Question

I have a window service which plays a sound file at a specified time, so to do that I have taken Timer but it’s Tick event is never fired, same is working in WinForm application.

Below is the code snippet of my service…

public partial class ClockService : ServiceBase
{
    private TimeSpan _alarmTime = new TimeSpan(9, 55, 0);
    private int _snoozeTime = 2; // 2 minutes
    private int _repeatCounter = -1;
    private const int ALARM_REPETITION = 5;
    private string _alarmSoundPath = @"C:\Sound\default.wav";
    private string _alarmLogPath = @"C:\Sound\log.txt";

    public ClockService()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        alarmTimer.Enabled = true;
    }

    protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
    {
        using (FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(_alarmLogPath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
        {
            using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(fileStream))
            {
                writer.WriteLine("Service has started at {0}", DateTime.Now);
            }
        }
    }

    protected override void OnStop()
    {
        using (FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(_alarmLogPath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
        {
            using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(fileStream))
            {
                writer.WriteLine("Service has stopped at {0}", DateTime.Now);
            }
        }
    }

    private void alarmTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        using (FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(_alarmLogPath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
        {
            using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(fileStream))
            {
                writer.WriteLine("Alarm time is: {0}", _alarmTime);
            }
        }

        TimeSpan currentTime = new TimeSpan(DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay.Hours, DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay.Minutes, DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay.Seconds);


        if (currentTime == _alarmTime)
        {
            using (FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(_alarmLogPath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
            {
                using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(fileStream))
                {
                    writer.WriteLine("Alarm time is: {0} and current time is: {1}", _alarmTime, currentTime);
                }
            }

            _alarmTime = _alarmTime.Add(new TimeSpan(0, _snoozeTime, 0));
            _repeatCounter++;

            if (File.Exists(_alarmSoundPath))
            {
                SoundPlayer player = new SoundPlayer(_alarmSoundPath);
                player.PlayLooping();
            }

        }

        if (_repeatCounter == ALARM_REPETITION)
        {
            _alarmTime = _alarmTime.Subtract(new TimeSpan(0, (ALARM_REPETITION * _snoozeTime), 0));
            _repeatCounter = 0;
        }

    }
}

To make sure that I have done everything properly, here is my InitializeComponent method

    private void InitializeComponent()
            {
                this.components = new System.ComponentModel.Container();
                this.alarmTimer = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer(this.components);
                this.alarmTimer.Enabled = true;
                this.alarmTimer.Interval = 1000; 
            this.alarmTimer.Tick += new System.EventHandler(this.alarmTimer_Tick);
        this.ServiceName = "PravoAlarmService";
    }

Please anyone have a look and guide me…problem is the tick event is never fired..

Answer 1

Try to use the System.Timers.Timer instead.

this.alarmTimer = new System.Timers.Timer();

The System.Windows.Forms.Timer – as it names implies – works in Forms applications, but not in something like a NT Service.