Robot Service troubleshooting

No connection to the Robot Service

Description

Sometimes you might not be able to start an automation, no matter if the Robot Service is on or off. Manually starting the automation displays the following error message: "Get settings from service failed, reason System.Exception: Could not connect to UiPath Robot Service.".

The following solutions may need to be implemented by your network administrator.

Potential issue	Solution
The Robot Service is not running.	Manually start the Robot service: Open the Services window. Select the `UiPathRobotSvc` service. Select Start.
The Robot Service takes too long to start.	Windows reports services which do not load in a specified time. By default, this timeout value is 30 seconds, which can be insufficient for the Robot Service. To increase this value, you need to: Open the Windows Registry Editor. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control registry key, and select the Control subkey. If the ServicesPipeTimeout value is not available, create it: Right-click the Control subkey, and select DWORD (32-bit) Value from the New menu. A new blank DWORD Value is created. Type ServicesPipeTimeout as the name of the new value. Double-click the ServicesPipeTimeout DWORD value. The Edit DWORD (32-bit) Value window is displayed. From the Base section, select the Decimal option. In the Value data: field, type in 180,000. This makes the default ServicesPipeTimeout 3 minutes. It should be enough time for all Windows services to properly load. Close the Windows Registry Editor, then restart the system for the changes to take effect.
The Robot machine has incorrect permissions. In this case, the Robot Service might also appear as running.	Permissions to services are granted from the Windows Registry Editor, as follows: Open the Windows Registry Editor. Navigate to theHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet registry key. Right-click the Control subkey, and click on Permissions. The Permissions for Control window is displayed. Select the user under which you are logged in from the Group or user names section. Enable the Allow option for Full Control in the Permissions section. This grants the necessary permissions to the Robot. Select Apply and OK to confirm the changes, then close the window. Restart the system for the changes to take effect.

Errors when running as Administrator

Description

Starting with version 2020.4, running UiPath Assistant or Studio as an administrator could block the communication with the Robot Service. The following issues may occur:

In Studio - the Robot Status displays a "Robot Error" message, and when trying to run or debug a process, an "Access Denied" error is displayed.
In Assistant - the connection statust is incorrectly reported offline and the process list is not available.

Potential issue

Studio and Assistant must communicate with the Robot Service, which is a separate Windows process. The Robot Service starts up at the same level of access rights as the Assistant or Studio, which ever calls the service first.

The issue arises when you start the Assistant or Studio at different levels of access rights, such as a normal user and then as an administrator. For example, say the Assistant starts as a normal user, and then you restart it as an administrator. The Robot Service, specifically the User Host service, which was started at the normal user level, is unable to communicate with the Assistant running at the administrator level.