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MacBook Pro Insomnia

manuel.bernhardt.io

211–220 of 238 posts

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm more surprised that any application can prevent sleep _when you close the lid_. Absolutely. If my options are 1) halt the process when the lid closes or 2) let the battery die heating up the inside of my bag and then the process halts anyway when the laptop dies then please, please let me choose #1! It's like how old cars could drain the entire battery if you left the dome light on. Why would they allow that?

Maybe you really needed the dome light. Same as in this case.

The far more likely scenario is that you forgot. Just because it's useful in strained, rare scenarios to have a hole in your foot doesn't mean it's not a better design choice to add a safety to prevent a device from shooting itself in the foot.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm more surprised that any application can prevent sleep _when you close the lid_. Absolutely. If my options are 1) halt the process when the lid closes or 2) let the battery die heating up the inside of my bag and then the process halts anyway when the laptop dies then please, please let me choose #1! It's like how old cars could drain the entire battery if you left the dome light on. Why would they allow that?

Maybe you really needed the dome light. Same as in this case.

I have never met anyone who preferred to keep the dome light on all night even at the expense of being able to start the car the next day.

Similarly, I can't think of a use case for preferring that processes keep running all night on a closed, unplugged laptop until the battery dies at which point they all halt anyway. But if someone needs this behavior I suppose there could be an option for it.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm more surprised that any application can prevent sleep _when you close the lid_. Absolutely. If my options are 1) halt the process when the lid closes or 2) let the battery die heating up the inside of my bag and then the process halts anyway when the laptop dies then please, please let me choose #1! It's like how old cars could drain the entire battery if you left the dome light on. Why would they allow that?

Maybe you really needed the dome light. Same as in this case.

How many situations could you imagine that keeping a dome light on is more important than being able to start the vehicle the dome light resides in?

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised that Apple's power management doesn't have an alert for this. I'm more surprised that any application can prevent sleep _when you close the lid_. I can understand the utility behind something like stopping sleep via timeout so a media player can tell the system "hey, they're watching a movie don't turn off even if they don't touch you for a bit". I really can't think of many valid use cases for applic…

Actually, I use this all the time now. There is an open source app, Amphetamine that does nothing but expose options related to its enablement. Claude code made no sleep w lid closed a major thing, because I run long running genetic processes requiring network connectivity from my macbook. Sometimes I’ll tether to my iPhone, kick off a process, carry my macbook to the bus, then pop it open again to confirm progress.…

`caffeinate -s ` should do the trick. You don't need anything else.

`caffeinate -d` will disable the shutting down of display.

`caffeinate -w ` will watch a process and will goto sleep once that process is finished.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#215
I guess Apple is ignoring this problem as always? I wanted to contact support couple of times, but I'm sure they would tell me to restart PRAM and SMC. Even though I have Apple silicone and based on their official docs, you don't need to restart it. That's the level of Apple support...

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#216
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's called "off".

Turning a machine off loses any existing application state, and requires both applications and the OS to be re-launched. When I put a machine into standby, I want it to go in a standby state, and then stay there until I explicitly wake it -- not keep doing whatever background tasks the OS developers, app developers, or whatever other third parties think they need to keep doing.

Btw, what’s the functionality which needs this half sleep state with running WiFi and Bluetooth? Laptops worked for decades without this, and I’ve never felt the need to change this. It caused headache for me too many times, and I don’t even know why I would need this.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#217

Another trick is to open Activity Monitor, switch to the Energy tab, and sort by the "Preventing sleep" column. Some apps prevent macOS from sleeping. In my case, I've discovered that Devonthink (document/notes management app) is responsible. I've been meaning to file a bug report about it. I'm surprised that Apple's power management doesn't have an alert for this. Surely an app that causes my Mac to become glowing h…

“ Meanwhile, I keep being asked if Chrome should be allowed to find devices on my network, which doesn't seem nearly as important.” … Not for you, but someone finds it important.

More than once for the same app? Multiple times a month?

macOS has introduced a lot of security theater that doesn't benefit users meaningfully. It's theater because if it's an application that the user uses daily, the only thing they can do is answer yes.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#218

Another trick is to open Activity Monitor, switch to the Energy tab, and sort by the "Preventing sleep" column. Some apps prevent macOS from sleeping. In my case, I've discovered that Devonthink (document/notes management app) is responsible. I've been meaning to file a bug report about it. I'm surprised that Apple's power management doesn't have an alert for this. Surely an app that causes my Mac to become glowing h…

Excellent tip, and one I rediscovered earlier this week when I realized my Mac wasn't sleeping (the culprit: I'd left Powerpoint open and in slide-show mode).

I used to use DevonThink, but I quit long ago. I'd be interested in hearing how you use it, especially if you're not an academic.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amphetamine is an app that allows one to keep their device running, awake, unlocked, etc. I use Amphetamine all the time, especially with agentic coding, and it’s been an essential app for me for years for other reasons (live data processing, presentations, etc.).

‘caffeinate -i ‘ No apps required

Ok but it's much nicer having an icon I can quickly click which also visually shows me if it's keeping the computer awake. It's very easy to choose different amounts of time to stay awake, including giving it a specific end time rather than a duration. And the little audible alert when the time expires is nice for letting me know it's over so I can decide if I want to add more time. Plus it has an option to prevent accidentally draining the battery to nothing by letting the system sleep if it drops below 10% battery.

Re: MacBook Pro Insomnia

#220
post #51

I've worked around this problem on each mac laptop I've owned over the years by configuring "hibernate on lid close." When I open the lid of the mac it takes maybe 20-30 seconds to resume. I consider this a small price to pay in exchange for reliable sleep and less battery drain with the lid closed. If you want to try this, run in the terminal: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25 If you don't like it, you can restore defa…

Can you explain what this does?
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