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Displays not sleeping while playing flash video

gumbyx84

gumbyx84

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 7, 2008
491
0
I don't know if anyone has run into this problem, but after a few days of testing, I know I'm not totally crazy. For some reason, after updating to Flash 10.1 RC, OS X will not sleep my displays while a flash video is playing. I have no idea why this is happening as I have never had an issue with it before.

My setup is as follows:
OS X 10.6.3
Firefox 3.6.3
Flash 10.1 RC

I know my extensions aren't causing the problem because I'm using the same extensions that I used before this problem started. The only app that might be causing this to happen is Caffeine (running 1.1.1), but again, I used this before with no issues.

If anyone can help me figure this out, I would appreciate it. Even if you don't know how to fix it, if you are having a similar problem, post here. If I can't figure out the problem soon, going to submit bug report to Adobe and having multiple claims might help.
 
Dumb question: Why would you want the display to sleep while watching a video? Isn't this the same as having your speakers off while listening to music? :confused:

Any how, I'd file a report with Adobe. It's a release candidate, not a stable release, so it's likely your bug will be heard.
 
belvdr said:
Dumb question: Why would you want the display to sleep while watching a video? Isn't this the same as having your speakers off while listening to music? :confused:

Any how, I'd file a report with Adobe. It's a release candidate, not a stable release, so it's likely your bug will be heard.
Click to expand...

I leave a video playing when I climb into bed and watch it until I pass out. Basically, I use Caffeine like a TV's sleep timer to prevent damage to displays
 
gumbyx84 said:
I leave a video playing when I climb into bed and watch it until I pass out. Basically, I use Caffeine like a TV's sleep timer to prevent damage to displays
Click to expand...

Ah, I see. Why not use the standard sleep mechanism or have a screen saver?
 
belvdr said:
Ah, I see. Why not use the standard sleep mechanism or have a screen saver?
Click to expand...

Thats the problem. The screensaver won't kick in either for some reason. I'm more worried about the display sleeping thought.
 
It won't sleep even after the video has finished playing?

I'm guessing that's what you are saying, since why would you want it to sleep while you might be watching and still awake.
 
mstrze said:
It won't sleep even after the video has finished playing?

I'm guessing that's what you are saying, since why would you want it to sleep while you might be watching and still awake.
Click to expand...

That's the issue. I usually have a playlist playing on YouTube. Since the new update, playlists repeat themselves. I tested to see if the displays would sleep when the video was paused. Surprisingly, it did. So now Im really confused at what is going on. I'm going to try and test this with a AVI playing in VLC to see if its OS X or Flash.
 
Well, since the playlists are now repeating, it seems like a YouTube issue. If you have a playlist that doesn't repeat and essentially your videos stop playing, you will have a display that will be able to sleep....since it will sleep when you pause/stop playing your video.

This makes sense to me...your computer is still working on something which negates the call for it to sleep. Sleep only kicks in when the CPU isn't busy with something for the processor...and I would imagine the same is true for video in association with the display:

One wouldn't want a display to shutoff while something was playing in almost all cases...and since this playlist is neverending, you always have something playing and therefore, no opportunity for the display to sleep.
 
mstrze said:
Well, since the playlists are now repeating, it seems like a YouTube issue. If you have a playlist that doesn't repeat and essentially your videos stop playing, you will have a display that will be able to sleep....since it will sleep when you pause/stop playing your video.

This makes sense to me...your computer is still working on something which negates the call for it to sleep. Sleep only kicks in when the CPU isn't busy with something for the processor...and I would imagine the same is true for video in association with the display:

One wouldn't want a display to shutoff while something was playing in almost all cases...and since this playlist is neverending, you always have something playing and therefore, no opportunity for the display to sleep.
Click to expand...

Ya I thought about that while I was out doing errands today. Sadly, YouTube probably isn't going to "fix" the playlist, so Im stuck until someone puts out a greasemonkey script.
 
Even if you can trick your computer to put the display to sleep, isn't the sound from the videos still going to continue playing and keep you up?
 
mstrze said:
Even if you can trick your computer to put the display to sleep, isn't the sound from the videos still going to continue playing and keep you up?
Click to expand...

To be honest, no. Once I'm out, takes a lot to wake me up. I keep the volume low anyway.

About Greasemonkey script: I'm hoping someone makes one to prevent playlists from looping automatically. That would solve my problems. Playlist ends at the last video and then display can sleep.
 
gumbyx84 said:
Ya I thought about that while I was out doing errands today. Sadly, YouTube probably isn't going to "fix" the playlist, so Im stuck until someone puts out a greasemonkey script.
Click to expand...

How do you know YouTube won't fix the playlist? Send them a suggestion/bug report. They are usually pretty welcoming of necessary changes. Sounds to me that having a playlist actually come to an end is a big enough deal to provide a fix.
 
Open a browser page with no flash on it. Sleep the screen with ctrl-shift eject. Wait a bit and you'll see the screen won't wake up. Now go to youtube.com, play a video then pause it. Sleep the screen. It will wake up in 10 secs or so. Now play the video and sleep the screen. It will wake up in 10 secs again. Now go to another page with no Flash and sleep the screen. Your screen will not wake up now.

It's Flash.
 
It gets better. Repeat the same test but when you are playing or pausing the video, open a new blank tab so that the focus is no longer on the Flash tab. Sleep the screen and it stays asleep!

Now close the blank tab and leave just the Flash tab. Bam, screen wakes right up after sleeping it.

This happens in FF, Safari and Chrome on an iMac 24.

Solution: Make you mac screen stay off by making sure Flash in a browser never has focus. Open a new tab and that seems to solve it.
 
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