Computer falls asleep while Qt Creator is building a large project

sierdzio

@JonB as OP mentioned in the bug report:

On windows, idle sleep can be prevented by calling SetThreadExecutionState Windows API function.

JonB

My computer plays youtube for however long i like

I may [well] be old-fashioned, but I am assuming this means through a web browser, not some "app"(?). In which case, are you saying Google Chrome is making this SetThreadExecutionState call?

sierdzio

@JonB said in Computer falls asleep while Qt Creator is building a large project:

@sierdzio
@DeepSOIC wrote:

My computer plays youtube for however long i like

I may [well] be old-fashioned, but I am assuming this means through a web browser, not some "app"(?). In which case, are you saying Google Chrome is making this SetThreadExecutionState call?

Yes, Chrome. It's really nothing exotic. It's part of WinApi since Windows XP. link

JonB

@sierdzio
OK, so, don't shoot me, I'm just asking/suggesting: to get the desired behaviour, can the OP write a one-line wrapper around the compiler or make command, or perhaps the invocation of Qt Creator itself, to call the desired SetThreadExecutionState? It seems it doesn't matter which application that comes from, so long as that application is running, so any wrapper should do it?

mrjj

@JonB
Hi
Yes it works with any tool that sets this.
like this one
https://sourceforge.net/projects/coffeeff/files/
that can see if Creator is running and then do it.

DeepSOIC

@JonB
Firefox clearly does call that function while playing youtube. I can see it by executing powercfg -requests from elevated command prompt.

DISPLAY:
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe

SYSTEM:
[DRIVER] Realtek High Definition Audio (INTELAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0294&SUBSYS_10431AF1&REV_1000\4&298c7770&0&0001)
An audio stream is currently in use.

AWAYMODE:
None.

EXECUTION:
None.

PERFBOOST:
None.

ACTIVELOCKSCREEN:
None.

Winamp does not, apparently, but if only classic sleep (S3) is available, any audio stream keeps the computer awake. On modern sleep (S0), my laptop will sleep when winamp is playing, and it sucks (i have gone through hell to disable S0 on windows 10 v2004, maybe i should have ditched winamp instead).

DeepSOIC

@JonB said in Computer falls asleep while Qt Creator is building a large project:

to get the desired behaviour, can the OP write a one-line wrapper around the compiler or make command, or perhaps the invocation of Qt Creator itself, to call the desired SetThreadExecutionState? It seems it doesn't matter which application that comes from, so long as that application is running, so any wrapper should do it?

I think it should work. Adding a wrapper for Qt Creator is a bad idea, because i do want my computer to sleep if qt creator is just sitting there doing nothing. But a wrapper around msvc or ninja or maybe even cmake will most likely work.

JonB

@DeepSOIC
Point taken! And interesting to know.

IMHO only, this should not be done by a compiler. And this is all very Windows-specific, while Qt Creator and other Qt stuff is very much platform-independent.

[I wonder whether Visual Studio even bothers to do this. I doubt the MSVC compiler does.]

The bug report was rejected as "Out of Scope" for Qt, which it seems to me it indeed is. @mrjj's link or a one-liner wrapper seems to me the right way to go if you want this, and evidently it's all you can do since Qt devs are making clear they're not going to do it!

JonB

@DeepSOIC said in Computer falls asleep while Qt Creator is building a large project:

Adding a wrapper for Qt Creator is a bad idea, because i do want my computer to sleep if qt creator is just sitting there doing nothing. But a wrapper around msvc or ninja or maybe even cmake will most likely work.

Yes, absolutely. And in any case it's all you can do from here to get what you want :)

DeepSOIC

@JonB said in Computer falls asleep while Qt Creator is building a large project:

And this is all very Windows-specific, while Qt Creator and other Qt stuff is very much platform-independent.

I don't think the issue itself is platform-specific. SetThreadExecutionState is of course windows-specific. I'm not familiar with linux, macos, chromeos, android, ios. I see some info on macos and linux here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31498114/how-to-programmatically-prevent-linux-computer-from-sleeping-or-turning-on-scree

I don't know if the computer will sleep when building a big project with qt creator on any other platform. But I suppose it will.

JonB

@DeepSOIC
Well, that question shows there isn't anything commonly accepted for Linux?

Let's perhaps agree on the following: if the Qt library does not offer a cross-platform anti-sleep (it does not, does it?) then Qt Creator is unlikely to make such a call! Perhaps the first thing would be to lobby for such a method being available from Qt!? :)

DeepSOIC

@JonB said in Computer falls asleep while Qt Creator is building a large project:

Perhaps the first thing would be to lobby for such a method being available from Qt!? :)

Yes, if there isn't one already.

jsulm

@JonB said in Computer falls asleep while Qt Creator is building a large project:

hen Qt Creator is unlikely to make such a call!

Why not? You can still do platform specific calls if available. In this case QtCreator Windows build would call this Windows specific API.

JonB

@jsulm
Then that is "semi-sad", because if Qt Creator thinks it's worth doing whatever --- in this case, setting up for no-sleep --- and finds it has to make a platform-specific call, then the devs might think "other people might want to do this, so we'll make sure there is a Qt library support for it so others can utilise it".

Of course it's not an absolute requirement. But it's an indication this might be worthwhile. I semi-hope (yes, within reason!) that the whole of Creator can be written using only Qt calls, not platform-specific ones. IMHO.