Task Scheduler starts Firefox, and Firefox starts WMP, but as invisible and unstoppable tasks.
SINCE JULY 4TH WEEKEND this has changed: every Saturday morning, I have a task in Windows (7) Task Scheduler set up to start Firefox, passing a URL for streaming audio from my local radio station. Until July 9th, this caused Firefox to open a visible window, with a "new tab" which started a separate Windows Media Player task to stream the audio. Since then, the task scheduler starts playing the audio, but does not open a visible Firefox window, nor a visible Windows Media Player window. When I attempt to open Firefox, I get the popup which says I cannot open another instance of Firefox until I close the previous one, which the popup offers, and which seems to work. Not so much with the Windows Media Player playing the audio (the correct station, by the way). There is no window visible to close, and upon activating Task Manager to stop the audio, there is no visible line on its Applications tab to select in order to end the task; neither a WMP task nor a Firefox task (unless I started one myself). The only way to stop the audio is to shut down or restart the computer, and even then, the audio can restart itself up to five minutes into the shutdown process (AFTER the "shutdown in progress" message appears on the screen, which can be minutes after "waiting for these tasks to complete" finally goes away), before it stops and the computer finally goes down.
Are you aware of any Windows Updates, WMP updates, or Firefox updates, taking place between July 2nd and July 9th, which could have caused this change in a long standing predictable behavior? Since there have been some Windows Update fixes applied this week, I will close this question if the problem fixes itself by this Saturday, July 23rd. Thanks.
Chosen solution
Problem solved and big lesson learned! By testing with simpler cases (starting WMP with a short file on hard drive, and starting Notepad to display a text file), I found that I had an incorrect parameter set in the task properties, which is detailed in the screen shots attached. In case anyone else has a similar problem, the Security options on the General tab of the task properties should specify the user account which will be logged on when the task needs to be started (you may need to set up multiple tasks if you want it to start under multiple accounts, which did not apply in my case), fill in the password for that account the first time (it will remember it thereafter), and select "Run only when user is logged on" rather than "Run whether user is logged on or not."
Thanks for the info; your hints, and the ones in the Windows support forums, led me to the solution. After making the change, the tasks I moved over to the new user account once more, as the did in the old account, open visible windows for the programs activated. In the audio streaming case, a new Firefox tab is opened (whether Firefox is running or not), labeled "New Tab," which can be closed manually, and the WMP audio playback window opens to play the streaming audio, which can be closed whenever desired.
Pictures are in the attached files. Case closed!
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This seems to be a Windows 7 problem. Substituting IE as the program for Firefox gives same result: no IE window opened, no WMP window opened, neither task visible in Task Manager, unstoppable.
Another task which displayed a file in Notepad every morning also no longer works. No Notepad file window or task listed in Task Manager.
I will continue researching the problem in Windows forums. If anybody has any hints, that would be nice, but apparently it has no connection with Firefox or with Mozilla.
What is the command line of the task?
For reference if useful: https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options
Also, you should be able to find firefox.exe (or iexplore.exe) on the Processes tab of the Task Manager to shut down the process without having to shut down Windows if necessary. However, I don't think there's a way to have the Task Manager display a visible window for a process, which would be more useful...
Hmm, the plugins list next to your question (Question Details > More System Details) doesn't seem to show the Windows Media Player plugin being active. For a more readable list, you can use this page:
https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/plugins.html
What happens if you already have Firefox open and you launch the stream URL -- do any existing plugins handle it?
Chosen Solution
Problem solved and big lesson learned! By testing with simpler cases (starting WMP with a short file on hard drive, and starting Notepad to display a text file), I found that I had an incorrect parameter set in the task properties, which is detailed in the screen shots attached. In case anyone else has a similar problem, the Security options on the General tab of the task properties should specify the user account which will be logged on when the task needs to be started (you may need to set up multiple tasks if you want it to start under multiple accounts, which did not apply in my case), fill in the password for that account the first time (it will remember it thereafter), and select "Run only when user is logged on" rather than "Run whether user is logged on or not."
Thanks for the info; your hints, and the ones in the Windows support forums, led me to the solution. After making the change, the tasks I moved over to the new user account once more, as the did in the old account, open visible windows for the programs activated. In the audio streaming case, a new Firefox tab is opened (whether Firefox is running or not), labeled "New Tab," which can be closed manually, and the WMP audio playback window opens to play the streaming audio, which can be closed whenever desired.
Pictures are in the attached files. Case closed!
