Issues with automatic restarts or OptionsApp freezing on Windows servers

1. Overview and typical symptoms

In some cases, the OptionsApp may appear to shut down on its own on a Windows Server, freeze, or restart multiple times daily. This behavior occurs especially during continuous operation (e.g., on Strato servers or other Windows Server environments).

Typical symptoms include:

• The OptionsApp no longer responds to input
• The user interface 'freezes'
• The app closes on its own and is restarted
• Very frequent restarts (sometimes up to several dozen per day)
• Manual check required to verify if the app is still running

2. Root cause

The cause is not in the OptionsApp itself, but in certain power and display settings in Windows.

Under certain conditions, Windows puts the server into a state where:

• the display is disabled, or
• internal UI updates are paused

For the OptionsApp, this creates the impression that valid UI feedback is no longer occurring. This can cause the app to be interpreted as 'hanging' and trigger an internal restart.

This behavior is already known from several support cases and has been reproduced and resolved together with affected customers.

3. Required Windows settings

All of the following points must be consistently disabled or set to 'Never'.

3.2 Behavior when closing / buttons

In the 'Lid, Power button, and Standby button' section, the following options must be set:

• When pressing the power button: Take no action
• When pressing the standby button: Take no action
• When closing the lid: Take no action

3.3 Timeouts

In the 'Timeouts for screen, standby, and sleep' section, all time limits must be disabled.

• Turn off display after: Never
• Put device to sleep after: Never

3.4 Power plan: Display settings

In the classic Windows dialog 'Power Options > Change plan settings' (Balanced plan), the following setting is particularly critical:

• Turn off display: Never

⚠️ Important:
Do not set '10 minutes', '15 minutes', or any other value here.
The setting must explicitly be 'Never'.

4. Why these settings are mandatory

Even if the server continues to 'run', Windows with enabled display or power saving timeouts can:

• stop UI updates
• pause rendering threads
• treat processes internally as inactive

However, the OptionsApp depends on continuous UI and status updates. If these are interrupted, it can lead to:

• apparent freezing
• internal safety restarts
• inconsistent behavior

occurring.