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Running the Service

The Service screen is your one-stop control panel for the background service. From here you can see at a glance whether it's running, and take action without leaving the Configuration tool.

You will rarely need to use this screen — the service is installed, started, and registered to auto-restart by the installer. It's here for the occasional case where something needs attention.

What you'll see

The Service screen has three sections:

1. Current state

A large coloured indicator shows the current state of the background service:

ColourStateWhat it means
GreenRunningThe service is healthy and is performing scheduled syncs.
RedStoppedThe service is installed but not running. No syncs will happen until it's started.
AmberInstalling / ErrorEither a transient state during install, or an error returned by Windows. The exact message is shown next to the indicator.

2. Lifecycle controls

These buttons let you act on the service:

ButtonWhat it does
StartStarts the service if it is stopped.
StopStops the service. Scheduled syncs will not run until you start it again.
RestartStops and immediately re-starts the service.
InstallRe-registers the service with Windows. Used only after a manual uninstall — normal users will never need this.
UninstallRemoves the Windows service registration. The application files remain on disk. Use this if Kiss support has asked you to.

3. Quick shortcuts

Two helper buttons open the relevant folders in File Explorer:

  • Open logs folder — opens %ProgramData%\Kiss\Datafeed\logs\, which contains the daily log files.
  • Open config folder — opens %ProgramData%\Kiss\Datafeed\, where configuration and state are stored.

When you might use this screen

In normal operation, you won't need this screen. The cases where it's useful are:

  • The status bar in another screen shows the service is stopped. Open the Service screen and click Start.
  • You've changed a setting and want to be sure it's in effect. Click Restart. (You don't actually need to — settings are picked up automatically — but a restart makes it explicit.)
  • Kiss support is helping you debug a problem and asks for the log files. Use Open logs folder to find them quickly.
  • You're decommissioning a machine. Click Uninstall to remove the service registration, then uninstall the app from Windows Settings.

Letting Windows handle the service

By default, Windows starts the background service automatically when the machine boots, and restarts it up to three times if it ever stops unexpectedly. There is nothing you need to configure to enable this — it's set up by the installer.

If you ever need to verify this in Windows itself, you can open Services (services.msc) and find an entry called Kiss Datafeed Service. The startup type should be Automatic.

Next: understand what's in your data files

Continue to Data files to learn what the CSV files contain and how to read them.