I am running the following on an iMac with 24GB RAM, OSX El Capitan 10.11.6
Plex Media Server 1.0.2.2413
Plex Web App 2.7.6
Remote Access is not enabled.
I connect to Plex mainly using Apple TV4 (love the Plex App !), plus occasionally Plex on iOS on iPad Air or iPhone 6Plus. Have a Roku as well but rarely use it since Plex was released for AppleTV. I upgrade my Plex software quite frequently (am PlexPass member).
Sometime in past couple of weeks, I noticed that the Screen Saver and later Display Sleep no longer was kicking in on my iMac - which is normally running 24hr as a media server. I normally have Plex Web App permanently open in Google Chrome (Version 52.0.2743.82 (64-bit)) in a couple of window tabs - one for main page, one for status, one for settings. I have Sonarr running in Safari. This was never a problem until a few weeks ago.
By trial and error I have narrowed it down to having any Plex Web App window open (in either Chrome or Safari) is preventing the iMac Screen Saver or Display Sleep for kicking in. The Energy Saver setting on the iMac do not put the Computer to sleep, only the Display after 10 minutes. Wake on LAN is enabled.
I am unsure if this is a bug that has appeared in a recent release or whether there is a configuration issue here.
Would welcome any help in resolving this as obviously I don’t wish to have my display running all the time. Ideally I would like to get a suitable Mac Mini to run as a separate media server, but funds don’t currently permit.
I have this same problem with my MacBook. Display sleep worked exactly as I desired for the past year and now the display won’t go to sleep if I have a plex window open in safari, even minimized to the dock. My name is also Tim, so maybe it’s because of our shared name that we have this problem.
@tlevier said:
I have this same problem with my MacBook. Display sleep worked exactly as I desired for the past year and now the display won’t go to sleep if I have a plex window open in safari, even minimized to the dock. My name is also Tim, so maybe it’s because of our shared name that we have this problem.
Thanks for the info Tim (1). Good to know that it wasn’t me going mad and that there is also another Tim out there in the Plex ether. As per Dom C’s post, I hope the Plex Team manage to find something otherwise we shall have to revert to howling at the moon :))
We’ve found (and fixed for the next release) an issue when running PMS on OSX and that it would prevent the display from going to sleep. Are you both running PMS on the machine you’re having problems with?
@Dom C said:
Thanks for the info. We’ll test it out and see what’s going on.
(We also have 2 Tims here, so we do the Tim Test as well. Just in case).
Hi Dom,
After my previous post I noticed there was a new PMS release 1.0.3.2461 available which appears to indicate that this fixed my issue. I have downloaded the release and applied it. I am delighted to inform you that this appears to have fixed the problem in both Safari and Google Chrome, and that the OSX Screen Saver and Display Sleep functions are now functioning as expected. The updated PMS has been running for 30 minutes now with no problems that I’ve noticed so far.
Please can you thank the Plex Team members for their extremely fast response and turnaround in identifying the problem and supplying a fix for it. You guys are awesome !
For my own benefit (being a Technical Architect but more on the database / general application / BI side) I would be interested to know what the problem was. Also although it appeared to be a Plex Web App issue, why it then turned out to be a Plex Server issue? I’m guessing some dependency that Plex Web has on PMS?
Anyway - thanks again for taking the time to look at this. I hope this also fixes the problem for @tlevier (Tim #1) as well.
@Dom C said:
We’ve found (and fixed for the next release) an issue when running PMS on OSX and that it would prevent the display from going to sleep. Are you both running PMS on the machine you’re having problems with?
Hi Dom,
Apologies - our replies must have crossed.
Yes - I am running PMS on the same machine I was having problems with. I think @tlevier is doing the same on his MacBook, but I will let him confirm this separately.
I’m not an expert in the server side of things - but it looks like we changed the flags we use to prevent the system going to sleep/idle. We made the change to remove some deprecated OSX flags, but a ‘don’t allow screensaver’ snuck in there as well.
As far as I can tell, this is irrelevant of whether you use Plex Web or not - it’s just a factor of running PMS.
Thanks Dom. It’s weird that Plex Web App isn’t involved, because PMS was running fine and not preventing the Mac from going to sleep. It was only when a web browser (Safari or Chrome, I did not test Mozilla) was open with a page connected to the PMS instance via Plex Web App that the Display Sleep issue occurred.
Hey I know this is an old thread, but this is happening on my iMac now as well. A few days ago I noticed the screen saver not coming on, so I looked at the activity monitor and it said Plex is preventing it from starting. My Plex is up to date, not sure what’s up. I’ll check for a Mac OS update maybe? Strange that it would be happening again though right?
