Background scripts freeze when the Bot's computer sleeps
If a long-running script on your Bot's computer goes quiet for hours, the computer was paused. Make each run catch up and have a routine restart it.
- Status: Open. Staff confirmed it at 1:59 PM ET on Oct 10 and called it "a known issue for long-running jobs," with no fix date.
- First seen: A forum report posted at 12:49 PM ET on Oct 10, with freezes logged on Oct 9 and 10.
- Symptoms: Scripts you leave running on the Bot's cloud computer, such as nohup loops, stop logging for 15 minutes to 6 hours. They're still listed afterward, but they didn't run in the gap. After a computer update, they're gone.
The Bot's computer goes to sleep when nothing is using it, and your own background scripts don't keep it awake. Staff member kevinn explained it to a user whose 30-minute data collectors kept missing ticks: "A few minutes after the app disconnects and no bot is working on it, the computer is paused. Processes running inside it (like nohup loops) don't count as activity, so they stay frozen until the next wake."
"The restart on Oct 10 was an automatic computer update," kevinn said. "Files carry over through an update, but running processes don't."
Why it matters#
The help center says a Bot keeps working "when my laptop is closed," because Bots work on a cloud computer. That's true for a Bot's own tasks and routines. It isn't true for a script you started and left running, so a 24/7 collector can lose data with no error.
How to use it#
Staff suggested three fixes:
- Keep the Grok Bot app open and connected while the pipeline needs to run. "The computer woke each time your app reconnected," kevinn said.
- Have each run catch up on the time since its last good run. Keep that time in a file.
- Have your publishing routine check whether your scripts are running and start them if they aren't, so they come back after an update.
Our catch-up tip has a prompt that sets up steps 2 and 3.
Good to know#
- An outside routine that wakes the computer works, the user said, "but every run costs tokens." Each routine run spends usage, per the routines help page.
- There's no cron or systemd on the Bot's computer, the user wrote, so a script can't start itself after a restart.
- We didn't reproduce the freeze. It rests on one detailed report and staff's diagnosis.
