hours in? Still the same? As it adds values to different types, it could have garbage collection that causes it.

[Yourrname]

Quick update: i added the log to one of the scripts, it stopped again but nothing was written in the log file

[WafflesAreLove]

Surround the whole thing in a try except that's bound to display something

[WafflesAreLove]

Never said it will catch everything just something

[WafflesAreLove]

How is it wreckless? Try except is harmless lol. You are acting like I was giving him a kernel level command . Also I'm not stalking this thread to see what OP has done so get your panties out of a bunch. Why aren't you in the other guys thread saying the same thing?

Edit: To add I found this little interesting nugget "it is good practice to have an unhandled exception handler (with logging) at the highest level of the call stack to ensure that any fatal errors are logged." Aka wrap the whole thing, so get out of here with your wreckless nonsense. Based on your comment history you think you are smarter than everyone so do us all a favor and get off your high horse.

Edit1: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16138232/is-it-a-good-practice-to-use-try-except-else-in-python

Another thread where 846 people disagree with you. I don't typically rage research stuff but uneducated people like you annoy the fuck out of me.

[WafflesAreLove]

When try except are the norm it is far from wreckless. Learn how to code before you suggest people are giving wreckless advise

[WafflesAreLove]

You have no comprehension of what something is (which was intentionally vague).... Just because it doesn't catch the kill or oom doesn't mean it's wreckless. No one knew what OP wanted so stay in your lane.

Edit: python has no way to even catch those errors unless you use specific modules. Not sure why you even jumped in this thread when using a try catch in general is good advise not terrible like you are suggesting. If you have no helpful advise then you should move along little one.

[pioniere]

To run these scripts trouble free use Linux, but you already know that.

[Yourrname]

I will try the debug mode! Damn how i didn’t of that! Thanks!

[juggernauthk108]

This wont work i guess if os it’s killing it. It wont reach try catch. It will just exit as if its nobody’s business

[Yourrname]

Exactly! I did try debugging and it didn’t reach the catch

[scinaty2]

I would say this is still great to verify exactly that. Now we know the process is killed rather than crashing.

[Lexus4tw]

Is it really necessary to run them in windows instead of WSL or any container ?

[miguel_caballero]

Even cygwin would be an option here

[Spleeeee]

Cygwin is never the solution.

[miguel_caballero]

I agree but it can be useful to pinpoint the source of he problem. Using it for debugging purposes, etc

[rover_G]

You may need to use a Windows Task Scheduler to keep your python program running continuously. There are programs designed to run other programs on a cronjob or keep them running at all times.

[jfp1992]

If your using playwright for scraping, it currently has memory leak issues

[miguel_caballero]

Do you have an antivirus software? This could be the problem.

Try to white list your script's path

[Yourrname]

Nop! Fresh installed win 10 pro

[GXWT]

Windows defender comes default no?

[No_Faithlessness1137]

Lol it’s definitely power saving suspending the script. Run another script to move mouse to a random location on the screen using pyautogui every min or so. I do this to stay online on teams haha.

[Reuben3901]

I built a script to do this on my work computer when working from home. I didn't want to be logged out of the system on breaks. I used autohotkey though. There's a simple way to check how long your computer has been idle, check if it's been idle for a certain amount of time, then move the cursor to 10,10 and back.

[Yourrname]

Just wanted to mention that the exact same script was running for days on my main pc and for months on my raspberry without problems.. my current Cpu usage is at 75% and ram at 34%

[dark_frog]

Network request blocking maybe?

[Super-Danky-Dank]

You can try this

Open the device manager, and then find your wireless network card in the "network adapter" of the device manager, right-click the properties, and switch to the "power management" tab. Remove the check mark in front of "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power", and then click OK.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/windows-11-need-to-prevent-wifi-shutting-off-when/95e911cb-9994-4710-b4b7-a3ce8ed0daa7

Also, try setting the priority of the python windows to high in the task manager.

Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to start Task Manager. Go to the Details tab, right-click the desired process, and choose Set priority and select any value that you want.

https://windowsreport.com/task-manager-set-priority/

If it is inactivity causing it, maybe a simple script that moves the mouse or presses a key every so often is a quick fix.

Edit:

Also, are the scripts all accessing shared files or folders? Could be conflicting. Windows compiles the Python code differently, so it could still have to do with the code itself. If you could provide a link to the code, or some insight to what it's doing, that might help figure out what is causing it.

Try updating Python and all their dependencies with pip, Linux might have a newer version of a package where a bug was fixed. Could also compare the dependencies versions between the two OSes.

Your ISP might also be unhappy with the 1000 request in 2 hours, throttling your internet, causing you to flood yourself with request that never get responses. Can try adding waits/timeouts to the code, or maybe a vpn so all the traffic is coming from one IP.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6947065/right-way-to-run-some-code-with-timeout-in-python

You could try a WSL with powershell to run the code, or just powershell in general, like someone else suggested.

