Why do I need minecraft to be open for this code to run?

Question

So this code gets minecraft server status and for most servers it works perfectly (such as hypixel), but in Aternos servers (a free minecraft server hosting website) it only works if you have minecraft open and refreshing every once in a while in the multiplayer menu.

• Why is this happening?
• Is it possible to fix it and if yes how?

Note: this code is not written by me and I can't find who I got it from so I can't fully understand it

May help: https://wiki.vg/Protocol

import socket
import struct
import json

def unpack_varint(s):
    d = 0
    for i in range(5):
        b = ord(s.recv(1))
        d |= (b & 0x7F) << 7*i
        if not b & 0x80:
            break
    return d

def pack_varint(d):
    o = b""
    while True:
        b = d & 0x7F
        d >>= 7
        o += struct.pack("B", b | (0x80 if d > 0 else 0))
        if d == 0:
            break
    return o

def pack_data(d):
    h = pack_varint(len(d))
    if type(d) == str:
        d = bytes(d, "utf-8")
    return h + d

def pack_port(i):
    return struct.pack('>H', i)

def get_info(host='localhost', port=25565):

    # Connect
    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
    s.settimeout(5.0)
    s.connect((host, port))

    # Send handshake + status request
    s.send(pack_data(b"\x00\x00" + pack_data(host.encode('utf8')) + pack_port(port) + b"\x01"))
    s.send(pack_data("\x00"))

    # Read response
    unpack_varint(s)     # Packet length
    unpack_varint(s)     # Packet ID
    l = unpack_varint(s) # String length

    d = b""
    while len(d) < l:
        d += s.recv(1024)

    # Close our socket
    s.close()

    # Load json and return
    return json.loads(d.decode('utf8'))

#print(get_info("play.hypixel.net"))