There's a small advantage of the cold backup files in that you don't need the same amount of space. You need db space only, not db space + backup file space. A time savings as well, since you aren't copying the data from the backup file to the db files.

However. I haven't seen that to be worth the effort of shutting down the service.

That's a separate discussion. In terms of your issue with the service, I can't find anything, but my Google-fu is failing. Shot a note out on Twitter to see if I can find you something.