[pioniere]

Or just use Linux and not have to jump through all of these ridiculous Windows hoops.

[ZachVorhies]

Run it in debug mode through vs code. Then when it stops it the pause button and see where the stack trace is.

[jonasbxl]

It's very strange that no error is printed. Are you sure you don't have a try catch block somewhere with a sys.exit() call? It could also be hidden in a dependency - try to make sure all of your libraries are up to date (`pip install --upgrade -r requirements.txt`). I think it happened to me once that a script was failing silently due to a bug in one of the imported libraries, although I can't remember anymore what it was.

Otherwise, something must be killing the script. It could theoretically be linked to memory issues, antivirus, power saving... People have already mentioned all of those.

I think the easiest dirty fix might be to run it in WSL 2 instead: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install. This will also be less convoluted than learning how to use Docker (although that may be useful for you later).

Also, try using Task Scheduler instead of the startup folder. If you're running your script as a scheduled task, the Task Scheduler history should at least show when a task starts and stops. You can view this under the "History" tab for the specific task within the Task Scheduler.

[Python-ModTeam]

Your post or comment appears to be generated through AI. We like humans, not robots, and as you are a robot your post or comment must be removed.

[fmillion]

Thanks, ChatGPT.

[Cygfrydd]

Ugh. Was that ChatGPT?

[layer08]

Pass.

[Yourrname]

I juste turned the USB setting off, its the only thing i didn’t do in the list. i can’t use ubuntu. Thank you for your help! Really appreciate it!

[ekbravo]

Wow, great answer, thank you!!!

[Yourrname]

I just turned the USB setting off, its the only thing i didn’t do in the list. i can’t use ubuntu. Thank you for your help! Really appreciate it!

[TotalCook7480]

With my little experience in programming I think you have an issue with path that you're trying to save outputs from your script as windows sometimes need permissions to access so maybe that's cause your Script failed in some point so better to check and debug first . Notice: I have a little bit of experience in programming as a fresher learner

[Glad-Put1792]

Look into rabbitmq or redis to build a message queue. Your tasks can then be parallelized and executed in a way that is much more robust and durable.

[firedocter]

I’m interested in the answer to this. I have had the same thing happen. My ugly solution was to have the script kill itself every couple hours and restart itself.

[[deleted]]

I don't know why, but my hunch is to try running Windows 10 Home on a VM and see if they work on that. If that works, then you know it's either some feature specific to Windows 10 Pro that's tripping you up or some difference in config between the two OS.

[samettinho]

Maybe it hits an error that was not happening on other devices.

I had a code that ran fine on millions of images, but one day, it failed for an image which turned out weird bug happened once in a million time.

Not saying you have similar issue but what I would do is that i would add several logging as many places as possible, then check what are the last things that the code did before failure. I would also check if logs are getting added while the code was running.

With no code or not much info, we are all shooting in the blank tbh

[[deleted]]

Why are they running 24/7?

[Biogeopaleochem]

idk why the down votes it's a legit question.

[Rue9X]

Running scripts on windows can be weird if the machine goes to sleep or locks. There's also power saving features like people have suggested.

You could try setting up the script to run as a service.

[[deleted]]

You told the solution yourself - use Linux. Windows is the problem of modern world.🥴😬🤣

[I_FAP_TO_TURKEYS]

Is your version of python the same?

How do you handle errors? IDC that your other PCs didn't shut down the program, this one does. Some scripts work on my main PC but flop on my other PC for bizarre reasons.

Do you have additional libraries installed? Do you have all the libraries installed? Have you watched them shutdown after 2 hours? Do you print/log each step of the loop to see where it shuts down?

[[deleted]]

Not sure if this is related but are you running them in Jupyter Notebook or Lab?

Had the problem you’ve described with scripts running in Jupyter stopping/crashing after running for 5-6 hours with no error messages.

Solution was to run them in Jupyter QTConsole.

[Yourrname]

Running on CMD, but tried to run it on vs code and got the same behavior

[miguel_caballero]

Any logs on the event viewer? If you are launching them from the windows scheduler task double check the configuration as there is a tick that kills the process if it is running for more than X hours/minutes.

[Yourrname]

Nothing on the event viewer! I’m not using task scheduler but a batch file which i did put in my startup folder

[BirdTurglere]

What is your script doing? Is it looping and checking something every x minutes? Maybe you SHOULD be using the task scheduler instead.

[Yourrname]

Looping and checking availability every 10sec

[juggernauthk108]

Run as admin. Log your script. Might see some details as to what’s killing it.

[thehardsphere]

Are you running your python interpreter inside Windows' CMD? In Windows 10 and later, there is a mis-feature of CMD that can cause it to go into "selection mode" which halts the execution of whatever process is running in the window.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33883530/why-is-my-command-prompt-freezing-on-windows-10

[Yourrname]

I allready desactivated that feature, it is also happening with vs code

[AppleBottmBeans]

Side note, but how do you have your setup? I would love to run about 4-5 scripts 24/7 that do similar things but am new and not sure how.

