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Check Desktop image rotation timing to cure lack of sleep System
My PowerBook under 10.2.8 all of a sudden refused to go to sleep. After some hunting, I figure out that the problem was that I had configured the Desktop control panel to randomly change the background (using the abstract collection) every minute. However, I had the Energy Saver configured to go to sleep after four minutes. Setting the Desktop control panel to change the background every 15 minutes curred my sleepless Mac. Looks to me as a bug.

[robg adds: I'm not sure this is a bug, but it's certainly something to be aware of -- something as simple as changing the desktop background will certainly make the Mac think it's still doing stuff, so Energy Saver will not kick in. Just think of it as one more thing to debug if you're having sleep issues.]
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Check Desktop image rotation timing to cure lack of sleep | 6 comments | Create New Account
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Check Desktop image rotation timing to cure lack of sleep
Authored by: adamjacobmuller on Oct 13, '03 10:54:10AM

I have my powerbook setup to rotate through background images ( the abstract collection as well, it's just so cool) I change the timing but at the moment it's set at ever minute, but has been as low as every 5 seconds. I have never had this issue arise.
I am running panther at the moment but have used this configuration with 10.2 in the not-so-distant past.



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Check Desktop image rotation timing to cure lack of sleep
Authored by: Alrescha on Oct 13, '03 11:07:14AM

Re; not sleeping: using 10.2.8, I notice that although the screensaver kicks in, my display won't shut off if one of those new iCal reminder boxes is on screen.

A.



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Check Desktop image rotation timing to cure lack of sleep
Authored by: Agrippa on Oct 13, '03 04:59:26PM

Having the rotation on also causes performance issues on slower macs. I don't know this as a fact, but I believe that it loads all the images into memory to make the transitions seamless. I once put my flat-panel iMac on a 5 minute rotation, and everything seemed to slow down. I though my computer was broken until I set it to an hour, and performance picked right back up.



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Check Desktop image rotation timing to cure lack of sleep
Authored by: Anonymous on Oct 13, '03 07:19:40PM

Of course this is a bug.

Apple has control of the whole OS and so can code in a list of activities that should not keep the computer awake. Changing the desktop picture is clearly one such activity.



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Check Desktop image rotation timing to cure lack of sleep
Authored by: Peter Kappesser on Oct 14, '03 06:53:22PM

I had the opposite problem: with rotating Desktop images (every 30 minutes, from a folder of images I'd downloaded from "Astronomy Picture of the Day"), my system would refuse to wake from sleep after I was away for a long weekend, although it would be fine if left just overnight. This past weekend I shut off image rotation (and left up the default blue swirly image) and there was no problem upon my return, although this time I was running 10.2.8 and the last time I had the problem I was running 10.2.6 so admittedly something else may have changed to account for the improvement.

Also, I have noticed in the past that the iCal reminder alerts cause the monitor to wake up if sleeping, or prevent it from sleeping. I expect this is a feature, not a bug, but it would be nice if it were controlled by a preference.



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Check Desktop image rotation timing to cure lack of sleep
Authored by: sjmills on Oct 14, '03 08:21:11PM

Yes, I'd call that a bug, or a problem in your OS. Only user interaction should prevent sleeping. I wish having volumes remotely mounted would also prevent it. I really hate it when I have a remote Mac's disk mounted locally and then the remote Mac goes to sleep.



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