v15.2.4 - automatic service shutdown after 5 days of running

We are experiencing the same issue today. We updated on Friday and today almost exactly to the time we updated the service stopped. I've reached out to support but no answer yet. 

Yes. I have this problem on 25 instances.  Another bug  with Serv-U and more paperwork. 

Upgrade from v15.2.3 Hot Fix 2 to v15.2.4 done on: Thu 02Sep21 08:11:24

Evidence from test instance logs C:\Program Files\RhinoSoft\Serv-U\Logs

[01] Thu 02Sep21 08:11:24 - Domain started

120 hours later and service has magically stopped:

[01] Tue 07Sep21 08:11:28 - Domain stopped

SolarWinds support are investigating this.

It's because it does a license check every 5 days. Looks like: IF license OK THEN {Stop service} 

I wonder IF license is NOT OK then {do nothing to service} 

Workarounds I suggest:

- Setup 120 hour reminders to start the App on your various systems 

- Automate the starting of service when it stops.

Hi guys - once you manually restart the service does it then work ok? Presumably for another 5 days? Its strange as you would expect a license check to happen at startup, not every 5 days.

ivodlouhycan you help with this?

Hi calc2014 the Serv-U v15.2.4 service stops after every 5 days. To be pedantic: you start the service for it to work and not restart it.

Unfortunately, as per chrisrow he has confirmed the service stops every 5 days. This means if you start v15.2.4 on:

1st Sep at 18:00 then the service will stop on:

6th Sep at 18:00.  Then for example if you start the service again on: 6th Sep, 1hr later at 19:00 then the service will stop on:

11th Sep at 19:00.

The license for Serv-U is non perpetual; so for me, it sort of makes sense to run periodic license checks to keep the money coming in otherwise someone might just start the service once and leave it running forever.

Thanks for the details rblumenthal, if you could post here with any updates from support, that would be great! Appreciate you guys taking time to post on here.

Yes i got this problem to on both our Serv-U instances. Both upgrade to 15.2.4.1324

Yes, same thing happening here.  I appreciate your noting the frequency, as that detail had escaped me.  I got too focused on the possibility I was being exploited and was trying to correlate specific IPs accessing hosts prior to shutdown.  Got too far down that rabbit hole & missed the more obvious.

I had created a ticket on 8/30.  I installed 15.2.4 on 8/25, so I can verify the timing you cite.  Coincidental that the support page references the Thwack community, but the support team must be missing this thread because they haven't mentioned the timing to me during our two-week conversation.  They could have recommended I restart every four days while they figure this out.  Meanwhile, our hosts went down again this weekend and I have more explaining to do.

Sigh...

We are currently working on this issue and will come back with solution asap.

Same here... most frustrating was the time to chase support to acknowledge there is an error. Equally scary and BIG DEAL is the support "expert" tried to get me to stop the production server to setup a catch for crash dump; IT IS NOT CRASHING; the Event Log Says, Stopping, and Domain Stopped.

Still waiting... 

I received the same request from Serv-U support. It seems strange Serv-U support want their customers to provide a crash dump file to investigate an error they already understand and could easily replicate themselves.

I assume Serv-U  support are just following their normal prescribed customer support procedure without giving any thought to which steps are necessary or not.