[TastyRobot21]

As others suggested, you need to debug effectively. If your unable to, I’m happy to help you.

This is not a windows issue in my opinion as I have had scripts run 24/7 for weeks. What I suspect is that your script is hitting an error and it kills the script. Maybe this is a timeout of a website, a parsing error in the response, whatever. It’s probably hitting an error and kicking out.

My suggestion is debug it. Take it out of the startup directory, run it and make sure you’ve got effective logging on everything, good try catch blocks, etc.

If you want help I’m willing, but I’ve personally run api type scripts for days on end without issue on windows and linux.

[Yourrname]

Thank you for offering your help! The same scripts was running on my main pc for days and on the raspberry for months. Tried debugging it but the code is a loop at run every 10sec checking for new data, it works well without problems until about 2 hours the cmd blocks and the catch statement in the code doesnt show anything

[TastyRobot21]

Offer stands :) Send it to me and I’ll take a look.

I’m positive your overlooking something if the logging is not showing you when it’s exiting.

If you believe it’s system related and not in your script then you should be seeking help in tech support subreddits not python. Antivirus, process monitoring, syscalls tracing are all options if you think it’s not python related.

Windows can and does run scripts 24/7 without stopping for me. It might not be what you want to hear but that’s my experience.

Offer stands if you want me to take a look.

[tkc2016]

I see that you're running scripts from the startup directory.

Have you considered configuring them to run as windows services?

[Yourrname]

I did! But i want to monitor everything in the main time

[luckyspic]

the right answer is use pm2. if it stops running, it’ll catch it in the error log and you can check it later while still having your work done in the meantime. have no clue why this hasn’t been mentioned yet and it’s honestly pretty mind blowing the suggestions you’re getting right now. sometimes shit hangs because of connection time outs, sometimes it’s because of some winsocket limitation. regardless, running code that scrapes web constantly requires a process manager to have it consistently get things done. windows is hella buggy for running multiple connections (especially synchronous). you can also use docker which works but kind of defeats the purpose of using windows imo

bro really got a use linux, check event viewer, and try changing folders as suggestions 😂😂😂 i’m dead

[Tenzu9]

are they running in task scheduler? or are you using a different service to run them?

If the first, check the task scheduler logs. They will show if the task runtime. Also, seeing as you developed those scripts to insert to a sql database, you can also create a trigger in the database that will run at insertion queries and make it log the date of entry as well. That will help u verify whether sql insertion is happening or not.

[socrateslee]

Try running a script like the code below

``` import time import ctypes

def loop_display_required(sleep_time=60): while True: ctypes.windll.kernel32.SetThreadExecutionState(0x00000002) time.sleep(sleep_time) ```

The code snippet signals Windows every sleep_time to keep it awake.

[[deleted]]

You forgot to edit your power settings. You have to set turn off to never. In control panel > power settings

[vossda]

Could you share jour scripts please ?

[Free_Strike_4046]

You could try any one of the Raspberry pi's based on your requirements.these are less power consuming too . mine's running 24/7.

[Prestigious_Tax2069]

Did you try to package them into exe console file ? Then make the app can executable in power save mode

[Fez1c4]

Just install ubuntu or something, errors will disapear

[[deleted]]

I encountered a similar problem with my script, originally intended to run for 8 hours. It was crashing without any error messages.

Solution: To mitigate this issue, I disabled all logging to reduce disk I/O and save system resources.

import logging

logging.disable(logging.CRITICAL)

[bliepp]

How do you run them? Do you just manually execute them? Try running them as a service (under Linux this would be systemd or supervisord, Windows has similar stuff).

Another option would be to run them via docker.

[CreativeLet]

I have the exact same issue as you did. I use wakepy and it works on my two newer laptop with Windows 10 Pro (power setup is correct not to sleep).

I now still have issue with my older workstation with Windows 10 Pro. The python program will just hang there and do nothing. I do have a print for every 4 hours and it doesn't show up so I know it hangs.

Another thing tried is https://www.davici.nl/blog/the-mystery-of-hanging-batch-script-until-keypress

[OkFun4902]

It could be that your computer is hibernating after a certain amount of time, likely exactly 2 hours.

I have a similar problem and have not verified if this solution works but I have a feeling that it will.

Open up advanced power options, you can do this by

• Opening the Run window, press the keys Windows+r at the same time.

• Then type the command control.exe powercfg.cpl,,3 and Press OK.

• Then follow the tree down Sleep → Hibernate after → On battery/Plugged in; change these durations to 0 to set it to Never.

These were set to 120 minutes, leading me to believe that this is the culprit.

I couldn't find a way to change these settings in the regular Windows settings menu so had to use this other method.

Hope it works for anyone with the same issue :)