Let the computer sleep when nothing is playing

[caleb666]

I agree, this behavior is quite obviously *wrong* and no other video player behaves like this.
It is especially problematic when you're watching a long playlist of some learning material (online course recording) and you want to 'pause' a lesson in the middle to continue later instead of just stopping and forgetting the playback position.

This does not appear to be technically difficult. Would you accept patches?

[jayR]

Don't let you Windows sleep. It will go blue screen death after sleeping. It's insane to make VLC to force computer sleep.

[rfugger]

I also would like vlc to allow the screensaver to activate and/or the computer to suspend when the video is paused. This is very important for avoiding burn in, especially on plasma screens, and for generally saving power and behaving as users expect.

It might also be nice to have the option for for vlc to dim its display after being paused for 10 seconds or so, much like the Netflix player does.

[rfugger]

I'd like to add that I find it especially strange when VLC prevents screensaver/suspend even when it isn't the foreground window on the screen...

[fohrums]

Stop it and will not not sleep.

Which is the MAIN PROBLEM!

I'd like to add that I find it especially strange when VLC prevents screensaver/suspend even when it isn't the foreground window on the screen...

Confirmed. This is what brought me here. This problem still exists even 10-years after the 1st-proposal for it to be fixed was posted. To clear things up; we get it, commandline is better (hence, mpv & even vlc) but I still use VLC on Windows and it has a GUI and it goes hand-in-hand with my Android being a remote.

# SUMMARY

PC uses power. When VLC has continuous playback, should PC not sleep/hibernate or shutdown to save power because how else can I enjoy my media that way?

With that said, when VLC is paused or stopped (another way to mention is that VLC would be idle at this point), should VLC NOW save power. So when VLC is idle should it save power, yes it should.

# HOTFIX (temporary solution)

* Noting that this fix is only applied when playback of current playlist has ended (hell, a single file means a playlist too).
+ Preferences... > (Show Settings: All) > Playlist
- go ahead and enable `Play and exit`

So, in simplest terms this fix will close VLC when playback is finished. More specifically your playlist being finished and that means either 1,000-media could be on there or even just 1-media as long as the playback of your current playlist is finished then VLC will close as a temporary solution, because this is very monolithic thinking. Get with the TIMES VLC! Sheesh I just personally think VLC is suffering from "VLC is the best media player out there top-10."

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

VLC does block power when stop. When paused, yes, not stopepd.

[rfugger]

VLC does block power when stop. When paused, yes, not stopepd.

This is my experience, yes. Any plans to enable screensaver/blanking/suspend when paused?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Yes, but it is not as trivial as we wish.

[rfugger]

Yes, but it is not as trivial as we wish.

Good to know. Thank you for all your hard work!

[drybsmt]

I have been a long time user of VLC and first time poster. I don't know much about programming, in fact some may quantify it as nothing, but I do know that this has been a long time issue that apparently can be solved. Jean-Baptiste Kempf joined this site in July 2005 and this thread was started the same month, less than 2 weeks before. I don't know if he was site administrator then or not but it is now March 2017 and this problem still exists almost 12 years later. How many versions have there been in the intervening years? How much electricity has been wasted on countless thousands of computers in all those years.

Yes, but it is not as trivial as we wish.

How can this be taken seriously? I am certain that the programmers of VLC are some of the smartest people out there, yet they ignore this issue. Perhaps there is a feature request form that we can all use to bombard the programmers with this. There must be a way to get this through to them.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

How can this be taken seriously? I am certain that the programmers of VLC are some of the smartest people out there, yet they ignore this issue. Perhaps there is a feature request form that we can all use to bombard the programmers with this. There must be a way to get this through to them.

Being paused does not mean the screen does not need to be refreshed, notably because of video filters. I don't think this is that complex to understand.

The video filters are not linked to the input, so it's a not trivial piece of code to write. Sure, it must be done, but if noone ever sent a patch to fix that, then it is not fixed.
Fixes come from volunteers.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

This was fixed this week for VLC 3.0

[paw]

This was fixed this week for VLC 3.0

Thank you Jean-Baptiste!!!

I just happen to see this thread today while wondering if others also face this issue and whether there's a solution\workaround.

Thought it was my lucky day when I saw your last post, that too not so long back. BUT...I'm using VLC on MAC OS X ver 10.11.6. Quickly checked my VLC for updates, found Version 2.2.6 available (was on 2.2.4 earlier), updated and tested it. It doesn't seem to be working.

Nor does the "quit after playback" option work. After the playlist is done, the VLC player just sits there, doing practically nothing BUT prevents the Mac from going to sleep, draining all my battery. To test this "quit after playback" option, I tested this again and noticed that VLC just sits there "Till someone touches the mouse". The moment I move the pointer after VLC has stopped playback, it exits. Question: why does it keep waiting for a user input (pointer movement or key stroke) to quit the program? The whole purpose of that option is to have VLC quit without a user intervention.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

This was fixed this week for VLC 3.0

Thank you Jean-Baptiste!!!

I just happen to see this thread today while wondering if others also face this issue and whether there's a solution\workaround.

Thought it was my lucky day when I saw your last post, that too not so long back. BUT...I'm using VLC on MAC OS X ver 10.11.6. Quickly checked my VLC for updates, found Version 2.2.6 available (was on 2.2.4 earlier), updated and tested it. It doesn't seem to be working.

Nor does the "quit after playback" option work. After the playlist is done, the VLC player just sits there, doing practically nothing BUT prevents the Mac from going to sleep, draining all my battery. To test this "quit after playback" option, I tested this again and noticed that VLC just sits there "Till someone touches the mouse". The moment I move the pointer after VLC has stopped playback, it exits. Question: why does it keep waiting for a user input (pointer movement or key stroke) to quit the program? The whole purpose of that option is to have VLC quit without a user intervention.

As said, this is 3.0.0, not 2.2.6. Use the nightly build.

[paw]

As said, this is 3.0.0, not 2.2.6. Use the nightly build.

Can you provide link to the nightly build download page? Can't see it on https://www.videolan.org/

Also, any idea about the "quit after playback" option not working as it's supposed to? It just sits there and wait for a user input to close the VLC app.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

As said, this is 3.0.0, not 2.2.6. Use the nightly build.

Can you provide link to the nightly build download page? Can't see it on https://www.videolan.org/

Also, any idea about the "quit after playback" option not working as it's supposed to? It just sits there and wait for a user input to close the VLC app.

https://nightlies.videolan.org/