Starting the server, and backups

The two halves

Cartwright is an app on the desktop plus a traffic server that holds the database and talks to your automation system. The app is a window onto the server. Without the server, nothing loads.

The sidebar always shows which state you are in: a green dot and "Server connected", or red and "Server unreachable".

When it says unreachable

The server starts on its own. If it has stopped:

1. Open Settings and find Traffic server. 2. Press Start the server. It waits for the server to answer before saying it worked. 3. If it says it started but nothing answered, open the start script it names and read the error.

The server runs in a window titled DO NOT CLOSE. That window is the server.

If Settings shows no start button, you are using Cartwright in a web browser rather than the installed app. A web page cannot start programs, so run start-cartwright.cmd yourself.

Still stuck? Call (707) 505-8885 or email hello@cartwright.fm.

"The traffic server cannot reach those folders"

If Cartwright says a folder is refused even though you can open it yourself, the path is fine. The server is running under the wrong account.

The installer sets the server to run as SYSTEM, a Windows background account. That way it starts when the PC starts, with nobody signed in. It works as long as everything the server uses is on the same computer.

It stops working when StationPlaylist is on a different PC. SYSTEM has no permissions on another machine, so every folder there is refused. Your own account does have access, which is why the folder opens fine in File Explorer.

Running Studio on a separate on-air PC is the usual setup, so most stations run into this.

The fix: open Settings, go to On-Air Bridge, and press Run it as me. It moves the server onto your account, which does have access. No password is needed.

Then read what it tells you:

• If it asks for an administrator, accept. Removing the SYSTEM startup task needs one. If that task stays, it starts the server the wrong way again at the next restart.
• If it says a server started by the system is still running, restart the PC. Cartwright cannot stop a SYSTEM process; that is Windows protecting itself, not a fault. After the restart, nothing starts it that way again.

What that costs you

The server now starts when you sign in, not when the PC powers on. If the PC restarts overnight — an update, a power cut — and nobody signs in, no logs are generated until somebody does.

There is no way around that yet. A startup task that can also reach another PC's folders needs a signed certificate we do not have yet. Until then, if your PC restarts unattended, expect to sign in before the day's log exists.

If everything is on one computer, ignore all of this. SYSTEM is fine, the folders work, and there is nothing to change.

Backups

Backups use the database's own snapshot, not a file copy, so a backup is never caught halfway through a write. Each backup is checked before any older one is removed.

The live database stays on this PC's own disk, on purpose. Backups go to the NAS; the live database does not.

Two things that must not happen

Never write into your automation system's own database. Cartwright drops a file into a watched folder and stops there, and the automation picks it up on its own schedule. That boundary is why a bug on this side cannot take your station off the air.

Never put the live database on a network share. This is not about speed. A network share can corrupt a database that is being written to.

Which version am I running?

Look at the bottom of the sidebar, or open Help and choose About Cartwright. Both show a version and a build code.

If a control you expect is missing, check this first. "It isn't there" and "you are on an older version" are different conversations, and this tells them apart.