The change you referenced was intended to handle scenarios where SQL Server is on the same computer as adTempus, so the time adTempus waits for a database connection is only about 50 seconds. It's not possible to extend this wait much, because there's a limit to how long Windows will wait for the adTempus service to start.

If you can't coordinate the restarts so the database server starts first, the best solution I can think of would be to have a script or program registered to run at startup on the computer, that would retry the adTempus service until it starts.

Thanks. I assume this is also the case for adTempus 4?

The behavior is the same in adTempus 4. However, we could look into changing version 4 to support a longer wait period.

How long after the database server is the adTempus server generally being started? You could also try changing the startup type for the adTempus service to "Automatic (Delayed Start", which would cause Windows to delay for 2 minutes or so before it tries to start adTempus. That plus the built-in retries would get you to 3 minutes.

Once adTempus is running, how does it handle database connectivity issues?

Let's say for example, the adTempus service is running, and then the database becomes unavailable for a short period of time. Does the service stop, or does it continue running and resume normal operation once the database becomes available again?

adTempus was not designed to operate without a database connection, and does not handle the situation well.

In version 3, you will get an error message logged in the Application log in the Windows Event Viewer, but adTempus will continue trying to operate. Jobs may not be started, and status/history updates for executing jobs will be lost because they cannot be saved to the database.

Version 4 handles things a little better by retrying database operations, but this is intended to address very brief connection failures or timeouts (< 1 minute).

If you cannot count on the database server being always available for adTempus, you should consider installing SQL Server Express on the same computer as adTempus and using that to host the adTempus database. This is the default configuration for adTempus.