How to Install & Run Ombi as a Windows Service with AlwaysUp

Ombi helps you manage the folks watching videos on your Plex, Emby or Jellyfin media server.

To install Ombi as a Windows Service with AlwaysUp:

1. If you haven't already installed Ombi, download the Ombi zip file and extract it to a suitable location on your hard drive. For this tutorial, we placed everything in "C:\Ombi".

   Afterwards, setup Ombi and ensure that the catalog opens in your browser:

   

2. Next, download and install AlwaysUp, if necessary.

3. Start AlwaysUp.

4. Select Application > Add to open the Add Application window:

   

5. On the General tab:

   • In the Application field, enter the full path to the Ombi executable, Ombi.exe.

     For example, that path is "C:\Ombi\Ombi.exe" on our system.

   • In the Start the application field, choose Automatically, but shortly after the computer boots. With this setting, Ombi will start a couple of minutes after your computer boots — after all the machine's critical services are completely up and running.

   • And in the Name field, enter the name that you will call the application in AlwaysUp. We suggest Ombi but you can specify another name if you like.

   

6. Move to the Logon tab and enter the user name and password of the Windows account where you're logged in and run Ombi.

   While running in your account isn't mandatory, it's recommended because we know that your Ombi installation works properly in that context.

   

7. If you're interested in monitoring Ombi and automatically restarting it if it stops serving web pages, click over to the Monitor tab. We'll set up a URL sanity check to detect when the Ombi web server fails.

   1. On the Monitor tab, check the Whenever it fails a periodic sanity check box and click the Set button on the right:

      

   2. In the Add Sanity Check window, select the Check that a web server is responding properly option and click Next to proceed:

      

   3. Enter the web address where you access the Ombi application in your browser. That's probably:

      http://localhost:5000

      

      Click Next to continue.

   4. On this page, specify how often AlwaysUp should check Ombi's HTTP connection. The default of every 5 minutes should be fine but you can have AlwaysUp check more often (or less often) if you like.

      After you're done, click Next to move on.

      

   5. And finally, confirm your settings:

      

      If everything looks good, click Add to record your new sanity check and return to the Monitor tab.

8. When installed as a Windows Service, Ombi will run invisibly in the background (on the isolated Session 0 desktop). Therefore, you won't see Ombi's console window nor have access to text logged to the console.

   If lack of access to the console is a problem, you can capture Ombi's console output to a text file. To do so:

   1. Switch to the Extras tab.

   2. In the Capture output to this log file field, enter the full path to the text file that should record the console output.

   3. If important, specify what should happen to the output file if it grows too large.

   

9. We're done configuring Ombi as a Windows Service so click the Save button to record your settings.

   In a couple of seconds, an application called Ombi (or whatever you called it) will show up in the AlwaysUp window. It is not yet running though so its state will be "Stopped":

   

10. To start Ombi from AlwaysUp, choose Application > Start "Ombi".

    In a few seconds, the status will change to "Running" and Ombi will be working in the background:

    

    If you captured Ombi's console output to a file (step 8), please open the file and check the contents. You can also check the status of Ombi's website (http://localhost:5000) from your browser.

    Everything was working on our machine:

    

11. That's it! Next time your computer boots, Ombi will start up immediately, in the background, without anyone needing to log on. Please restart your PC now and test that Ombi works as expected after Windows returns to life.

    And please feel free to edit Ombi in AlwaysUp and explore the many other settings that may be appropriate for your environment. For example, send an email if Ombi stops, restart it if it uses too much CPU, or recycle it weekly to cure memory leaks.

Ombi not working properly as a Windows Service?

• Consult the AlwaysUp Troubleshooter — our online tool that can help you resolve the most common problems encountered when running an application as a Windows Service.

• From AlwaysUp, select Application > Report Activity > Today to bring up an HTML report detailing the interaction between AlwaysUp and Ombi. The AlwaysUp Event Log Messages page explains the more obscure messages.

• Browse the AlwaysUp FAQ for answers to commonly asked questions and troubleshooting tips.

• Contact us and we will be happy to help!