Configuring Job Idle Timeout: A Quick Guide

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Similar to a website session timeout, there is a Job Idle Timeout. The JobIdleTime is specified in minutes and direct the Monarch Server to terminate those jobs that have been idle for that length of time. A Job is considered to be idle if it has been ‘sitting’ on a screen waiting for user input for a ‘long’ period of time. The default is 20 minutes.

Monarch generated websites default the Session and the Job idle time out to 20 minutes. These timeouts are set as part of the ConfigureServices Method of the website’s Startup Class as shown here:

        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            TimeSpan IdleTimeout20 = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(20);

               . . . 

            services.AddSession(options =>
            {
                options.IdleTimeout = IdleTimeout20;
                options.Cookie.IsEssential = true; // make the session cookie Essential -- Problematic for DGPR??
            });

               . . . 

            ConfigureMonaServer(services, IdleTimeout20);
        }

Notice that the value IdleTimeout20 is used to configure both the Session idle timeout and is passed on to ConfigureMonaServer which uses the value to start the Monarch Server as shown below:

        void ConfigureMonaServer(IServiceCollection services, TimeSpan IdleTimeout)
        {
            MonaServerConfig monaServerConfig = new MonaServerConfig();
            Configuration.GetSection("MonaServer").Bind(monaServerConfig);

            if (string.Compare(monaServerConfig.HostName, "*InProcess", true) == 0)
            {
                if (monaServerConfig.JobIdleTimeout > 0)
                    IdleTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(monaServerConfig.JobIdleTimeout);
                var assemblies = string.Join(',', monaServerConfig.AssemblyList.ToArray());
                ASNA.QSys.MonaServer.Server.StartService("*LoopBack", monaServerConfig.Port, IdleTimeout, assemblies,
                                                        (ASNA.QSys.MonaServer.TraceOptions)monaServerConfig.TraceOption, false);
            }

            services.AddSingleton<IMonaServerConfig>(s => monaServerConfig);
        }

Also notice that it is possible to provide a JobIdleTimeout value as part of the MonaServer configuration section to override the value passed to ConfigureMonaServer. The MonaServer configuration section is typically established in the website’s appsettings.json file. When the Monarch Server is not running in the same process as the web site, the only way to establish the job idle timeout is via a JobIdleTimeout.

So, assuming the defaults have stayed at 20 minutes in the SWBC website configuration then, it is expected that developer will see the debugger popup an JobShutDownException dialog around 20 minutes of inactivity. This exception will typically be thrown when the program has been sitting too long on an ExFmt or Read operation to a Workstation file.