Connecting to an Adobe InDesign console

Question

I have a single instance of InDesign Server running on a Windows 2007 VPS, which runs a SOAP service on port 8081. This runs as a Windows Service and runs both dev and live JSX scripts, depending on the path of the script (we have a dev folder and a live folder).

I am having trouble running a new script, so would like to get access to the console of the running service, but I am struggling to find a reference to how to do this in the Adobe PDF docs. I know the script itself being found, since there are errors in the Windows Event Viewer for a specific code line, but I think it is having trouble locating JSXBIN resources. The error message just lists the variable in question, rather than the explicit path.

I have modified the script to output path information to stdout, but this doesn't get into the Event Log. So, can I get a window on the console of the running service? I don't want to stop the current service as that is in use for live.

Some ideas I've got from the docs:

InDesignServer -console
InDesignServer -LogToApplicationEventLog

I think this executable however starts up a new instance, which isn't what I want (either it would choose a new port number, or try with 8081 and fail to start since the port is in use - I've not tried either for obvious reasons). The flags respectively display stdout in the DOS window, and redirect std out to the Event Log.

Answer 1

In short, I don't think this is possible. I was hesitant to start a new instance on our live server in case it upset anything, but in fact it is quite safe; just ensure that the port you specify is different to your usual one.

InDesignServer -noconsole -port 10001

The noconsole connects stdout and stderr with the current DOS window - using console opens a new one, so it's the former you want.

Aside: it may be worth avoiding LogToApplicationEventLog, since the process can get disconnected from the console, which makes it fiddly to kill in a graceful manner.